Linux Category - Page 507 of 580 - CNX Software

February 19, 2013February 19, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 37 Comments

Ubuntu Linaro 12.11 with 2D/3D Mali-400 GPU Acceleration on ODROID-X Development Board

A few days ago, Hardkernel released the first version of Ubuntu 12.11 (Linaro) with Mali-400 GPU support for their ODROID boards (ODROID-X/X2, ODROID-U/U2). This is still WIP (Work in Progress), but this is one of the few boards together with Pandaboard, Origen and Snowball that can support 2D/3D GPU acceleration in Ubuntu Quantal. Since I have an ODROID-X development board, I decided to give it a try. There are different ways to install it. I chose the way that is most convenient for me (LCD display instead of HDMI), and likely to yield more performance (eMMC instead of SD Card). The current installation instructions to eMMC are extremely cumbersome and you have to go through 5 main steps: Install Android (yes, seriously) in the eMMC Install Ubuntu in the SD Card Install Ubuntu to the eMMC Upgrade Ubuntu to the latest version Install the Mali drivers In this post I’m […]

February 19, 2013February 19, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Linux 3.8 Release

Linus Torvalds has announced the release of Linux Kernel 3.8: The release got delayed a couple of days because I was waiting for confirmation of a small patch, but hey, we could also say that it was all intentional, and that this is the special “Presidents’ Day Release”. It sounds more planned that way, no? Anyway, the really good news is that things calmed down a lot on the last week. There are noticeably fewer commits, and they are also all quite small. The few commits with more than just a couple of lines tend to be due to a couple of reverts, and two architecture patches where some identifiers got renamed (tile), or some defines got moved from the uapi file to a private header (x86). And there’s one radeon patch that uses a helper function instead of reading bytes directly. And even those “bigger” patches weren’t really that […]

February 15, 2013February 16, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Gumstix Introduces Geppetto Web Platform to Design Custom Embedded Boards

Gumstix, the company behind the Overo computers-on-module (COMs), has recently announced an online platform called Geppetto that allows anybody with a proper web browser (e.g. Chrome or Firefox) to design and order a complete baseboard for the Overo COMs. You don’t need to know anything about schematics, PCB layout, or other lecrtical engineering knowledges. The program lets you set the board size, add modules (e.g. USB, HDMI, Ethernet…) as you wish, tells you which connections are required, and once the board is done, you can see your 3D rendered board. You can then save it to the cloud with an option to share it with the community, and you can just order it. The learning curve is very short, and once you know how to use it, it probably takes around 10 minutes to design a complete board. Your fearless CNXSoft had to give it a try… First, point your […]

February 14, 2013July 21, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

Open ARM GPU Drivers FOSDEM 2013 Video and Call to ARM Management

As I previously wrote, FOSDEM organizers are slowly uploading FOSDEM 2013 videos. One of the most interesting talk “Open ARM GPU Drivers” is now available. I’ve also uploaded it to YouTube (embedded below) to give it more exposure. Luc Verhaegen has also written a recent blog post entitled “Hey ARM!” where he announces the release of the modified source for Quake 3 Arena demo, and asks ARM to join them in making an open source driver. Open ARM GPU Drivers @ FOSDEM2013 This session covers the following key points: Problem – Binary drivers are mainly designed to run in Android, and it’s very difficult to have proper GPU drivers for Linux, and companies are not interested to release open source drivers or even just documentation, as they are not convinced it will benefit them in any way. Legal – This is actually the main issue, as open sourcing existing driver […]

February 13, 2013March 4, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 20 Comments

Developer Community for Freescale i.MX6 HDMI Dongles

Last week, I explained how to build U-boot, the kernel, and Android for Freescale i.MX6 HDMI dongle reference platform. Since them, there has been a bit more activity, with Richtechie releasing source code to some ARMTvTech members. However, this source code is very similar to the one released by Freescale, and misses some part present in the kernel config on GK802 such as CONFIG_MACH_MX6Q_RICHTECHIE, and the company clearly does not comply with the GPL. Let’s forget that for now, as Jasbir (who is also behind the Hackberry board) has managed to build and boot the kernel on his mini PC. There’s still more work to do, but at least we have a based to work on. In the meantime, I’ve noticed rz2k, an other developer, was also giving it a try on #arm-netbook Freenode IRC channel, so we decided to setup a few things to facilitate development and communication between developers. […]

February 12, 2013February 12, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

How to Display dd Progress and dd.sh Script

Upgrading software on Linux / Android boards or devices often involves copying images to an SD card or microSD. In Linux, you’d usually do that with dd, a utility that provides binary copy of data to files or block devices. A typical command would be:

sudo dd if=new_firmware.bin of=/dev/sdc

1	sudo dd if=new_firmware.bin of=/dev/sdc

However, during the copy, dd does not show a progress bar by default. But dd actually supports progress report, as indicated in the manpage: you can run dd, and send USR1 signal to display the current progress once, and resume copying. Linux commando explains how to continuously return the progress. First run the dd command:

sudo dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/null bs=1K count=100

1	sudo dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/null bs=1K count=100

Open another terminal window to find out the process id:

pgrep -l '^dd$'
10152 dd

1 2	pgrep -l '^dd$' 10152 dd

And use the watch command to send USR1 at regular interval.

watch -n 10 sudo kill -USR1 10152

1	watch -n 10 sudo kill -USR1 10152

You should see dd progress in the first window every 10 seconds. It works, but the output is not very nice because dd will just […]

February 12, 2013February 18, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Lernstift – Linux Based Learning Digital Pen

Lernstift UG, a German startup, is working on a digital pen, called Lernstift as well, that can help children learning how to write by vibrating in case of errors. The Lernstift can be used in 2 modes: Calligraphy Mode – Pointing out flaws of form and legibility. Orthography Mode – Detecting orthographic (1 vibration) and grammatical (2 vibration) mistakes. Since it features a ballpoint, it can be used as a real pen, you know to write on paper…, but you can also write in the air, so I suppose they’ll also make a version without ballpoint, so that kids can enjoy one of their favorite pastimes: writing on the walls! The pen features a CPU module (2) that’s used to handle handwriting recognition, gather data from the motion (1) and pressure (3) sensors, and manage the Wi-Fi module (4). A battery, a power switch, and a pen refill complete Lernstift […]

February 11, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Linaro Connect Asia 2013 Sessions and Mini-Summits

Linaro Connect Asia 2013 (LCA13) will take place in Hong Kong again this year, on March 4 – 8, 2013 at the Gold Coast Hotel. Linaro recently published the event schedule, with sessions focused on kernel, power management, toolchain, graphics and multimedia, platform, validation, and QA tracks, as well as 2 mini-summits: Linaro Enterprise Group (LEG) which will discuss about ARM server, and an as-yet-unannounced group (Linaro Networking Group?) within Linaro. There will also be hacking sessions each day (except on “Demo Friday”) where you can certainly expect to learn many useful skills/tips. I’ve selected 2 sessions or keynotes per day that I think could be especially interesting. Some of the sessions don’t have description yet, so even if they might seem interesting I’ve usually skipped those. Monday 12:00 – 13:00 – Low Level Virtual Machine (LLVM) Update The Toolchain Working Group started working on LLVM in January 2013. Come […]