Programming Category - Page 20 of 43 - CNX Software

August 1, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Linaro 14.07 Release with Linux Kernel 3.16 and Android 4.4

Linaro 14.07 has just been released with Linux Kernel 3.16-rc6 (baseline), Linux Kernel 3.10.50 (LSK), and Android 4.4.4. This month, Linaro has continued development on Juno 64-bit ARM development board, as well as other member boards from Broadcom (Capri), Qualcomm (IFC6410), Hisilicon D01, Samsung (Arndale / Arndale Octa), etc.. Android have been upgraded to version 4.4.4 with images released for Pandaboard, Arndale, Nexus 10, and Nexus 7, built with Linaro GCC 4.9. Here are the highlights of this release: Linux Linaro 3.16-rc6-2014.07 released GATOR version 5.18 (same version as in 2014.04) updated basic Capri board support from Broadcom LT. Good progress in upstreaming the code: now the topic has 21 patch on top of v3.16-rc4 vs 53 patches on top of v3.15 in 2014.06 cycle removed cortex-strings-arm64 topic as the code is accepted into the mainline new topic from Qualcomm LT to add IFC6410 board support updated Versatile Express ARM64 […]

July 23, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

ARM TechCon 2014 Schedule – 64-Bit, IoT, Optimization & Debugging, Security and More

ARM Technology Conference (TechCon) 2014 will take place on October 1 – 3, 2014, in Santa Clara, and as every year, there will be a conference with various sessions for suitable engineers and managers, as well as an exposition where companies showcase their latest ARM based products and solutions. The detailed schedule for the conference has just been made available. Last year, there were 90 sessions organized into 15 tracks, but this year, despite received 300 applications, the organizers decided to scale it down a bit, and there will be 75 session in the following 11 tracks: Chip Implementation Debugging Graphics Heterogeneous Compute New Frontiers Power Efficiency Safety and Security Software Development and Optimization Software Optimization for Infrastructure and Cloud System Design Verification There are also some paid workshops that take all day with topics such as “Android (NDK) and ARM overview”, “ARM and the Internet of Things”, or “ARM […]

June 11, 2014May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Linux 3.15 Released

Linus Torvalds announced the release of Linux Kernel 3.15 last Sunday: So I ended up doing an rc8 because I was a bit worried about some last-minute dcache fixes, but it turns out that nobody seemed to even notice those. We did have other issues during the week, though, so it was just as well. The futex fixes and cleanups may stand out, but as usual there’s various other random fixes since rc8 in there too: mainly drivers (drm, networking, sound, usb etc), networking, scheduling and perf tooling. But it’s all been fairly small and quiet, which *may* of course be due to the fact that last week was also the first week of the merge window for 3.16. That might have distracted some developers. I’m not entirely convinced I liked the overlap, but it seemed to work ok, and unless people scream really loudly (“Please don’t _ever_ do that again”) and give good […]

April 19, 2014May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Embedded Linux Conference 2014 Schedule

The Tenth Embedded Linux Conference (ELC 2014) will take place on April 29 – May 1, 2014 at the San Jose Marriott in San Jose, California. The event will feature 90+ sessions on embedded Linux, Android and IoT with over 450 attendees expected to attend. It will also be co-located with Android Builders Summit and the AllSeen Alliance Hackfest. Even if you can’t attend it’s still interesting to see what will be discussed at the event to get a grasp of on-going developments, learn a few things about different optimization techniques, and so on. So I’ve gone through the sessions’ description, and I’ve designed my own virtual schedule with sessions that could be of interest. April 29 9:00 – 9:30 – Keynote: The Paradox of embedded and Open Source by Tim Bird, Sony Mobile Linux has taken the embedded world by storm. Billions (with a ‘B’) of devices have now shipped […]

March 28, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Linaro 14.03 Release with Linux Kernel 3.14 and Android 4.4.2

Linaro 14.03 has just been released with Linux Kernel 3.14-rc7 (baseline), Linux Kernel 3.10.33 (LSK), and Android 4.4.2. This month, I could not find any major changes or updates, but work has been performed on big.LITTLE, Samsung Arndale / Arndale-octa, HiSilicon K3V2 and D01 boards and Broadcom Capri hardware, as well as ARMv8 models. Here are the highlights of this release: Linaro Stable Kernel (LSK) 3.10.33-2014.03 big.LITTLE support – ARM MP patch set, IKS (ARMv7 only). Interactive scheduler enhancements ARMv8 features – CPU frequency scaling, CPU topology, CPU suspend Power efficient workqueue support Android v3.10 patch set from AOSP GATOR ARMv8 4xA57 4xA53 FVP (Fixed Virtual Platform) and Versatile Express TC2 support Linux Linaro 3.14-rc7-2014.03 GATOR version 5.17 Android topic (linaro-android-3.14-merge) updated to get the recent code from AOSP uprobes v7 (new version) Updated big-LITTLE-pmu topic from ARM LT (Landing team) Updated basic Capri board support from Broadcom LT (bcm590xx […]

March 20, 2014March 20, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

OpenCL Accelerated SQL Database with ARM Mali GPU Compute Capabilities

We’ve previously seen GPU compute on ARM could improve performance for mobile, automotive and consumer electronics application. GPU compute offload CPU task that can be parallelized to the GPU using APIs such as OpenCL or RenderScript. Most applications that can leverage GPU compute are related to media processing (video decoding, picture processing, audio decoding, image reconigion, etc…), but one thing I did not suspect could be improve is database access. That’s what Tom Gall, Linaro, has achieved in a side project by using OpenCL to accelerate SQLite database operations by around 4 times for a given benchmark. The hardware used was a Samsung Chromebook with an Exynos 5250 SoC featurig a dual core Cortex A15 processor and an ARM Mali T604 GPU. CPU compute is only possible on ARM Mali T6xx and greater, and won’t work on Mali 400 / 450 GPUs. Other GPU vendors such as Vivante and Imagination […]

December 31, 2013May 25, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 37 Comments

Android 4.4.2 KitKat SDK Released for Rockchip RK3188 mini PCs: MK908, MK908 II, MK918 and A9

Shenzhen AW Technology Co Ltd, a company specializing in home entertainment equipment development, manufacturing, and sales, has just informed me they’ve released Android 4.4.2 SDK (Software Development Kit) for four Rockchip RK3188 devices, namely MK908, MK908 II, MK918, and A9. If you’ve never heard about A9, it looks very similar to the upcoming ZERO Devices Z6C. The four SDKs are available in the download page which links to baidu.com as follows: MK908 Android 4.4.2 SDK – password: lvlb MK908 II Android 4.4.2 SDK – password: wpwa MK918 Android 4.4.2 SDK – password: kafo A9 II Android 4.4.2 SDK – password: f1zb Each download section is composed of three files. For MK908, we’ll get: rk3188_4.4.2_without_kernel_20131230.tar.gz (3.85GB) – The Android SDK itself without Linux kernel readme.txt kernel_mk908_20131230.tar.gz – The kernel source code I haven’t completed the download yet, but the readme explains how to use build Android, and flash the SDK: After […]

December 13, 2013December 13, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Design a User Interface for MINIX NEO Devices and Win up to $5,000

MINIX, the company that designs and manufacture Android media player such as the MINIX NEO X7, has just launched the MINIX Developer Challenge, and offers prizes up to $5,000 to the best user interfaces for their Android TV Boxes. In order to participate, you’ll have to design a user interface that works on all the following Android devices: NEO X7, NEO X7mini, NEO X5, NEO X5mini, and NEO G4. The U.I designs will be judged on the following criteria: Ease of Navigation (using only the simple MINIX I.R remote) Functionality / ‘User Friendliness’ Aesthetics / Appearance Degree of Innovation / Creativity There will be three winners with cash prizes. The winner will get $5,000, the second $3,000, and the third $1,000. Here’s the timeline of the competition: December 13th – Competition opens February 9th (11:59pm GMT) – Deadline for submissions February 14th – Five Finalists announced & MINIX Forum voting […]