Category: Programming

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments on Google’s Portable Native Client Builds Architecture Independent Executable for Portability, and Better Performance

Google’s Portable Native Client Builds Architecture Independent Executable for Portability, and Better Performance

Native Client (NaCl) allows to build native C and C++, and runs it in the browser for maximum performance. Applications such as photo editing, audio mixing, 3D gaming and CAD modeling are already using it. The problem is that you have to build the code for different architecture such as ARM, MIPS or x86. To provide a portable binary, Google announced the Portable Native Client (PNaCl, pronounced pinnacle), which “lets developers compile their code once to run on any hardware platform and embed their PNaCl application in any website”. Instead of compiling C and C++ code directly to machine code, PNaCl generates a portable bitcode executable (pexe), which can be hosted on a web server. Chrome then loads this executable, and converts it into an architecture-specific machine executable (native executable – nexe) optimized for the device where the code runs. Bullet physics simulators (Shown below) and Lua interpreters are two […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on Linux Kernel 3.12 Released

Linux Kernel 3.12 Released

Linus Torvalds has announced the release of Linux Kernel 3.12: I was vacillating whether to do an rc8 or just cut the final 3.12, but since the biggest reason to *not* do a final release was not so much the state of the code, as simply the fact that I’ll be traveling with very bad internet connection next week, I didn’t really want to delay the release. Sure, we had a number of driver reverts, and there was an annoying auto-NUMA memory corruption fix series, but none of it was really worth delaying 3.12 for. But the fact that I’m going to be (effectively) off-line next week means that I’m *not* opening the merge window for 3.13 yet – since I won’t have the bandwidth to really do merges anyway. That doesn’t mean that you can’t send me pull request for the merge window early, of course – maintainers can […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on Google Announces LG Nexus 5 Smartphone with Android 4.4 KitKat

Google Announces LG Nexus 5 Smartphone with Android 4.4 KitKat

Google has partnered with LG and Nestle to bring to market the latest Nexus 5 smartphone featuring Android 4.4 “Kitkat”, the latest, and brand new, release of Android. Let’s first have a look at the device, and then we’ll go through the new features and improvement brought by Android 4.4. LG Nexus 5 Nexus 5 has the following technical specifications: SoC – Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 @ 2.26GHz with Adreno 330 GPU @ 450MHz System Memory – 2GB RAM Storage – 16 to 32 GB flash, but no microSD slot Display – 4.95″ touchscreen display with 1920×1080 resolution, Gorilla Glass 3 Connectivity – Dual band 802.11a/b/g/n/ac WiFi (2.4G/5G), Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, and GPS Celullar Networks – 2G/3G/4G LTE. GSM, CDMA, WCDMA, and LTE in North America, and GSM, WCDMA, and LTE for the rest of the world. Camera – 8MP rear camera with Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) and 1.3MP front camera […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on Linaro 13.08 Release With Linux Kernel 3.11 and Android 4.3

Linaro 13.08 Release With Linux Kernel 3.11 and Android 4.3

Linaro 13.08 has been released with Linux Kernel 3.11-rc6 (stating), Kernel 3.10.9 (LSK – beta), and Android 4.3. This month is the first release based on Android 4.3, which was only pushed to AOSP at the end of last month. I can also see work on new SoCs/hardware this month with Texas Instruments Keystone II ARM Cortex A15+DSP SoC and Fujitsu AA9 board (Which processor?, I could not find out). A lot of work also appears to have gone in OpenEmbedded, further optimizations have gone into NEON optimized AES encryption in OpenSSL, and more. It’s also the first time I can see a Ubuntu Raring engineering build image for HighBank (Calxeda Energycore). Here are the highlights of this release: Android Engineering Android stack was tuned to achieve 100% CTS pass result on Android 4.3 Analyzing the UEFI EDK II boot loader for Android completed, implementation of fastboot application and USB […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on LinuxCon Europe 2013 Schedule – Web Technologies, Debugging Techniques, Wayland, and More

LinuxCon Europe 2013 Schedule – Web Technologies, Debugging Techniques, Wayland, and More

I’ve just received an email from the Linux Foundation saying the schedule for LinuxCon and CloudOpen Europe 2013 had been made available. The conference will take place for 3 days (October 21-23, 2013) in the Edinburgh International Conference Center, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. There will be over 100 conference sessions, and several co-located events including: Automotive Linux Summit, the Embedded Linux Conference, Gluster Workshop, KVM Forum, Tizen Summit, Xen Project Developer Summit. As I’ve recently done with LinuxCon North America 2013 and ARM TechCon 2013, I’ll make a virtual schedule with selected developer sessions using the event’s schedule builder. You may find out several sessions will also be given in LinuxCon North America. Monday – 21st of October 11:00 – 11:50 – Bluetooth Smart Devices and Low Energy Support on Linux by João Paulo Rechi Vita, INdT This presentation will cover a brief introduction on how the Bluetooth Low Energy technology […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments on Rockchip RK3066 Android 4.2.2 HDMI TV Stick SDK Leaked

Rockchip RK3066 Android 4.2.2 HDMI TV Stick SDK Leaked

About 10 days ago, Android 4.2.2 SDK for MK908 (RK3188) HDMI TV Stick was leaked, and now, I’m reporting another leak, this time for the Android 4.2.2 SDK for the Android TV Boxes based on the older Rockchip RK3066 dual core processor. The files were first found on an FTP server, but one of Freaktab members uploaded a compressed image of all files, RK3066_R-BOX.7z (3.2GB) to MEGA.co.nz. The content of the SDK directory comes with a bit of documentation, AVC and VP8 encoding and decoding demos, and the SDK itself as a 3.2GB tar. I’ve haven’t download the file yet. If you switch to the parent directory, you’ll find more documentation such as several datasheets and RK3066 technical reference manual, hardware files (Schematics, PCB layout, BoM), and some manufacturing files. If you go up to the parent directory, you’ll also find an A20 directory with AllWinner A20 Android SDK (homlet […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments on MK908 Rockchip RK3188 mini PC Android 4.2.2 SDK Leaked

MK908 Rockchip RK3188 mini PC Android 4.2.2 SDK Leaked

We’ve had the Linux source code for RK3188 for a little while, which allowed a preliminary Ubuntu image to boot on devices such as Tronsmart T428. But AFAIK, we did not have any Android SDK for RK3188 HDMI TV Stick, until now. A new user on ARMTvTech has uploaded 5 rar files that can be decompressed into a single 3.2GB file called mk908_RK3188_R-BOX_ANDROID4.2.2-SDK.tar.gz. I’ve had a look, and this is the content of the file which appears to be a complete Android 4.2.2 SDK for MK908. There’s 2 documents in Chinese: mk908_checklist.doc – Apparently some instructions, or recommendations specific to Android MK908_checklist_kernel.docx – Some details about the kernel config There are also more documents and directories in RKTools/docs, but I haven’t checked the details:

Back to the root directory, we’ve got a Makefile, and mkimage.sh script, but both are called by 3188.sh script which apparently builds all, and generates […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments on NVIDIA Releases Source Code, Binaries, and Android Build Instructions for the SHIELD Gaming Console

NVIDIA Releases Source Code, Binaries, and Android Build Instructions for the SHIELD Gaming Console

This morning I’ve read bad news for the open source community. Jean-Baptiste Quéru, leader of the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) has decided to quit the project because AOSP cannot run on the latest Nexus 7 as Qualcomm (lawyers) impeded the project, and Google is unable to released factory images or necessary binary drivers for the GPU. But there’s also good news, as Nvidia has just released source code and binaries to allow developers to fully build an Android image for its SHIELD gaming console. If you want to build an image for the latest image available, following the steps below. Get the code

Build the Android image (Provided you’ve already setup your Linux PC do build AOSP):

Done (mp dev took  about one hour for my machine). You should now have the required binary images in out/target/product/roth/ directory. Enter fastboot mode before flashing the binaries by one […]

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UP 7000 x86 SBC