Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft), Author at CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

December 18, 2023November 17, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

Review of GEEKOM Mini Air12 mini PC with Windows 11 Pro (Part 2)

We’ve already done an unboxing and teardown of the GEEKOM Mini Air12 mini PC in the first part of the review and we’ve now had time to test Windows 11 Pro on the Intel Processor N100 mini PC equipped with 16GB SO-DIMM DDR5 and a 512GB M.2 SSD. Despite the low-end processor, the mini PC boots quite fast and it’s perfectly usable to browse the web, play YouTube videos, and perform other tasks like office work and photo editing. In part 2 of the review, we’ll test Windows 11 Pro thoroughly with a software overview, features testing, benchmarks, storage and network performance tests, thermal performance, fan noise, and power consumption of GEEKOM Mini Air12. Software overview and features testing Going to System->About in the Windows settings confirms we have a Mini Air12 mini PC powered by an 800 MHz (based frequency) Intel Processor N100 CPU, with 16GB of RAM, and […]

December 18, 2023February 9, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments

ODROID-M1S review – Part 1: Ubuntu 20.04, Vu8S touchscreen display, UPS Kit, and WiFi Module 5BK

ODROID-M1S review with UPS module and V8uS module

Hardkernel ODROID-M1S single board board was recently launched to celebrate the company’s 15th anniversary. While the ODROID-M1 board was introduced with the Rockchip RK3568 SoC last year, the new ODROID-M1S board is smaller and cheaper starting at just $49 and comes with a Rockchip RK3566 SoC. Hardkernel sent us a sample of the ODROID-M1S board for review with 8GB of memory and 64GB of storage as well as accessories. Let’s unpack the box before trying it out with Ubuntu 20.04 Desktop and testing each accessory. ODROID-M1S unboxing with ODROID-Vu8S display, UPS kit, and WiFi dongle The review package we received from Hardkernel included the ORDROID-M1S SBC in its plastic enclosure, the VU8S 8-inch touchscreen display, a UPS board, and a dual-band WiFi 5 USB dongle. The UPS module comes without a battery, so we had to find an 18650 battery to use it. As we’ll see further below, the UPS […]

December 17, 2023December 17, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

How to use a monitor and USB mouse/keyboard in Promox VE on an Intel Alder Lake-N mini PC

Intel Core i3-N300 Alder Lake-N Ubuntu 22.04 Promox VE passthrough

We’ve started to see several Alder Lake-N platforms acting both as a mini PC and a router or network appliance with products such as iKOOLCORE R2 or CWWK x86-P5 which features not only the usual HDMI, USB, and single Ethernet port, but come with multiple Ethernet ports making them ideal to run Proxmox VE to simultaneous run a desktop OS such as Ubuntu 22.04 or Windows 11 and a headless network OS such as pfSense or OpenWrt. I’m currently reviewing iKOOLCORE R2 mini PC that comes with four 2.5GbE ports and I could install Ubuntu 22.04 Desktop, pfSense 2.7.1, and OpenWrt 23.05 relatively easily, but the Ubuntu desktop is only visible in the Proxmox VE dashboard and the HDMI display physically connected to the mini PC only shows Proxmox VE login prompt. So at this point, I learned that I had to enable PCIe passthrough for the GPU in Proxmox […]

December 15, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Silicon Labs partners with Nabu Casa to support Home Assistant development

Silicon Labs has entered an official partnership with Nabu Casa, the company behind the popular Home Assistant home automation software, to support the development of Home Assistant open-source software and Silicon Labs-based hardware platforms. Most open-source embedded software projects start as a one-person (or a small team) effort as the vendor-provided firmware and related software may not have the features set needed by this user or group of users. So they hack existing hardware to build something that better fits their requirements often without input/help from the silicon vendor or product manufacturer. But sometimes the project becomes popular enough that large companies start to help it with support and funding. That’s apparently the case for Home Assistant project with Silicon Lans and Nabu Case entering an official partnership. The announcement does not provide details about the partnership but explains this should lead to better support and improvements for both Home […]

December 15, 2023December 20, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

COM Express Type 6 Compact module features 14th gen Intel Core Ultra “Meteor Lake” processor

ADLINK cExpress-MTL is a COM Express Type 6 Compact module based on the just-announced 14th gen Intel Core Ultra “Meteor Lake” processor family with up to fourteen CPU cores in 6P+8E configuration, eight Xe-cores (128 EUs), and an NPU (11pTOPS/8.2eTOPS) in a 15 or 28W TDP thermal configuration delivering up to 1.9x the GPU performance of the previous generation (Raptor Lake). The power consumption will also be lower thanks to Intel Core Ultra’s new Low-Power E-cores that are 30 to 50% more efficient than the E-cores in 13th gen Intel Core processors, and the faster GPU and built-in NPU will enable hardware-accelerated AV1 encoding/decoding and various devices leveraging AI such as portable medical ultrasound devices, industrial automation, autonomous driving, AI robots, and more. cExpress-MTL specifications: Meteor Lake-H/U SoC (one of the other) Intel Core Ultra 7 MS3 165H 16-core (6P+8E+2LPE) processor @ 1.4 / 5.0 GHz with 24MB cache, Intel […]

December 15, 2023December 14, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Renesas RA8D1 Arm Cortex-M85 SoC features LCD display interfaces, 2D graphics accelerator

Renesas RA8D1 is a new Arm Cortex-M85 microcontroller with graphics capabilities such as a 2D graphics accelerator and MIPI DSI and parallel RGB interfaces to connect an LCD that will make the chip suitable for HMI applications. Renesas introduced the world’s first Arm Cortex-M85 microcontroller with the RA8M1 just a few weeks ago, but the MCU has limited multimedia capabilities with just a 16-bit Capture Engine Unit (CEU) interface to connect a camera. The second member of the Renesas RA8 family fills this void with the RA8D1 microcontroller adding an LCD controller and a 2D graphics drawing engine on top of the CEU camera interface. Renesas RA8D1 specifications: MCU core – Arm Cortex-M85 clocked at 480 MHz with Helium MVE (M-Profile Vector Extension) with 32KB I/D caches, 12KB data flash Memory & Storage 1MB SRAM with TCM (128KB) 1MB to 2MB Flash memory 32-bit external SDRAM interface Display interfaces and […]

December 14, 2023February 4, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

GEEKOM Mini IT12 Core i7-12650H mini PC review – Part 1: unboxing, teardown, and first boot

GEEKOM Mini IT12 is a 12th Gen Intel mini PC offered with either an Intel Core i7-12650H or Intel Core i5-12450H Alder Lake processor, support for up to 64GB RAM, up to 2TB NVMe SDD, HDMI 2.0 video outputs and high-performance ports such as USB4 and 2.5GbE. The mini PC is also equipped with a WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 wireless module and comes preloaded with Windows 11 Pro operating system. GEEKOM has sent us a sample of the Mini IT12 with a 10-core Intel Core i7-12650H processor, 32GB DDR4, and a 1TB M.2 SSD for review. We’ll start the review by listing the specifications, before going and unboxing and a teardown, and finally boot the device to Windows 11 Pro. This will be followed by detailed reviews of the mini PC with Windows 11 and Ubuntu 22.04 in the next few weeks. GEEKOM Mini IT12 specifications SoC – Intel […]

December 14, 2023November 5, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Mixtile Core 3588E development kit review – Part 1: Unboxing and first boot

Mixtile Core 3588E is a Rockchip RK3588 SO-DIMM system-on-module with up to 32GB LPDDR4 and 256GB eMMC flash that follows NVIDIA Jetson Nano, TX2 NX, Xavier NX, and Orin Nano form factor and should work with any board made for Jetson SO-DIMM modules. We first covered the module last April, but Mixtile is now shipping their Rockchip RK3588 module and sent us a development kit with the Mixtile Core 3588 SoM fitted with a fansink and a carrier board that looks quite similar to the NVIDIA Jetson Nano developer kit we reviewed a few years ago, although its design is closer to the new B01 developer kit as we’ll see below. We’ll start the review with an unboxing and first boot, before testing it in more detail with Ubuntu 22.04 in the second part of the review. Mixtile Core 3588E development kit unboxing We received the development kit fully preassembled. […]