Linux Category - Page 260 of 574 - CNX Software

July 14, 2018September 28, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 22 Comments

ROC-RK3328-CC Board Review, or the Case for Fast Storage and Adequate Power Supply

Firefly team from T-chip company has send me some of their Rockchip development boards, and we’ve already checked the provided boards and accessories, so today I’ll report my experience with one of the board: ROC-RK3328-CC also known as Renegade. I won’t test it with Android, since I have already reviewed RK3328 Android TV boxes such as Zidoo X7, and I’ve been told the team is hard at work with Android 8.1 SDK, so an Oreo image should be released in a few weeks/months. So I had initially planned to report my experience with one of the Linux images, then show how to install mainline Linux (currently 4.17) to the board, and reports what works. However, I encountered many issues, although likely not directly related to the board or its software support, so instead I’ll write about my experience getting started with the board, and list all the issues I had […]

July 13, 2018July 14, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 42 Comments

Pine64 Launches a $45 Dual SATA NAS Enclosure for ROCKPro64 Board

ROCKPro64 is one of the most affordable Rockchip RK3399 boards, as you can purchase it for as low as $60 with 2GB RAM, and $80 with 4GB RAM. Pine64 – the company behind the board – also offers add-on boards such as a PCIe card to connect up to two SATA drives. The company has now leveraged the latter in their ROCKPro64 metal desktop/NAS casing specifically designed for ROCKPro64 boards, and capable of holding two 2.5″/3.5″ SATA drives.Key features of ROCKPro64 Desktop/NAS case: Compatible with ROCKPro64 boards only SATA – Accommodates either 2x 2.5″ SATA drives or 2x 3.5″ SATA drives or a mix of 2x 2.5″/3.5″ SATA drives Power Supply – 12V DC Dimensions – 232.4mm (Width) x 105.0mm (Height) x 145.2mm (Depth) The case also ships with 2 SATA data cables, and a custom designed power supply cable as shown below. However, the company also notes that ROCKPro64 […]

July 13, 2018July 13, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 17 Comments

Renegade Elite (ROC-RK3399-PC) RK3399 Single Board Computer Launched for $99 on Indiegogo

Libre Computer and Firefly Team previously collaborated on Renegade (ROC-RK3328-CC) board powered by a Rockchip RK3328 quad core Cortex A53 processor and mostly following Raspberry Pi 3 form factor. We already knew both companies worked again on another Rockchip RK3399 single board computer, and were expected to launch it in July via a crowdfunding campaign. The good news is that Libre Computer has just launched Renegade Elite (aka ROC-RK3399-PC) SBC on Indiegogo. Renegade Elite board specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3399 hexa core processor with 2x Arm Cortex-A72 @ up to 2.0 GHz + 4 Arm Cortex-A53, Arm Mali-T860MP4 with OpenGL ES 1.1 / 1.2 / 2.0 / 3.1 / 3.2 and OpenCL 1.2 support System Memory – 4GB LPDDR4 SDRAM Storage – eMMC 5.x interface for storage modules up to 128GB, micro SD card slot, and 128Mbit SPI NOR flash Video Output / Display I/F HDMI 2.0 connector Embedded DisplayPort (eDP) […]

July 12, 2018July 12, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

A Closer Look at NVIDIA Jetson Xavier Developer Kit (Video)

NVIDIA unveiled Jetson Xavier module and devkit last month, but the company did not release the full information, and for example we did not get any clear photo of the module and kit. Charbax did shot a video with more details at the time, but NVIDIA has now published more information about their upcoming $1,299 Jetson Xavier Developer Kit, including an introduction video which I’ll embed at the end of this article. The first thing to understand is that the module is not actually used in the developer kit, and will only used in actual mass-produced products. The main difference is the thermal solition. The development kit including a large heatsink, while the production module has a thermally conductive plate to let product designer select the most suitable thermal solution for their products. The specifications are still basically the same. For Jetson Xavier (production) module: SoC – NVIDIA Jetson Xavier […]

July 10, 2018November 14, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

Flashing Firmware to Rockchip Devices in Linux with rkdeveloptool Open Source Utility

It’s been possible to flash firmware to Rockchip devices in Linux with upgrade_tool command line tool for many years, but the utility is closed-source and only supports “RK Firmware” files that are also used for OTA firmware updates, but not “raw firmware” that you’d flash directly to micro SD cards for example. This week-end as I played with ROC-RK3328-CC board, I encountered some instability issues with micro SD cards, so I instead relied on an eMMC flash module. The only problem was that Firefly Team only releases “raw firmware” files, so I was unable to use upgrade_tool, and instead found out rkdeveloptool open source utility was used to flash raw firmware images in Firefly’s Wiki. The first step is to connect a male to male USB Type A cable (like that one on eBay) between the board and the host computer, and connect a USB power adapter to the board. […]

July 10, 2018July 10, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

96-Core NanoPi Fire3 Boards Cluster is a DIY Portable Solution to Teach or Develop Distributed Software

Nick Smith has been messing around with clusters made of Arm boards for several years starting with Raspberry Pi boards, including a 5-node RPI 3 cluster, before moving to other boards like Orange Pi 2E, Pine A64+, or NanoPC-T3. His latest design is based on twelve NanoPi Fire3 boards with 8 cores each, bringing the total number of cores to 96. The platform may not be really useful for actual HPC applications due to limited power and memory, but can still be relied upon for education and development, especially it’s easily portable. Nick also made some interesting points and discoveries. It’s pretty with shiny blinking LEDs, and what looks like proper cooling, and the cluster can deliver 60,000 MFLOPS with Linpack which places it in the top 250 faster computers in the world! That’s provided we travel back in time to year 2000 through 🙂 By today’s standard, it would […]

July 6, 2018July 6, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Sapphire FS-FP5V Embedded Board Features AMD Ryzen Embedded V1000 Processor, Four DisplayPort Outputs

We’ve previously covered UDOO Bolt AMD Ryzen Embedded V1000 development board that’s offered for $229 and up on Kickstarter, and targets the maker community. Another board with Ryzen Embedded processor is SAPPHIRE FS-FP5V 5″ board with support for up to four independent displays, and suitable solution for digital signage, POS terminal, electronic gaming machines, medical imaging, thin clients, and so on. Sapphire FS-FP5V specifications: SoC AMD Ryzen Embedded V1202B 2 cores / 4 threads @ 2 GHz / 3.6 GHz (Turbo) with Radeon Vega 3 @ 1100 MHz; 12-25W TDP AMD Ryzen Embedded V1605B 4 cores / 8 threads @ 2.06 GHz / 3.6 GHz (Turbo) with Radeon Vega 8 GPU @ 1100 MHz; 12-25W AMD Ryzen Embedded V1756B 4 cores / 8 threads @ 3.25 GHz / 3.6 GHz with Radeon Vega 8 GPU @ 1100 MHz; 35-54W TDP AMD Ryzen Embedded V1807B 4 cores / 8 threads @ 3.35 […]

July 2, 2018July 3, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Firefly Team Mailbag – Rockchip Development Boards and Accessories

T-Chip Intelligent Technology Co. is a hardware and software technology services company, and a few years ago they setup the “Firefly Team” to provide development boards running Android and/or Linux distributions to the maker community. If I remember correctly the company started with Firefly-RK3288 development board powered, as its name implies, by Rockchip RK3288 processor. Since then they’ve launched several other Rockchip development boards and modules, which I’ve covered on this blog. The company decided to send me some of their recent boards and accessories, so let’s have a look at what I received in my “mailbag”. I’ve also taken a few photos for those who did not watch the video or prefer close up photos. ROC-RK3328-CC “Renegade” Development Board The first board is ROC-RK3328-CC “Renegade” board which was first launched via a crowdfunding campaign by Libre Computer. Both companies have been collaborating on some boards, and Libre Computer makes […]