You may know that Rockchip and Intel have a partnership to design Atom Sofia processors, but Giayee Atom PC has nothing to do with this initiative at all, and it’s just a pretty standard Rocchip RK3288 based mini PC, except it includes a VGA port, and various “placement” options namely horizontal position, vertical position, and TV/monitor mount. Atom PC specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3288 Quad Core Cortex A17 up to 1.8GHz with ARM Mali-T764 GPU supporting OpenGL ES1.1/2.0/3.0, Open VG1.1, OpenCL, DirectX11 System Memory – 2GB DDR3 Storage – 8 GB NAND flash (16 to 32 GB optional) Video Output- HDMI up to 1080p (no 4K?), and VGA up to 1920×1080 @ 60 Hz Audio Output / Input – HDMI, 3.5 mm jacks for Audio In and Out Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi. Options: Dual band Wi-Fi, GPS, NFC, and Bluetooth USB – 4x USB Host ports, 1x […]
PopMetal Rockchip RK3288 Development Board Features Multiple Display Interfaces (HDMI, VGA ,eDP, LVDS, MIPI), GPS and NFC Connectivity
Up to now, we’ve had mainly two development boards based on Rockchip RK3288 Cortex A17 processor: Firefly-RK3288 is a low cost development board powered by Rockchip RK3288 processor selling for as low as $140 shipped, and Radxa Rock 2, a more professional and expansive solution with dual Ethernet, 3G modem and so on. A third RK3288 board has now surfaced which offers a middle ground between Firefly and Radxa boards. PopMetal development board comes with 2GB RAM, 8GB eMMC, 5 video outputs / display interfaces namely HDMI, VGA, embedded DisplayPort (eDP), LVDS, and MIPI DSI, as well as the usual Gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth connectivity, complemented with GPS and NFC. PopMetal technical specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3288 quad core ARM Cortex-A17 processor @ 1.8Ghz with ARM Mali-T764 GPU with support for OpenGL ES1.1/2.0/3.0, OpenVG 1.1, OpenCL 1.1, DirectX 11 System memory – 2GB DDR3 Storage – 8 GB eMMC, […]
Boot Ubuntu (Linux) or Android from an SD Card on Rockchip RK3288 Devices
There’s already a method to boot Android from an SD Card on RK3188 devices, which should work with all Rockchip RK3188 devices. Ian Morrison (Linuxium) has now provided a instructions to boot Linux or Android from a (micro) SD Card in Rockchip RK3288 based devices, leveraging work from linux-rockchip community, and especially naobsd. The Android flashing method is slightly different between RK3188 and RK3288, because most Rockchip RK3288 devices make use of eMMC flash, while older Rockchip RK3188 products feature NAND flash, and it appears Rockchip RK3xxx boot priorities (in the BootROM stored in the SoC itself) are as follows: eMMC, SD card, and NAND flash. All that means is that an updated version of the bootloader is needed which looks for a bootable SD card, and although very unlikely, your device could end up being bricked during this procedure. This is not a problem for Open Hour Chameleon since […]
Android 4.4 and Ubuntu 14.10 Tested on Ugoos UM3 mini PC (Rockchip RK3288)
A few days ago I posted pictures of Ugoos UM3, a cute mini PC powered by Rockchip RK3288 quad core Cortex A17 processor, with 2GB RAM, 8GB internal storage, a few USB ports, and Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n/ac connectivity. There are so many Rockchip RK3288 based TV boxes and sticks on the market, that it has become difficult to differentiate, so Ugoos has decided to support not only Android 4.4 like all their competitors, but also Ubuntu 14.10, and they’ve provided an alpha release of dual boot Android / Ubuntu images for Ugoos UT3 and UM3 models. Yesterday, I flashed the latest Android/Ubuntu firmware for UM3, and tested the image, so today I can report my findings. First of all, I’d like to point out that I received an earlier sample with various flaws that I reported to Ugoos, and they’ve already committed to fixes: 5V/2A power adapter is not powerful […]
Linux 3.18 Released
Linus Torvalds released Linux Kernel 3.18 last Sunday: It’s been a quiet week, and the patch from rc7 is tiny, so 3.18 is out. I’d love to say that we’ve figured out the problem that plagues 3.17 for a couple of people, but we haven’t. At the same time, there’s absolutely no point in having everybody else twiddling their thumbs when a couple of people are actively trying to bisect an older issue, so holding up the release just didn’t make sense. Especially since that would just have then held things up entirely over the holiday break. So the merge window for 3.19 is open, and DaveJ will hopefully get his bisection done (or at least narrow things down sufficiently that we have that “Ahaa” moment) over the next week. But in solidarity with Dave (and to make my life easier too 😉 let’s try to avoid introducing any _new_ […]
How To Upgrade Firmware on Ugoos UM3 mini PC
Ugoos released two new dual boot Android / Ubuntu images for Ugoos UT3 and UM3, which reduces the size of the system by 300MB, includes LibreOffice, replaces Firefox by Chromium + PepperFlash plugin, and fixes various bugs: ut3_dualboot_v0.2.rar – For UT3 full sized TV box UM3_dualboot_v0.2.rar – For UM3 mini TV box The firmware update procedure for Rockchip RK3288 is well-known, and Ugoos even includes a word file with flashing instructions in Microsoft Windows with the firmware images. However, it still took me about one hour to find out how to do with Ugoos UM3, so I thought I’d write a post in case others encounter the same issue. I flash the firmware in Ubuntu, so instead of using Android Tool, I flashed it with upgrade_tool command line utility I got from Orion R28 SDK, but you can also download Linux_Upgrade_Tool_v1.2.tar.gz directly. First let’s enter recovery mode. The procedure is […]
Mini Review of Jesurun T034 Android TV Stick Featuring a Gigabit Ethernet Port
The vast majority of Android TV sticks only provide Wi-Fi to connect to the Internet, but Jesurun T034 is one of the rare TV stick that also features an Ethernet interface, and a Gigabit one at that. I’ve already listed specifications and uploaded pictures of the device, so today it’s time for a review. I’ve reviewed so many Rockchip RK3288 devices in the past, so I won’t write my usual full review, but I will focus on network connectivity, internal storage performance, stability / temperature measurements, as I’ve found high temperature to be problematic in another RK3288 TV stick, and I’ll quickly show the launcher, test the remote with the extension cable, and run Antutu 5.3 benchmark. Jesurun T034 User Interface and Remote Control I’ve connected the IR extension cable, an Ethernet cable, the RF dongle for Mele F10 Deluxe to the USB port, and the RF dongle for Tronsmart […]
Unboxing of Ugoos UM3 Android and Ubuntu ARM mini PC
Ugoos UM3 is another minic PC powered by Rockchip RK3288 SoC with 8GB storage, 2GB RAM. It has Wi-Fi, but no Ethernet, so it looks like the offspring between a full-sized TV box and an HDMI stick. The company sent me a sample for evaluation pre-loaded with a dual boot image with Android 4.4 & Ubuntu 14.10. I’ll start by unboxing, and opening the device, before testing the dual boot image another day. Ugoos UM3 Unboxing The company sent me the device via DHL in a package for RK3066 / RK3188 devices, but I guess end-users will get an update package that will probably look similar. I was surprised how tiny the device was when I first took it out of the box, and with a black body and red cover, it’s probably the cutest too. It comes with a 5V/2A power supply and corresponding USB to micro USB cable, […]