Category: Testing

QA & Testing procedure, software and more.

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments on Using M12N Android Amlogic S912 TV Box as a Game Console (Video)

Using M12N Android Amlogic S912 TV Box as a Game Console (Video)

When Amlogic announced S912 processor, they mentioned it would target not only 4K OTT and IP set-top boxes, but also gaming consoles thanks to a faster and better Mali-T820MP3 GPU compared to the Mali-450MP GPU found in their previous S905 and S805 processor, and we’ve already seen that S912 is indeed faster in 3D benchmarks. So I decided to play several games to show the performance, the pre-loaded retro gaming app, and for people who have never used a TV box to play games show what it looks like, and how to play using M12N TV box, in conjunction with MINIX NEO A2 Lite air mouse and Tronsmart Mars G01 wireless gamepad. I played four games downloaded from the Play Store or Amazon Underground: Candy Crush Saga with air mouse Beach Buggy Racing and Riptide GP2 with the gamepad Dead Trigger with the air mouse in menus, and the gamepad […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 26 Comments on Amlogic Releases Linux 3.14 Source Code for S905X, S905D, and S912 Processors, Has Started Working on Linux 4.4 / Android 7.0

Amlogic Releases Linux 3.14 Source Code for S905X, S905D, and S912 Processors, Has Started Working on Linux 4.4 / Android 7.0

Amlogic has just released buildroot with Linux 3.14 with support for Amlogic S905X (p212 board), S905D (p230 board), and S912 (Q200 board) processors, and the company appears to have started working on Linux 4.4 likely for future support for Android 7.0. You can check the source code as follows:

If you have the wrong toolchain the code won’t build (See comments section). So I installed several toolchains provided by Amlogic (all may not be needed) in /opt:

I also downloaded a shell script to add the toolchains to my path:

Once toolchains are setup, you can select one of three boards config (Q200 / S912 as example) and start building the code:

If you are interested in S905X or S905D instead, use respectively mesongxl_p212_release_defconfig or mesongxl_p230_release_defconfig. I built both S912:

and S905X images successfully:

Separately, you can also find buildroot for Linux 4.4, but […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments on Magic Device Tool Helps You Switch Between Android and Ubuntu on Supported Phones

Magic Device Tool Helps You Switch Between Android and Ubuntu on Supported Phones

There have only been a few phones released with or supporting Ubuntu so far, and those phones will normally be able to run Android too since Ubuntu Touch relies on Android drivers, and you may decide that Ubuntu is not for you and switch back to Android, or the contrary, if you’ve purchased an Android phone, you may want to install Ubuntu instead. In order to simplify the task of installing operating systems, Marius Quabeck has developed “Magic Device Tool“. As you can see from the screenshot above, 13 phones and tablets are currently supported. You’ll need a computer with Ubuntu 15.04 or greater to install the tool, and I’ve done so on Ubuntu 16.04:

The script will also install phablet-tools if it is not already installed,  so if you are not root, you’ll need your account to be member of sudoers. Once the initial setup is done, you’ll […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 18 Comments on Getting Started with B&T RTL-00 RTL8710 Module – Serial Console, AT Commands, and ESP8266 Pin-to-Pin Compatibility

Getting Started with B&T RTL-00 RTL8710 Module – Serial Console, AT Commands, and ESP8266 Pin-to-Pin Compatibility

The announcement of the ultra-low cost ARM based Realtek RTL8710 WiFi modules for IoT applications generated quite a lot of buzz since they can potentially compete with the popular ESP8266 modules. The main problem at the time was documentation and software support, but after some searches we could find that RTL8710 was part of Realtek Ameba family, and found some documents and an SDK for RTL8710/RTL8711/RTL8195. ICStation also kindly provided one B&T RTL-00 module for review, which costs $3.55 shipped per unit, and as low as $2.85 if you purchase 10 or more. The question here is how to get started? The answer can be found in page 8 of the Chinese datasheet for the module with GB0 and GB1 pins used for Tx and Rx to access the serial console. Time for some soldering… For the first test, we’ll just need Tx (GB1), Rx (GB0), GND and 3.3V, and […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 19 Comments on M12N Amlogic S912 TV Box Benchmarks

M12N Amlogic S912 TV Box Benchmarks

Since Shenzhen Shiningworth MXQ Plus M12N is my first TV box powered by Amlogic S912 octa-core processor, I’ve decided to write a separate post to show system information with CPU-Z, and benchmark results with Antutu 6.x, Vellamo 3.x, and 3Dmark Ice Storm Extreme. Please note that it may not be representative of all Amlogic S912 boards, as mentioned in the teardown post, there are some concerns about the thermal design of M12N TV box. M12N / Amlogic S912 System Info I’ve merged CPU-Z’ SOC, DEVICE and SYSTEM data into a single table. The app correctly detects an 8 core Cortex A53 processor @ 100 MHz to 2.02 GHz with an ARM Mali-T820 GPU. The brand for this particurlar device is MXQ, and Model m12n. Frame buffer resolution is 1920×1080, and memory and storage data are both OK for a box with 2GB and 16GB flash. The device runs Android 6.0.1 […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments on How-to Setup a DLNA/UPnP Server in Linux for Smoother Video Streaming with Kodi and Other Media Players

How-to Setup a DLNA/UPnP Server in Linux for Smoother Video Streaming with Kodi and Other Media Players

I’m normally playing videos from a SAMBA share installed in a Ubuntu PC to play files from Kodi in Android TV box reviews, but sometimes when I use 10/100 Ethernet, or worse WiFi local “streaming” may not be as smooth as possible. SAMBA is convenient because of access control and read write operations, but if you want to get a bit more performance, you may switch to NFS instead, or like I’ve going to show you here to a DLNA / UPnP server to stream videos locally from Kodi 16.1. There are several options, but MiniDLNA is lightweight compared to MediaTomb, so it will also run on lower end hardware like cheap ARM Linux development boards like Raspberry Pi, Orange Pi, or NanoPi NEO without taking too many resources. Installation is very easy in Debian / Ubuntu distributions, and I supposed this should also work with Windows Subsystem for Linux […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments on 4K VP9, H.265 and H.264 Video Playback in Amlogic S912 M12N TV Box

4K VP9, H.265 and H.264 Video Playback in Amlogic S912 M12N TV Box

I’ve received my first Amlogic S912 TV box with MXQ Plus M12N TV box this week-end, and I’ve decided to start testing by showing the media capabilities of the platform that is supposed to support 4K VP9 up to 60Hz, 4K 10-bit H.265 up to 60Hz and 4K H.264 up to 30 Hz. I connected the device to Onkyo TX-NR636 A/V recevier itself connected to  LG 42UB820T 4K UHD TV, set video output to 2160p @ 60Hz, and played several 4K video samples from a USB hard drive using the pre-installed version of Kodi 16.1: 4K Hawaii Sunset _ GoPro Hero 4 Black 4k@30fps-I7CycuMpQ3w.webm (Downloaded from YouTube) – OK Beauty_3840x2160_120fps_420_8bit_HEVC_MP4.mp4 (H.265 @ 30 fps – No audio) – OK big_buck_bunny_4k_H264_30fps.mp4 (H.264 @ 30 fps – MPEG1/2 and AC3 audio) – OK big_buck_bunny_4k_H264_60fps.mp4 (H.264 @ 60 fps – MPEG1/2 and AC3 audio) – Video a bit choppy, large audio delay. Expected […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments on GOLE1 mini PC Tablet Review – Part 2: Android 5.1 and Windows 10

GOLE1 mini PC Tablet Review – Part 2: Android 5.1 and Windows 10

GOLE1, also called GOLE1 F1, is an interesting device because it’s quite difficult, it’s like the offspring of a mini PC and a tablet with a smallish  phone-like 5″ capacitive touch screen. It also dual boot Windows 10 and Android 5.1. I’ve already discussed about the hardware, and taken picture of the device, accessories, and motherboard, in the first part of the review, so today I’ll report my experiences with Windows 10 and Android 5.1, as well as the potential use cases. Since I’ve already reviewed Intel Atom x5-Z8300 mini PCs, as well as a dual boot Windows and Android Intel mini PC, I’ll focus on what makes GOLE1 different in this review. GOLE1 Dual Boot and Use Cases I normally check my emails on my smartphone while having breakfast in the morning, but one day the charging micro USB cable was not connected properly to my phone, so I […]

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