Linux Category - Page 567 of 580 - CNX Software

August 9, 2011August 9, 2011 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Low Cost Development Board Samsung Origen based on Exynos 4210

Late May, Samsung and Linaro announced Samsung Origen, a low cost development board (199 USD) based on Samsung Exynos 4210, that will use Linaro software and related development tools. This development board is mainly targeted for the development of products such as tablets, smartbooks, IVI, smartphone and other consumer products. Here are the technical details of the board: Cortex-A9 1.0 GHz Dual Core & NEON with leading GHz ARM Technology Samsung Exynos 4210 Advanced Low Power 45nm Application Processor Lower-BOM cost access to Exynos4210 processor with 1GB DDR3 RAM Multimedia Core with H/W Multi Format Codec provides 1080p@30fps HDMI, LCD / Touch screen support, WLAN/Bluetooth and camera. Extreme 3D Graphics Performance accelerated by Mali400 MP4. Wider Memory Bandwidth for Smartphone and Tablet Scenario. Richer Peripherals & High Speed Interface for system: 8ch I2C, HDMI, SATA, PCI Express, USB 2.0 HOST/OTG, 2x SD/MMC Card Slot Debugging Interfaces: JTAG, Serial/RS-232 port Dimensions: […]

August 5, 2011August 5, 2011 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Linaro 11.07 Release with Linux Kernel 3.0

Linaro has just released version 11.07, the first version that makes use of Linux 3.0. Here are the highlights of the release: Linaro Evaluation Build (LEB) for Android on PandaBoard is built on Linux 3.0 kernel with gcc-linaro 4.6 as the default compiler which is used for all official Linaro Android Platform builds. This Linaro Android monthly release exhibits the first official Linaro Android Toolchain release based on the most recent gcc-linaro 4.6, and the first Linaro Android release for ST Ericsson Snowball using Landing Team kernel based on linux-linaro-android. On top, Linaro Android 11.07 comes with the more advanced more visually appealing Launcher2 by default. Android GCC benchmark results for 11.07 release can be found on http://wiki.linaro.org/Platform/Android/AndroidToolchainBenchmarking/2011-07 Linaro Evaluation Build (LEB) for Ubuntu also uses the most recent linux-linaro kernel based on Linux 3.0 and includes the latest Linaro Cross Toolchain available for Ubuntu Lucid and Natty. ARM DS-5 […]

August 4, 2011August 7, 2011 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

List of Wireless Standards for Local and Personal Area Networks

While designing your embedded system, you may have to choose between different wireless standards to match your needs. I’ll provide a list a short and mid-range wireless standards, their description and links to open source software stacks (when available) to help you better understand the different options available. Wide Area Network wireless network such as LTE, Wimax, etc.. won’t be discussed in this blog entry. Mesh and IP Networks: Wifi (IEEE 802.11): Wifi is probably the most used wireless standard in consumer electronics devices today as it allows users to connect their device to their LAN wirelessly. An access point has a typical range of about 20 meters indoors and up to 100m outdoors. There are 4 standards 802.11a 802.11b, 802.11g and 802.11n. The latest has a theoretical throughput of 300 Mbps. Check out Wikipedia Wifi page for details. The Wi-Fi stack is part of the Linux kernel but you […]

August 1, 2011August 7, 2011 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Calao Snowball Development Boards Are now Available

Earlier in February, ST Ericsson had announced the availability of development boards running Linaro based on their Nova A9500 processor. 4 different development kits based on this platform can now be purchased online on Calao store: SKY-S9500-ULP-C22 (SNOWBALL SDK LITE – Without WLAN/BT/GPS) – 155.73 Euros SKY-S9500-ULP-C32 (SNOWBALL PDK LITE – Without WLAN/BT/GPS) – 226.22 Euros SKY-S9500-ULP-C12 (SNOWBALL SDK) – 164.59 Euros SKY-S9500-ULP-C02 (SNOWBALL PDK) – 241.47 Euros The differences between the SDK (Software Development Kit) and PDK (Production Development Kit) are that the former has no expansion connectors, no battery backup for RTC and only support serial over USB port (for Linux console). Finally, the PDK has a larger e-MMC (8GB vs. 4GB). The price mentioned above exclude VAT (if applicable) and shipping costs. Please note that the boards can be shipped to many countries but not anywhere worldwide (e.g. Shipping is not available to Thailand) and you’ll need to […]

May 8, 2011May 8, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

25 USD ARM11 Linux Computer

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has designed a 25 USD Linux computer prototype for computer education in both the developing and developed worlds. The foundation, a registered British charity, plans to develop, manufacture, and distribute the USB key-sized computer within the next 12 months. Their computer has a USB key form factor and is designed to plug into a TV or be combined with a touch screen for a low-cost tablet. Provisional specifications: 700MHz ARM11 128MB of SDRAM OpenGL ES 2.0 1080p30 H.264 high-profile decode Composite and HDMI video output USB 2.0 SD/MMC/SDIO memory card slot General-purpose I/O Open software (Ubuntu, Iceweasel, KOffice, Python) This device is much cheaper than OLPC XO (target price 100 USD), however, it does not include a keyboard, display nor batteries, so the market is different as it won’t work in places where electricity is unreliable. Watch the video below of David Braben introducing the 25 […]

April 29, 2011August 23, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

Yocto Project: Build Your Own Custom Embedded Kernel Image

The Yocto Project is an open source collaboration project that provides templates, tools and methods to help you create custom Linux-based systems for embedded products regardless of the hardware architecture. The first official release (Yocto Project 1.0) has been made available on the 6th of April 2011. Yocto Project Overview See this short video presentation of the Yocto Project which explains its goals. It’s a complete embedded Linux development environment with tools, metadata, and documentation – everything you need such as emulation environments, debuggers, an Application Toolkit Generator, etc… It is not a new build system however such as buildroot, instead it relies on the Poky build tools that provide an open source development environment targeting the ARM, MIPS, PowerPC and x86 architectures. Here’s what the Yocto Project provides: A recent Linux kernel along with a set of system commands and libraries suitable for the embedded environment. System components such […]

April 22, 2011April 22, 2011 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Compile with ARM Thumb2 to Reduce Memory Footprint and Improve Performance

ARM claims that Thumb-2 instructions (for ARM Cortex cores and all ARMv7 processors) provides performance improvements and code size optimization: Thumb-2 technology is the instruction set underlying the ARM Cortex architecture which provides enhanced levels of performance, energy efficiency, and code density for a wide range of embedded applications. For performance optimized code Thumb-2 technology uses 31 percent less memory to reduce system cost, while providing up to 38 percent higher performance than existing high density code, which can be used to prolong battery-life or to enrich the product feature set. Thumb-2 technology is featured in the processor, and in all ARMv7 architecture-based processors. Dave Martin (Linaro) has recently posted a message entitled “ARM/Thumb-2 kernel size comparison” on Linaro mailing list:

The question of the size impact of building the kernel in Thumb-2 came
up to day, so I extracted some quick numbers:

$ size vmlinux-*
text	   data	    bss	    dec	    hex	filename
8420507	 463356	 826928	9710791	 942cc7	vmlinux-arm
6715539	 463260	 826928	8005727	 7a285f	vmlinux-thumb2

This is for a recent mainline kernel built with the linaro omap config.

In this case we save about 20% for code and read-only data (i.e.,
text) and 17.5% overall -- which accounts for a little under 2MB saved
in this example.

This doesn't take loadable modules into account; we can probably expect
to see a similar size ratio there.

The question of the size impact of building the kernel in Thumb-2 came

up to day, so I extracted some quick numbers:

$ size vmlinux-*

text data bss dec hex filename

8420507 463356 826928 9710791 942cc7 vmlinux-arm

6715539 463260 826928 8005727 7a285f vmlinux-thumb2

This is for a recent mainline kernel built with the linaro omap config.

In this case we save about 20% for code and read-only data (i.e.,

text) and 17.5% overall -- which accounts for a little under 2MB saved

in this example.

This doesn't take loadable modules into account; we can probably expect

to see a similar size ratio there.

The results provided by Linaro at not as high as those claimed by ARM, but a 20% code size reduction is still impressive. If you want to use Thumb2 to compile […]

April 21, 2011April 21, 2011 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Is it IPv6 Time ? IPv6 Basics on Linux

The first time I worked on IPv6 was in 2000 in my master’s degree thesis where I started an implementation of Mobile IP based on IPv6 in Linux Redhat. Over a decade later, IPv6 has not really taken off, even though we hear stories about the IPv4 address space running out and I have yet to see an embedded device using anything else than IPv4. APNIC Ran out of IPv4 However, this may be about the change as on the 15th of April 2011, Japan Network Information Center (JPNIC) announced that APNIC (Asia Pacific Network Information Centre) ran out of IPv4 addresses. They will still try to make it last longer by reusing previously allocated IPv4 and an “IPv4 address transfer system” whose details will be made available later. You can also see a chart based on IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) data that shows this is a problem right […]