Allwinner H-Series Category - Page 24 of 35 - CNX Software

January 19, 2017January 19, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

How to Install Domoticz Home Automation System in NanoPi NEO and Other ARM Linux Boards

I’ve recently started experimenting with IoT projects, and the first hurdle is to select the hardware and software for your projects are there are simply so many options. For the hardware your first have to choose the communication protocols for your sensors and actuators, and if you are going to go with WiFi, ESP8266 is the obvious solution, used together with your favorite low cost Linux development board such as Raspberry Pi or Orange Pi to run some IoT server software locally or leveraging the cloud. But the most difficult & confusing part for me was to select the server software / cloud services as there are just so many options. I prefer having a local server than something running only in the cloud, as my Internet goes a few hours a month, so I started with a solution combining ThingSpeak with MQTT gathering data from Sonoff power switches running […]

January 19, 2017August 12, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 56 Comments

Orange Pi Zero NAS Expansion Board with SATA, USB, and AV Port Sells for $10 Shipped

Orange Pi Zero is a $7 and up board based on Allwinner H2+ quad core Cortex A7 processor with 256 to 512MB RAM, Ethernet, WiFi, and USB, but no video output except on headers, making it more suitable to headless applications. The company has just launched Orange Pi Zero NAS Expansion port adding SATA, mSATA, two more USB ports, and an AV port allowing you to add a hard drive or SSD, and connect it to a TV with composite input. Orange Pi Zero NAS Expansion Board preliminary specifications: Storage – 1x SATA port, 1x mSATA port both through a JMS578 USB 3.1 to SATA bridge with UAS support each, which should be better than some other USB to SATA solution despite only being connected to a USB 2.0 interface. USB – 2x USB 2.0 ports Video & Audio Output – 3.5mm AV jack with composite video (TBC) and stereo […]

December 31, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 13 Comments

Ten Most Popular Posts of 2016 on CNX Software and Some Stats

The last day of the year is a good time to look back at what the year brought us, and I have to say it has been a fun and interesting year on CNX Software. The TV boxes news cycle has been dominated by Amlogic products, but most products have now switched to 64-bit ARM SoC, with 4K and HDMI 2.0 support, and price have kept going down, so you can now get a 4K TV box for as low as $20, although many people will prefer spending a bit more for extra memory and support. Intel based Bay Trail & Cherry Trail mini PCs have continued to be released with Windows, and in some cases Ubuntu, but the excitement seems to have died off a bit, maybe with the expectation of upcoming Apollo Lake mini PCs that should be more powerful. The year have been especially fruitful in the […]

December 28, 2016December 29, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

RetrOrangePi 3.0 Retro Gaming & Media Center Firmware Released for Orange Pi H3 Boards and Beelink X2 TV Box

RetrOrangePi is a Linux distribution based on armbian transforming Allwinner H3 boards – mostly Orange Pi boards, but also Banana Pi M2+ and NanoPi boards – into entertainment centers to play retro games, and watch/listen media files (videos/music) using Kodi. If you don’t have a development board, or would prefer a complete solution with casing and power supply, Beelink X2 TV box is also supported. The developers had been recently working on rectifying some GPL issues, and they have released RetrOrangePi 3.0 images right before Christmas. RetrOrangePi 3.0 changelog and key features: Full Armbian 5.23 Jessie Desktop version with kernel 3.4.113 (backdoors fixed) Slim version 1st release (less than 2 GB) coming soon OpenELEC (Kodi Jarvis 16.1) with CEC support by Jernej Škrabec RetroPie-Setup version 4.1 New Kodi Krypton beta6 version New emulationstation-ROPI branch forked from jacobfk20 with gridview, on screen keyboard with easy wifi config and storage check with […]

December 12, 2016May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Linux 4.9 Release – Main Changes, ARM and MIPS Architectures

Linus Torvalds released Linux 4.9 on Sunday: So Linux 4.9 is out, and the merge window for 4.10 is thus open. With the extra week for 4.9, the timing for the merge window is obviously a bit awkward, and it technically closes in two weeks on Christmas Day. But that is a pure technicality, because I will certainly stop pulling on the 23rd at the latest, and if I get roped into Xmas food prep, even that date might be questionable. I could extend the merge window rather than cut it short, but I’m not going to. I suspect we all want a nice calm winter break, so if your stuff isn’t ready to be merged early, the solution is to just not merge it yet at all, and wait for 4.11. Just so you all know (I already bcc’d the main merge window suspects in a separate mailing last […]

December 9, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 18 Comments

$59 RetroEngine Sigma Retro Game Console is Based on Orange Pi Lite Board (Crowdfunding)

2016 has been the year of retrogaming comeback with products like PocketCHIP, Nintendo NES Classic, GPD Win and quite a few other projects. There will soon be a new option with RetroEngine Sigma, an inexpensive Linux based retro-gaming console based on Allwinner H3 processor. RetroEngine Sigma fanless game console hardware specifications: SoC – Allwinner H3 quad core Cortex A7 @ 1.2 GHz with an ARM Mali-400MP2 GPU up to 600 MHz System Memory – 512 MB DDR3 Storage – 16 or 32GB micro SD card Video & Audio Output – HDMI port Connectivity – 802.11 b/g/n WiFi USB – 2x USB 2.0 host ports, 1x micro USB OTG port Misc – Programmable status LED, 2 user configurable buttons P1 & P2 Power Supply – 5V/2A via power barrel Dimensions – 110 x 85 x 33.5 mm The specifications look similar, so I went to my little list of Allwinner H3 […]

November 10, 2016November 15, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 24 Comments

Allwinner H2 Linux & Android SDK, and Allwinner XR819 WiFi Driver Released

Orange Pi Zero is an interesting little ARM Linux board thanks to its low price, but also because it features a new Allwinner H2 / H2+ quad core Cortex A7 processor very similar to Allwinner H3 minus the 4K video decoding part, as well as Allwinner XR819 WiFi module, which I have not seen on any other boards so far. But hardware without software is pretty much useless, so developers will be happy to find out that Allwinner H2 SDK with Linux (lichee) and Android has been released or leaked, and it also includes the Allwinner XR819 WiFi driver. You’ll find the SDK on Zoobab server with three main directory / files: Android folder – Android 4.4.2 SDK lichee folder – Linux 3.4.39 source code. However you’d probably better use Linux 3.4.113 currently released by sunxi-linux, or Linux mainline. The latter does have some limitations, and may or may not […]

November 9, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 24 Comments

Giveaway Week Winners – November 2016

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m going to announce the results the whole world is eagerly waiting for today, and as you’ve probably guessed it, by that I mean CNX Software Giveaway Week 2016 contest… obviously… We had seven winners sharing the prizes shown below from Android TV boxes, to a Linux TV stick, and an Android virtual reality headset. 2016 has been an interesting year so far, putting statisticians, pundits, pollsters, and generally speaking odds to shame, and random.org apparently decided to join that trends, as while most of the blog’s traffic – and I’d assume entries – come from the western world (North America / Western Europe), random.org mostly selected winners from other countries: VR SKY CX-V3 VR headset – Dainis, Latvia WeTek Core TV box – Homer, Morocco Vana Player Hifi Linux audio player – Fakham, Pakistan MeLE PCG02U Ubuntu TV stick – Ziggy, Singapore Coowell V4 Android tv […]