ArmWizard forum member “-W.-” needed a cluster to test his firmware build and deployment solution for Orange Pi Zero boards which can deploy the firmware to multiple boards from one single board. So he procured 24 Orange Pi Zero boards, a 24-port switch, some USB hubs and debug board, as well as some other accessories, power supplies, and two wooden planks. That’s the results after assembly. So we have 4 tower of six Orange Pi Zero boards fairly neatly connected to the 24-port Ethernet switch with 30 cm Ethernet cables, and four black USB hubs for the USB to TTL debug boards. The side view below shows the boards are powered by micro USB cables connected to three different power supplies, cooling achieved via four fans, and the power extension is hidden right underneath close to the Ethernet switch. The cluster will also be used for machine learning latter on, […]
Shedbuilt Binary Blob-Free Linux Distribution Works with Allwinner H3/H5 Boards (Orange Pi, Libre Computer)
Most open source Linux distributions are only partially open source, as while most packages will be built from publicly available source code, they usually come with closed source binary blobs for GPU drivers, wireless module firmware and so on. Shedbuilt is described as “a decentralized, self-hosting GNU/Linux for Arm devices built from the latest upstream sources”, and as the developer (Auston Stewart) explains – see comments section – it does not contain any binary blob. Eventually the distribution may support more boards, but for now, the current System 1 “Amano” release supports four Allwinner H3/H5 boards: Orange Pi PC, Orange Pi One, Orange Pi PC 2, and Libre Computer ALL-H3-CC “Tritium”. Orange Pi Lite (with WiFi) and Libre Computer AML-S905X-CC “Le Potato” images are said to be coming soon. You can download the SD card images and access documentation on Shedbuilt.net. The Linux distribution relies on Shedmake script to automate […]
Linux 4.16 Release – Main Changes, Arm and MIPS Architectures
Linus Torvalds has just released Linux 4.16: So the take from final week of the 4.16 release looks a lot like rc7, in that about half of it is networking. If it wasn’t for that, it would all be very small and calm. We had a number of fixes and cleanups elsewhere, but none of it made me go “uhhuh, better let this soak for another week”. And davem didn’t think the networking was a reason to delay the release, so I’m not. End result: 4.16 is out, and the merge window for 4.17 is open and I’ll start doing pull requests tomorrow. Outside of networking, most of the last week was various arch fixlets (powerpc, arm, x86, arm64), some driver fixes (mainly scsi and rdma) and misc other noise (documentation, vm, perf). The appended shortlog gives an overview of the details (again, this is only the small stuff in […]
Neutis N5 is a $49 Allwinner H5 SoM with WiFi and Bluetooth
Allwinner, Amlogic and Rockchip SoCs can be found in many single board computers or development boards, but contrary to processors from Texas Instruments, NXP or Atmel, there aren’t that many system-on-modules based on the low cost SoCs with companies like Pine64, Olimex, or Theobroma providing some options in that space. There soon will be more, as Emlid will launch Neutis N5 module based on Allwinner H5 processor in the next couple of months with the module also including WiFi and Bluetooth, beside the processor, memory, and storage. Neutis N5 specifications: SoC – Allwinner H5 quad core Arm Cortex-A53 processor with Arm Mali-450MP4 GPU System Memory – 512 MB DDR3 RAM Storage – 8 GB eMMC flash Connectivity – Wi-Fi: 802.11 b/g/n. BT: 4.0 dual-mode BLE with on-board antenna and U.FL connector for optional external antenna HW Security – Tamper-resistant dedicated crypto chip for storing cryptographic keys, unique ID, random number […]
TECHBASE ModBerry M300 IoT Gateway Adds Support for NanoPi and Orange Pi Allwinner H5 Boards
Announced at the end of last year TECHBASE launched the ModBerry M300, a Linux IoT gateway powered by FriendlyELEC NanoPi NEO board equipped with Allwinner H3 Cortex A7 processor. The company has now made four extra variants of the gateway with Allwinner H5 quad core Cortex A53 based development boards from FriendlyELEC and Shenzhen Xunlong: Modberry M300 N2 – Based on NanoPi NEO2 Modberry M300 N2+ – Based on NanoPi NEO Plus2 adding 8GB eMMC flash, WiFi & Bluetooth 4.0, and an extra USB port over the N2 model Modberry M300 O1 – Based on Orange Pi Zero Plus Modberry M300 O2 – Based on Orange Pi Zero Plus2 adding 8GB eMMC flash, HDMI, one extra USB port, and Bluetooth 4.0 over the O1 model, but falling back to 10/100 Ethernet, while all three models above come with Gigabit Ethernet To avoid confusion, the original NanoPi NEO model has changed […]
MX Pro 4K is an Android 7.0 TV Box powered by Allwinner H5 Processor
We’ve already seen Allwinner H5 processor in several development boards such as NanoPi NEO2, Orange Pi Zero Plus, or Libre Computer Tritium 2G among other. But while the processor has been designed for 4K OTT TV boxes, I had not seen any TV box based on the processor so far. MX Pro 4K, not to be confused by MXQ Pro 4K, changes that, as it features the quad core Cortex A53 processor combined with 1GB RAM, 8GB storage, and the usual HDMI, Ethernet, USB ports you’d expect from a TV box. MX Pro 4K specifications: SoC – Allwinner H5 quad core Cortex A53 processor with hexa-core Mali-450MP4 GPU System Memory – 1 GB DDR3 Storage – 8 GB eMMC flash (options: 4GB, 16GB, 32GB), micro SD card slot Video Output – HDMI 1.4b up to 4K @ 30 Hz, AV port (composite) Audio Output – HDMI, AV (stereo audio), and […]
Bootlin Wants to Bring Allwinner VPU Support to Mainline Linux (Crowdfunding)
I wrote about Free Electrons several times in the past due to their work on porting Arm SoCs to mainline Linux. Free Electrons is no more. But don’t be sad, as it’s not because they closed shop, but instead they changed their name to Bootlin due to trademark trolls. Free Electrons Bootlin intensively worked on Allwinner processors, for example working with Next Things Co. to add CHIP board to mainline Linux, or more recently adding support for OpenGL ES in mainline Linux, albeit with closed-source user space binary blobs. The company normally work with partners for their work, but for their latest initiative aiming to bring Allwinner VPU (Video Processing Unit) to the official Linux kernel there’s asking funding from the community through a Kickstarter campaign. For those who do not know, the VPU is the IP block within the SoC used for hardware video decoding of codecs such as MPEG2, […]
Pine H64 Development Board Features Allwinner H6 processor, Gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.0 and PCIe for $26 and Up
As expected, Pine64 has now launched Pine H64 development board, powered by Allwinner H6 quad core processor, and contrary to Orange Pi H6 boards, it exposes both Gigabit Ethernet, and a USB 3.0 port, which should please people wanting fast storage combined with Gigabit Ethernet. The board comes in three variants with 1, 2 or 3GB of memory, with all also equipped with a mini PCIe interface, and various I/O headers. Pine H64 specifications: SoC – Allwinner H6 quad core Cortex A53 processor with Arm Mali-T720MP2 GPU System Memory – 1, 2 or 3GB LPDDR3 PC-1600 RAM Storage – 128 Mbit SPI flash, micro SD card slot, and eMMC flash module connector (all bootable) Video Output – HDMI 2.0a up to 4K @ 60 Hz Audio – HDMI audio output, Video Decoding – 10-bit H.265 up to 4K @ 60 fps, VP9 and H.264 up to 4K @ 30 fps […]