Linux 2.6 Category - Page 3 of 14 - CNX Software

January 16, 2012April 19, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 15 Comments

Installing Emdebian ARM Cross Toolchain in Debian

I had previously installed Sourcery G++ ARM Linux toolchain in Ubuntu to build some software running in Debian, but I encountered some issues with some libraries (libavg) that use gethostbyname in static libraries without any easy way to make it dynamic. In that case, the library in the rootfs and cross-compiler must match. So I decided to install Debian Squeeze (6.0.3) and the corresponding cross-toolchain by Emdebian (short for Embedded Debian). First to use this toolchain, add the URL to get Emdebian packages to /etc/apt/sources.list: # # — Emdebian cross toolchains # deb http://www.emdebian.org/debian/ squeeze main Then install Emdebian public key: apt-get install emdebian-archive-keyring apt-get update If you don’t install the key, you’ll get the following error: W: GPG error: http://www.emdebian.org squeeze Release: The following signatures couldn’t be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY B5B7720097BB3B58 Search and install packages for the architecture that you need, in this […]

December 30, 2011February 8, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 19 Comments

Linux for Cortex M3 & M4 Microcontrollers

There are plenty of low cost Linux development boards based on Cortex A8 or A9 such as the Beaglebone, as well as some devkits based on ARM7 and ARM9 such as SAM9 development kits , but if your application is cost and/or energy sensitive you can also switch to micro-controllers using Cortex M3 or M4 based development boards such as Emcraft SmartFusion devkits. You can run a functional uCLinux system with 1MB of RAM and 1MB of flash including the TCP/IP stack. You need to use uClinux and not directly Linux, because the Cortex M3 doess not have a Memory Management Unit (MMU) and only a Memory Protection Unit (MPU). This can bring some interesting software development challenges such as (apparently random) kernel panics, the lack of fork, memory fragmentation and more. You can check out http://kernel.org/pub/linux/libs/uclibc/Glibc_vs_uClibc_Differences.txt for the main differences between uClibc and Glibc. The instructions to patch and […]

December 28, 2011December 28, 2011 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments

AllWinner A10/A1X Processor Resources, Development Board and SDK

AllWinner A10 (part of A1X series) is an ARM Cortex A8 SoC targetting multimedia products such as tablets, HD STB or digital signage. It is currently found in some low cost Android tablets such as Momo9C and will be used in Rhombus Tech’s Raspberry Pi alternative. The processor features an ARM Cortex A8 clocked at 1.5 Ghz with a Mali-400 GPU. It can support 1080p encoding/decoding, provides HDMI, Component, Composite, VGA and LVDS video outputs, USB2.0 ports, a SATA 2.0 port and more… Here are the key features of the Allwinner A10: VPU (Video Processing Unit) HD Video Decoding (Super HD 2160P/3D Film) Support all popular video formats, including VP8, AVS, H. 264 AVC, VC-1, MPEG-1/2/4, … HD Video Encoding (H.264 High Profile) Support encoding in H.264 format DPU (Display Processing Unit) MULTI-CHANNEL HD displays Built-in HDMI YPbPr, CVBS, VGA LCD interfaces: CPU, RGB, LVDS up to Full HD Memory […]

December 14, 2011July 17, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Solid-Run CuBox: Open Source Platform for Android TV, Media Center and NAS Development

Solid-Run CuBox is a miniature open source development platform based on Marvell Armada 510 SoC (88AP510) and aimed at applications such as multimedia, set-top-box, network attached storage (NAS), thin client, digital signage, automation… CuBox measures 55mm x 55mm x 42mm (so it’s not a Cube) and consuming less than 3 watts. The device runs Android 2.2 or Linux 2.6 on an 800MHz Marvell Armada 510 CPU (ARMv7 architecture) with 1GB of DDR3 memory and a microSD slot. It also includes eSATA, USB, infrared, S/PDIF, HDMI and gigabit Ethernet interfaces. CuBox Developer Platform includes the following key features – Marvell Armada 510 SoC – 800 MHz dual issue ARM PJ4 processor, VFPv3, wmmx SIMD and 512KB L2 cache. 1GByte DDR3 at 800MHz 1080p Video Decode Engine OpenGL ES 2.0 graphic engine HDMI 1080p Output (with CEC function) Gigabit Ethernet, SPDIF (optical audio), eSata 3Gbps, 2xUSB 2.0, micro-SD, micro-USB (console) Standard Infra-red receiver […]

November 9, 2011 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Linaro’s Android Platform – ELCE 2011

Zach Pfeffer, Linaro Android Platform team leader, describes Linaro’s work on the Android platform and future plans at Embedded Linux Conference Europe 2011. Abstract: Linaro uses components from the Android Open Source Project, member companies, community supported efforts and Linaro engineering teams to build integrated, easy-to-use and well tested Android platforms for upstream work, product baselines and hobby projects. The team currently has platforms for TIs PandaBoard, BeagleBoard and Beagle xM, ST Ericsson’s Snowball, Samsung’s Origen and Freescale’s iMX53. They recently released platforms with Android 2.3.4 built against GCC 4.6 and running the 3.0 Linux kernel. In this session Zach reviews what’s been done, the Linaro Android concept, how Linaro brings Android together and what their plans are. Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later […]

November 3, 2011November 3, 2011 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Epiq Solutions Matchstiq: World’s smallest Software Defined Radio

Epiq Solutions recently announced the Matchstiq, a software defined radio (SDR) combining a broadband RF transceiver with CPU (TI DM3730)/FPGA (Xilinx Spartan-6) processing running Linux 2.6.35. The device offers a complete stand-alone software-defined radio solution with flexibility at a fraction of the size/weight/power consumption of similar products. Epiq Solutions also provides a library of ready-to-run specialty software applications that allows the Matchstiq platform to be immediately used to solve challenging signal processing requirements. The device can be deployed as stand-alone device in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), as a wireless interface to an (Android) host via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi or as wired interface to a PC via USB. The key features include: Integrated CPU (TI DM3730) /FPGA (Xilinx Spartan-6) for signal processing applications Single RF transceiver covering 300 MHz to 3.8 GHz Supports RF channel bandwidths up to 28 MHz Integrated GPS receiver with 1PPS Run-time loadable/executable software applications Full suite of specialty […]

October 27, 2011 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Long Term Support Initiative (LTSI) Linux Kernel for Consumer Electronics

The Linux Foundation announced a new project, the Long Term Support Initiative (LTSI), created by the Consumer Electronics Workgroup (CE WG) at Linuxcon Europe 2011 in Prague. LTSI aims at reducing duplication of effort in maintaining separate private industry kernel trees. The LTSI project intends to deliver an annual release of a Linux kernel suitable for supporting the lifespan of consumer electronics products and regular updates of those releases for two to three years. The project is backed by several companies in the consumer electronics industry including Hitachi, LG Electronics, NEC, Panasonic, Qualcomm Atheros, Renesas Electronics Corporation, Samsung Electronics, Sony and Toshiba. LTSI will allow device makers to spend less time doing significant back-porting, bug testing and driver development on their own, which carries substantial cost in terms of time-to-market, as well as development and engineering effort to maintain those custom kernels. In some ways, this is similar to Linaro, […]

October 15, 2011October 15, 2011 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Archos G9 GPL Source Code

Archos has released the GPL source code for the Archos G9 Tablets on their Gitorious account. This is obviously the same source code for Archos 80 G9 and Archos 101 G9. There are two git repositories for the G9: archos-gpl-gen9 – Archos generation 9 GPL release archos-gpl-gen9-kernel – Archos generation 9 GPL linux kernel 2.6 release The GPL “userspace” source code is divided into 4 directories: buildroot – Buildroot to generate a cross-compilation toolchain, a root filesystem, a kernel image and a bootloader image. hardware – Direcotory containing hardware related source: WL1283 “Wlan” Driver (WiLink 7.0 single-chip WLAN, GPS, Bluetooth and FM solution) packages: libf2m – Library to convert flash videos (FLV) to AVI, MOV or MP4 libmms – Library for streaming video/audio with mmst / mmsh protocols external- Utilities and libraries (Bold indicates external sw not released/used with Archos G8 Source Code) alsa-lib – Audio library alsa-utils – Audio […]