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November 17, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 25 Comments

WandPi 8M Development Board Coming Soon with NXP i.MX8M SoC for $89 and Up

Wandboard launched in 2012 using Freescale i.MX6 Solo/Dual processor, following soon after by Wandbord Quad. We are not hearing much about those boards today, but since the processor comes with 10 to 15-year long term support, they are still being sold, and software keeps getting updated. For example, the board first shipped with Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean), and the company recently provided Android 7.1 (Nougat) images, and Android 8.x Oreo is likely coming next year. The company has now unveiled the next generation of Wandboard boards with WandPi 8M powered by NXP i.MX 8M Cortex A53/M4 processors, with up to 2GB DDR4, 16GB eMMC flash, and various network connectivity options and ports. Three versions of the board (Lite, Pro, Deluxe) will be available with the following specifications: SoC – NXP i.MX8M Quad with four ARM Cortex A53 cores, a Cortex M4F real-time core, and Vivante GC7000Lite GPU with support for […]

November 15, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

TECHBASE ModBerry M300 Linux IoT Gateway is Powered by NanoPi NEO Board

We’ve previously covered TECHBASE Modberry industrial automation gateways based on popular development boards such as Raspberry Pi 3, NanoPi M1 Plus, and Intel Cherry Trail’s UP board, and designed for applications such as PLC controllers or MODBUS gateway / router. The company has now launched a new version with Modberry M300 powered NanoPi NEO Allwinner H3 board. ModBerry M300 gateway specifications: SoC – Allwinner H3 quad core Cortex A7 @ 1.2 GHz with an ARM Mali-400MP2 GPU System Memory – 512 MB DDR3 RAM Storage – micro SDHC card slot Connectivity 10/100M Ethernet port Optional Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11 b/g/n, speed up to 150 Mbps, 64/128-bit WEP, WPA, WPA2), LTE/3G modem, GPS module, ZigBee, Bluetooth, LoRa, Wireless M-Bus, Nb-IoT USB – 1x USB 2.0 host port, 2x USB 2.0 host header Expansion I/Os 2x DIO ports 1x RS-232, 1x RS-485 1x 2-pin mBus master for up to 10 slave devices Optional […]

November 12, 2017November 12, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 36 Comments

NanoPi Fire2A & Fire3 Boards Released with Samsung/Nexell Quad & Octa Core Processors

FriendlyElec previously launched NanoPi 2 Fire board powered by Samsung (Nexell) S5P4418 quad core Cortex A9 SoC, mostly interesting because of its small form factor, camera and LCD interfaces. The company has now launched two new boards based on S5Pxx18 processors, namely NanoPi Fire2A powered by S5P4418 SoC, and NanoPi Fire3 based on S5P6818 octa-core Cortex-A53 SoC. Both boards share the same form factor, which remains quite similar to the one of NanoPi 2 Fire, except the HDMI connector now makes place for a micro HDMI port, the USB 2.0 has moved into vertical position, and a few other tweaks have been made to positions of buttons and components. NanoPi Fire2A / Fire3 specifications: SoC Fire2A – Samsung S5P4418 quad core Cortex A9 processor @ up to 1.4GHz, Mali-400MP GPU Fire3 – Samsung S5P6818 octa core Cortex A53 processor @ up to 1.4 GHz, Mali-400MP GPU System Memory Fire2A – 512MB DDR3 […]

October 24, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Voladd Cloud-Connected Linux 3D Printer is Powered by BeagleBone Black Board (Crowdfunding)

So far, all of the 3D printers that have been reviewed on this blog require you to design or download a 3D object on your computer, and print it from an SD card. But thanks to OctoPrint software and cheap ARM Linux developments boards, it has become possible to add a Linux computer with webcam to remotely start and control the 3D printer for a few dozens dollars. Karl has even released an OctoPrint image for Orange Pi Lite board. Voladd 3D printer already embeds a Linux board, namely the BeagleBone Black running Debian, which allows the 3D printer to be easy to use since no software installation is required. You can start printing by selecting an object in a web browser or an app in your smartphone, and they’ve also taken steps to eliminate/reduce maintenance tasks, such as the inclusion of a filament cartridge. Voladd 3D printer specifications: Internal […]

October 11, 2017October 12, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 20 Comments

GNUBee Personal Cloud 2 is a DIY NAS Supporting up to Six 3.5″ SATA Drives (Crowdfunding)

GNUBee Personal Cloud 1 is a DIY NAS powered by Mediatek MT7621A MIPS processor that supports up to 2.5″ SATA drives, and runs free and open source software. It was first introduced in March of this year through a CrowdSupply campaign. The developers are now back with GNUBee Personal Cloud 2 (GB-PC2) with pretty much the same features, but instead of being designed for 2.5″ drives, it supports up to six 3.5″ drive that should offer either more capacity, or a lower total price for an equivalent capacity. GB-PC2 NAS specifications: Processor – MediaTek MT7621A dual core, quad thread MIPS processor @ 880 MHz, overclockable to 1.2 GHz System Memory – 512 MB DDR3 (max supported by MT7621) Storage – SD card slot tested up to 64 GB, 6x 3.5” SATA HDD or SSD (recommended RAID 0 or 1 under LVM, MD, or Linux MD RAID 10) Connectivity – 3x […]

October 6, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Hologram Unveils Nova 3G USB Dongle and Python SDK; 200 Raspberry Pi Zero W Kits Given Away to Developers

This summer I discovered Hologram global cellular IoT SIM card, and since they provided free developer samples with 2MB of monthly data includes, I decided to get one to try it out. I received it a few weeks later, and to my surprise it worked, despite my country of residence having some strict requirements with regards to SIM card registration. The SIM card uses roaming, but with a low fixed worldwide pricing, and does not come with a phone number by default, so maybe that’s why I did not have to register. The company is now back with Nova, an open source hardware cellular modem certified by OSHWA (ID #US000077). It’s basically 2G/3G USB dongle that’s controlled by Hologram Python SDK, specifically suited to Debian systems like Raspberry Pi 3 or BeagleBone Black. Hackster.io is also involved in the launch with a worldwide contest offering 200 free kits comprised of […]

September 27, 2017October 4, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments

Mecool VS-RK3399 Board Linux Benchmarks

I’ve just showed how to install Debian, and build a Linux image from source on VS-RD-RK3399 board (aka Mecool VS-RK3399) last week-end, but at the time I did not run any benchmarks on the board. We already have plenty of benchmarks for Rockchip RK3399 in Android, so instead I started by installing the latest Phoronix Test Suite in Debian:

sudo apt install php-cli php-gd php-xml php-zip 
wget http://phoronix-test-suite.com/releases/repo/pts.debian/files/phoronix-test-suite_7.4.0_all.deb 
sudo dpkg -i phoronix-test-suite_7.4.0_all.deb

sudo apt install php-cli php-gd php-xml php-zip

wget http://phoronix-test-suite.com/releases/repo/pts.debian/files/phoronix-test-suite_7.4.0_all.deb

sudo dpkg -i phoronix-test-suite_7.4.0_all.deb

… and ran the tests I did on NanoPi NEO 2 earlier:

phoronix-test-suite benchmark 1704029-RI-1704017RI65

1	phoronix-test-suite benchmark 1704029-RI-1704017RI65

For whatever reasons OpenSSL and Mafft failed to download, but we still have the other benchmarks to compare with. Note that the Debian image is likely not optimized, and while the system runs an Aarch64 kernel, the rootfs is only 32-bit, which may have affected some of the benchmarks.

linaro@linaro-alip:~$ file /bin/ls
/bin/ls: ELF 32-bit LSB shared object, ARM, EABI5 version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, interpreter /lib/ld-linux-armhf.so.3, for GNU/Linux 3.2.0, BuildID[sha1]=f10ece941515bd40f6aa48dd28ba481c8a17cace, stripped
linaro@linaro-alip:~$ uname -a
Linux linaro-alip 4.4.55 #474 SMP Tue Sep 5 09:09:33 CST 2017 aarch64 GNU/Linux
linaro@linaro-alip:~$

linaro@linaro-alip:~$ file /bin/ls

/bin/ls: ELF 32-bit LSB shared object, ARM, EABI5 version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, interpreter /lib/ld-linux-armhf.so.3, for GNU/Linux 3.2.0, BuildID[sha1]=f10ece941515bd40f6aa48dd28ba481c8a17cace, stripped

linaro@linaro-alip:~$ uname -a

Linux linaro-alip 4.4.55 #474 SMP Tue Sep 5 09:09:33 CST 2017 aarch64 GNU/Linux

linaro@linaro-alip:~$

But let’s see what’s we’ve got, starting with John the Ripper password cracker, a multi-threaded benchmark. We’d normally expect hardware platforms based on Rockchip RK3399 SoC to […]

September 27, 2017February 19, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 40 Comments

Banana Pi BPI-W2 is a Features-Packed Realtek RTD1296 Development Board

I’ve reviewed several Realtek RTD1295 platforms with Zidoo X9S and Eweat R9 Plus, and I was generally impressed by the storage, Ethernet, and WiFi performance. 4K video playback was good too, as long you don’t have any 4K H.264 videos at 30 fps or more. Most devices would also run Android and OpenWrt side-by-side bringing the best of both operating for respectively apps & multimedia, and server functions. HDMI input – with PVR, time-shifting and PiP functions – was also a bonus, However so far, nobody cared to design a maker board powered by RTD1295 processor. Since then we’ve learned Realtek was working on RTD1296 processor with even more Gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.0, and SATA interfaces, and SinoVoIP has now designed a board based on the SoC called Banana Pi BPI-W2. Banana Pi BPI-W2 preliminary specifications: SoC – Realtek RTD1296 quad core Cortex A53 processor with ARM Mali-T820 MP3 GPU […]