Linux Category - Page 534 of 580 - CNX Software

May 21, 2012May 21, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Linux 3.4 Release

Linus Torvalds has just announced the release of Linux Kernel 3.4 on the 20th of May: I just pushed out the 3.4 release. Nothing really exciting happened since -rc7, although the workaround for a linker bug on x86 is larger than I’d have liked at this stage, and sticks out like a sore thumb in the diffstat. That said, it’s not like even that patch was really all that scary. In fact, I think the 3.4 release cycle as a whole has been fairly calm. Sure, I always wish for the -rc’s to calm down more quickly than they ever seem to do, but I think on the whole we didn’t have any big disruptive events, which is just how I like it. Let’s hope the 3.5 merge window is a calm one too. Linus Linux 3.3 merged Android drivers to mainline, added further improvements to btrfs and ext-4 file […]

May 18, 2012May 22, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Getting Ubuntu armel/armhf Rootfs in Ubuntu 12.04

I’ve recently upgraded to Ubuntu 12.04 and this is a great operating system. However, if you do some arm development and expect to be able to install cross libraries (armel/armhf) or easily generate an arm rootfs using the tools you’ve been used to, you’ll be disappointed. In Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric), I used xapt and dpkg-cross to retrieve armel libraries, but it’s broken for Ubuntu 12.04, at least on my system. I’ve been told to switch to multiarch because this will be how it’s done from now on. But I soon discovered this is work in progress as quite a few packages are not multiarched yet including python. Ubuntu developers also decided to remove rootstock (which makes sense since xapt/dpkg-cross will be deprecated), so if you want to generate a rootfs the “gool ol’” way (which won’t be supported much longer), you’d have to install an Oneric chroot to run rootstock, […]

May 17, 2012May 17, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

VIA Technologies Announces VIA AMOS-3002 System For Embedded Applications

VIA Technologies has just unveiled the VIA AMOS-3002, a fanless system based on VIA EPIA-P900 Pico-ITX board, targeting embedded applications such as telematics, in-vehicle control, machine to machine controller (M2M), digital signage and kiosks. The VIA EPIA-P900 Pico-ITX board is powered by VIA Eden X2 dual core processor (1GHz) together with VIA VX900H media system processor (MSP) and VIA Chrome 9 video processor which render VIA AMOS-3002 systems capable of handling hardware video decoding for MPEG-2, WMV9 and H.264 codecs at 1080p resolution. Two models are available: AMOS-3002-2D10A1 and AMOS-3002-2D10A1. The latter features a 2.5” SATA hard disk drive bay which is not available in AMOS-3002-2D101A1. Here are the specifications for both VIA AMOS-3002 Models: CPU – VIA Eden X2 @ 1.0GHz Chipset – VIA VX900H Media System Processor Memory – 1x DDR3 1066 204-pin SODIMM socket (Up to 4GB) Storage: 1x CFast Flash disk socket 1 x 2.5” SATA hard […]

May 17, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Phytec phyCORE-AM335x System on Module (SOM) Based on TI Sitara AM335x

PHYTEC announced the phyCORE-AM335x System on Module (SOM) powered by Texas Instruments Sitara AM335x Cortex-A8 processor clocked at 720Mhz and PowerVR SGX530 GPU. This SoM targets industrial applications and supports standards such as EtherCAT, Ethernet/IP, PROFINET, PROFIBUS, POWERLINK, SERCOS-III and CANopen. Here are phyCORE-AM335x SOM specifications: TI’s Sitara AM335x ARM Cortex-A8 processors @ 720 MHz (AM3352, AM3354, AM3356, AM3357, AM3358 and AM3359) PowerVR SGX530 Graphics (AM3359, AM3358, AM3354 only) 512 MB DDR3, 512MB/1GB NAND, 8 MB SPI Flash, 32 KB EEPROM 6x UARTs, 3x I2C, 2x McASP, 2x SPI, 2x CAN 2x USB OTG 2x 10/100/1G Ethernet (Gigabit PHY on carrier board) 24 bpp TTL or LVDS 44 x 50 mm form factor -40 degrees to +85 degrees C temperature range Linux, Compact 7, Android The phyCORE-AM335x SOM will be available in a PHYTEC Rapid Development Kit (RDK) including: phyCore-AM335x SOM A carrier board Board support packages (BSP) Demo images […]

May 17, 2012May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 70 Comments

74 USD AllWinner A10 Android 4.0 Mini PC

A cheap white brand Android 4.0 USB/HDMI Stick based on AllWinner A10 has started to show up in Chinese websites. Initially, I thought it was like a low cost version of FXI Tech Cotton Candy (which will start shipping this month), but as you can see in the image below, the HDMI port is female so you’d still need a HDMI cable. The hole next to the USB port should be for the power supply, so this device is apparently not powered via USB (TBC). Connect a wireless mouse and keyboard to the device, the power supply, and an HDMI cable to your TV, and you’ve got yourself a cheap PC running Android 4.0. Since this is based on AllWinner A10, you could also insert a microSD card with Ubuntu, Debian or your other favorite Linux distribution and have yourself a Linux PC. Here are the specifications of the device […]

May 15, 2012May 22, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Intel Roadmap to 2015 and Beyond: 5nm Technology, Merrifield Mobile Processor, Microservers and More

Intel had their annual Investor meeting day on the 10th of May 2012 in Santa Clara where we would learn a few things about what’s ahead for Intel and the semiconductor industry. Paul Otellini, Intel President and Chief Executive Officer, started the meeting by giving some numbers about Intel results and showing opportunities existing for cloud and data center, personal computing, mobile devices and intelligent systems (for automotive, retail and communications markets). One interesting point was the tremendous growth in data Intel expects from 2,500 Exabytes per year (7 EB/day) today to 8,000 Exabytes by 2015 which the majority of the growth lead by Big data. He also boasted about Intel technology advantage. For example, Intel introduced High-K Metal Gate technology in 2007 and competitor only got it in products last year (btw Samsung Exynos 5 uses HKMG). They recently introduced Tri-gate technology and they only expect competitors to catch […]

May 14, 2012July 31, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Schematics Capture and PCB Layout in Linux with Kicad

Most schematics capture and PCB layout software run on Windows and are closed source. But if your favorite OS is Linux, there are a few open source software including Kicad and gEDA. There is also Cadsoft Eagle which can be installed in Linux with a free license for hobbyists and educational purposes, but is not open source. Today, I’ll focus on Kicad. I don’t really capture schematics, let alone layout PCBs, but I sometimes need to use this type of software to locate pins/components on the schematics and PCB and check some parts of the schematics that can affect software. So I will mainly give an overview of Kicad and write my experience trying to import another project (Beagleboard XM) to Kicad. If you want to learn how to get started with your own project with Kicad, you might want to have a look at Teho Labs Kicad Tutorial. In […]

May 12, 2012May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

makeSD Script to Write Image to SD Card for Mele A1000 / AllWinner A10 Devices

Most images released for Mele A1000 (Ubuntu, Puppy Linux..) won’t fit in my SD card, and until now I had to manually partition the SD card, extract the data and copy it to the SD card. I’ve also noticed the size of the SD card slowly creeps lower overtime. I bought an SD card last week and fdisk reported 3901685760 bytes and this morning the same command reported 3898782720 bytes. That’s probably due to new bad sectors which I believe is actually normal for this type of device. The problem is that a backup of “last week” SD card done with dd might not be restored properly with dd since the SD card is now smaller. So I decided to write a shell script “makeSD.sh” that will do the following: Umount the SD card if needed Partition the SD card Copy uboot to the SD card Mount the image file […]