Ubuntu Category - Page 125 of 187 - CNX Software

May 3, 2017May 3, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

Google Assistant SDK Turns Your Raspberry Pi 3 into Google Home

Google Home allows you to select music, control your home automation system and more with voice commands, but now you can do the same with a Raspberry Pi 3 as Google released a developer preview (alpha v1) of the Google Assistant API that works on Raspberry Pi 3, and other development boards running Debian or Ubuntu. Functionalities are limited right now, with RPC API and Python sample code, but it only works with English language, and features such as timers & alarm, playing music, news, or podcasts, and precise location are not supported. Location is determined using your IP address only, and if you’re using some third party services / products such as Uber or Hue, you’ll need an actual Google Home device for initial setup. Google has provided instructions to use Google Assistant SDK with Raspberry Pi 3 board. First you’ll need a USB microphone ($5.99 on Amazon), and […]

April 28, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 22 Comments

Cavium ThunderX based Scaleway ARMv8 Cloud Servers Go for 2.99 Euros per Month and Up

Scaleway launched 32-bit ARM server hosting services in 2015 for 10 Euros per month, before dropping the price to 2.99 Euros per month half-year later, and now the company has just launched a new offering with 64-bit ARM servers powered by Cavium ThunderX processor going for 2.99 to 11.99 Euros per month depending on configuration. The processors are equipped with DDR4 ECC memory, and all three services included unlimited transfer, so you don’t need to pay for any bandwidth fee. While the price is shown per month, you’ll be billed by the hour (0.006 Euro/h for ARM64-2GB), so if you are using those for development it may even cost less per month, as you can turn them off when not working. All server are located in a Paris data center in France, and runs Ubuntu 16.04, but more operating systems and “InstantApps” will be added to the selection. More servers […]

April 27, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

CHUWI Lapbook 12.3 is a Windows 10 / Ubuntu Apollo Lake Laptop with a 2K Display, 6GB RAM, Up to 256 GB SSD Storage

I’ve reviewed CHUWI LapBook 14.1 laptop earlier this year with an Intel Celeron N3450 Apollo Lake processor, 14.1″ Full HD display and 4GB RAM, and found it to work reasonably well for the price in Windows 10, as well as Ubuntu 17.04. The company has been working on another model called CHUWI LapBook 12.3 with the same processor, but a smaller yet higher resolution 12.3″ 2K display, more memory (6GB RAM), 64GB eMMC flash, and support for M.2 SSDs up to 256 GB. CHUWI LapBook 12.3 specifications with highlight in bold showing differences against LapBook 14.1 model: SoC – Intel Celeron N3450 quad core “Apollo Lake” processor @ 1.1 GHz / 2.2 GHz (Burst frequency) and 12 EU Intel HD graphics 500 @ 200 MHz / 700 MHz (Burst freq.); 6W TDP System Memory – 6GB DDR3 Storage – 64 GB eMMC flash + micro SD slot up to 128 […]

April 27, 2017May 7, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

Hardkernel ODROID-XU4Q is a Fanless Version of ODROID-XU4 Exynos 5422 Development Board

[Update May 2018: You may be interested in ODROID-XU4Q review with Ubuntu 18.04] We had already seen ODROID-XU4 development board price drop to $59 earlier this year, but a frequent complain about the board remained: it requires a fan to operate at full speed, and makes noise while the fan turns. To address this issue, the company has now launched ODROID-XU4Q board with exactly the same specifications with Samsung Exynos 5422 octa-core processor, 2GB RAM, eMMC module support, Gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.0, HDMI 1.4 etc…, except the fan is replaced by a large heatsink. The company has also thoroughly tested both versions in different configurations such as setting the maximum frequency to 1.8 or 2.0 GHz, and found ODROID-XU4Q to be slightly slower under high load due to CPU throttling, as the large heatsink does not cool quite as well as the smaller heatsink in combination with a fan. However […]

April 24, 2017 by Ian W MORRISON (Linuxium) - 18 Comments

Beelink AP42 Apollo Lake mini PC Linux Review with Ubuntu, KDE Neon, Elementary OS….

Beelink’s latest Intel mini PC offerings includes the AP34 and AP42 which are their first models using Intel Apollo Lake processors. The former uses an Intel Apollo Lake Celeron N3450 processor (burst frequency 2.2GHz, Intel HD Graphics 500 with Graphics Burst Frequency 700MHz and 12 Execution Units) while the latter uses the slightly more powerful Pentium N4200 (burst frequency 2.5GHz, Intel HD Graphics 505 with Graphics Burst Frequency 750MHz and 18 Execution Units). Both support Windows 10 (Home) and Beelink’s marketing claim they “support Linux system”. GearBest has given me the chance to review running Linux on the AP42 model so here are my findings. Normally I first make a disk image before booting Windows or installing Linux. However initial attempts at booting a Live USB with a variety of Linux systems failed so both the reseller and manufacturer were contacted for comment. Interestingly there was no immediate reply but early […]

April 16, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 13 Comments

Wandboard QuadPLUS Development Board Gets i.MX 6QuadPlus Processor, 802.11ac WiFi and Bluetooth 4.1

The first Wandboard development boards launched in 2012 nearly 5 years ago based on Freescale i.MX6 Solo and Dual processor, with Wandboard Quad launched a few months later. The boards were fairly popular at the time due to their better specifications, and especially Freescale’s much better documentation and software compared to the competition such as Broadcom (Raspberry Pi) and Allwinner (Cubieboard). Since the boards are based on TechNexion EDM system-on-modules they could also be used by companies working on their own products based on the system-on-module. It’s also a good platform if you want to test various version of Android, because the company released Jelly Bean, Kitkat, Lollipop, and Marshmallow images for the boards, and I’m expecting a Lollipop version soon. However, albeit the company worked on other NXP boards such as PICO-IM6UL Android Things, there had not been any hardware upgrade for Wandboard for nearly 4 years, but last […]

April 13, 2017April 15, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 40 Comments

$40 NanoPi K2 Board Powered by Amlogic S905 Processor Competes with ODROID-C2, Raspberry Pi 3

Hardkernel ODROID-C2 board is getting some direct competition with FriendlyELEC’s NanoPi K2 development board powered with Amlogic S905 processor with 2GB RAM, a very similar form factor, and many of the same features, which together with Khadas Vim (Pro) brings the number of low cost Amlogic based development boards to three. NanoPi K2 board specifications with differences compared to ODROID-C2 highlighted in bold or stricken-through: SoC – Amlogic S905 quad core cortex-A53 processor @ 1.5 GHz with penta core Mali-450MP GPU System Memory – 2GB DDR3 Storage – eMMC module socket, micro SD slot Video Output – HDMI 2.0 up to 4K @ 60 Hz Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet (Realtek RTL8211F), 802.11 b/g/n WiFi + Bluetooth 4.0 (AP6212 module) with chip antenna + IPX connector USB – 4x USB 2.0 host ports (GL825G USB hub) + micro USB OTG port for power and adata Expansion Header 40-pin header with GPIO, […]

April 12, 2017April 12, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

Anbox Allows You to Run Android Apps Natively in Ubuntu Linux

It’s been possible to run Android app in computers for a while with solutions such as Bluestacks or ShashLik, as well as running Android-x86 ISO in a virtual machine. But all those solutions rely on emulation, may not have the best performance, and at the time I tried them did not really work well, or were inconvenient to use. Anbox is different as instead of running its own Linux kernel for Android, it leverages the Linux kernel in Ubuntu for better integration and performance, and use an LXC container to run Android. Anbox has been tested with Ubuntu 16.04, but should also work with other recent Ubuntu distributions. Installing Anbox (Alpha) is easy, and can be done with a single command line:

sudo snap install --classic anbox-installer && anbox-installer

1	sudo snap install --classic anbox-installer && anbox-installer

The command will modify your system with the following: Add the anbox-support ppa ppa:morphis/anbox-support to the host system Install the anbox-modules-dkms deb package from the ppa which will […]