Linux 5.8 Release – Main Changes, Arm, MIPS, and RISC-V Architectures

Linux 5.8 Release

Linus Torvalds has just released Linux 5.8: So I considered making an rc8 all the way to the last minute, but decided it’s not just worth waiting another week when there aren’t  any big looming worries around. Because despite the merge window having been very large, there really hasn’t been anything scary going on in the release candidates. Yeah, we had some annoying noise with header file dependencies this week, but that’s not a new annoyance, and it’s also not the kind of subtle bug that keeps me up at night worrying about it. It did reinforce how nice it would be if we had some kind of tooling support to break nasty header file dependencies automatically, but if wishes were horses.. Maybe some day we’ll have some kind of SAT-solver for symbol dependencies that can handle all our different architectures and configurations, but right now it’s just a manual […]

Rock Pi 4C SBC with 4GB RAM, HDMI and DisplayPort Launched for $59 and up

Buy Rock Pi 4C

Last October, Radxa unveiled Rock Pi 4C SBC as an update to the company’s Rock Pi 4 SBC, with the same Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core processor, 4GB RAM, but instead of providing one HDMI output only, Rock Pi 4C board offers two video output just like Raspberry Pi 4 board, but with a twist, since it combines a micro HDMI port with a Mini DisplayPort connector. It’s all good except for one small detail. So far, it was not possible to purchase the board. The good news is that Radxa has now announced the availability of the board for just $59 on AllNetChina. You can also buy Rock Pi 4C on other platforms, but the price is much higher at $109.99 on Amazon, and $99.99 on Aliexpress. Rock Pi 4C specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3399 big.LITTLE hexa-core processor with 2x Arm Cortex-A72 @ up to 1.8 GHz, 4x Cortex-A53 @ up […]

Rock Pi E SBC Comes with WiFi, Bluetooth, Two Ethernet Ports, and Optional PoE

Rock Pi E

Radxa has launched several Rockchip boards from the higher-end Rock Pi N10 (RK3399Pro) and Rock Pi 4 (RK3399) SBC’s, to the low-end and tiny Rock Pi S powered by an RK3308 Cortex-A35 processor. The company has now launched Rock Pi E single board computer equipped with the popular Rockchip RK3328 quad-core Cortex-A53 processor and designed for router & gateway application with two Ethernet ports, WiFi, and Bluetooth. Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) also comes as an option. Rock Pi E specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3328  quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor @ up to 1.3 GHz System Memory – 256MB, 512MB, 1GB, or  2GB DDR3 Storage – MicroSD card slot up to 128GB, eMMC module support ( 16GB / 32GB / 64GB / 128GB) Video & Audio – 3.5mm AV output jack (Not 100% sure whether composite video is supported) Connectivity 1x Gigabit Ethernet port with PoE support via an additional HAT 10/100M Ethernet Wireless […]

NanoPi NEO3 Headless SBC Launched for $20 and up

buy nanopi neo3

Last month, we found out FriendlyELEC was working on NanoPi NEO3, a tiny SBC powered by Rockchip RK3328 processor and made for headless applications and networked storage thanks to Gigabit Ethernet and USB 3.0 ports, as well as a 26-pin GPIO header. At the time, the board was still been finalized, but the company has now started to take orders for $20 and up depending on options which include a cute white enclosure.. Here’s a quick reminder of NanoPi NEO3 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3328 quad-core Arm Cortex A53 processor with Mali-450MP2 GPU System Memory – 1GB or 2GB DDR4 Storage – MicroSD Slot for system boot and storage Video Output – N/A Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet with unique MAC via RTL8211E PHY USB – 1x USB3.0 Type-A port, 2x USB2.0 on 2.54mm 8-pin header Expansion – 26-pin header with I2C, UART, SPI, I2S, GPIO Debugging – 3-pin header for […]

Tiny NanoPi NEO3 SBC Targets Networked Storage with GbE and USB 3.0

NanoPi NEO3 SBC

Once upon a time, FriendlyELEC launched a Raspberry Pi Zero competitor for headless applications with Allwinner H3 powered NanoPi NEO, which was then followed with NanoPi NEO2 equipped with a more powerful Allwinner H5 processor and Gigabit Ethernet, and less than two years ago, NanoPi NEO4 was launched with Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core processor, 1GB RAM, and HDMI output. “Wait! What happened to NanoPi NEO3?!” you may ask. It probably got lost in the woods, but FriendlyELEC found it under a rock, and are about to launch NanoPi NEO3 SBC based on Rockchip RK3328 and offering a USB 3.0 port and Gigabit Ethernet network connectivity. NanoPi NEO3 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3328 quad-core Arm Cortex A53 processor with Mali-450MP2 GPU System Memory – 1GB or 2GB DDR4 Storage – MicroSD Slot for system boot and storage Video Output – N/A Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet with unique MAC via RTL8211E PHY USB […]

ASUS Chromebit CS10 Chrome OS PC Stick Sells for $69.99 (Promo)

Chromebit CS10 Promo

ASUS Chromebit CS10 was the cheapest Chrome OS hardware when it launched in 2015. Equipped with a Rockchip RK3288-C quad-core processor coupled with 2 GB RAM and 16 GB eMMC. plus one HDMI port and one USB port it was offered for $85. Five years later it’s still available, and while the list price has slightly increased to $89, Chromebit CS10 is now offered for just $69.99 on Amazon US. Here’s a reminder of ASUS Chromebit CS10 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3288-C quad-core Cortex A17 processor with ARM Mali-T764 GPU. System Memory – 2 GB LPDDR3 Storage – 16 GB eMMC flash, plus 100G Google Drive for 2 Year free usage (not sure if this is still an option as we’ll discuss below) Video Output – HDMI Connectivity – Dual-band 802.11 2×2 (MIMO) a/b/g/n/ac WiFi 5, Bluetooth 4.0 USB – 1x USB 2.0 host port, 1x micro USB OTG port […]

Orange Pi 4 SBC Gets a $16 4G LTE mini PCIe Card based on Rockchip RM310

Orange Pi 4 4G LTE Mini PCIe Card

Orange Pi 4 SBC is one of the most cost-effective Rockchip RK3399 SBC’s, as it sells for as low as $50 with 4GB RAM, Gigabit Ethernet, WiFi, and Bluetooth, HDMI 2.0 output, etc.. The board also comes with a 24-pin PCIe connector that’s not of much use on its own, so the company introduced a $4 PCIe adapter board providing access to a standard mPCIe socket and a SIM card slot so you could install your own. 4G mini PCIe cards can easily cost around $50 or more, but Shenzhen Xunlong Software has now launched its own 4G LTE mini PCIe card based on Rockchip RM310 module and sold for $16 on Aliexpress, excluding shipping. mPCIe card and RM310 module specifications: Frequency bands LTE-FDD – B1, B3, B5, B8 LTE-TDD – B38, B39, B40, B41 WCDMA – B1, B5, B8 GSM – 850, 900, 1800, and 1900 MHz Data rates […]

GNOME Renders on Arm Mali-G31 Bifrost GPU with Fully Open Source Code

Panfrost ODROID Go Advance Black Edition

We first wrote about Panfrost open-source Arm Mali GPU driver getting initial support for Mali-G31 Bifrost GPU in late April, when engineers at Collabora managed to run some basic demos. Progress has been fast-paced as the company has now implemented support for all major features of OpenGL ES 2.0 and some features of OpenGL 2.1. That means hardware-based on Arm Mali-G31 GPU such as ODROID Go Advance (used for testing) can run Wayland compositors with zero-copy graphics, including GNOME 3, every scene in glmark2-es2 benchmarks, and some 3D games such as Neverball. All without any binary blobs. The company also claims to support hardware-accelerated video players mpv and Kodi. The way it should work is that while Panfrost driver renders the user interface, Amlogic open-source video decoder developed by BayLibre handles hardware video decoding. All changes are already included in upstream Mesa with no out-of-tree patches required, and Bifrost support […]

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