friendlyarm News - CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

September 13, 2024September 13, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 26 Comments

NanoPi Zero2 is a tiny headless Arm Linux computer with Gigabit Ethernet, a USB port, and an M.2 Key-E socket for WiFi

FriendlyELEC NanoPi Zero2 is one of the world’s smallest Arm Linux computers with the 45x45mm board featuring a Rockchip RK3528A quad-core Cortex-A53 processor, up to 2GB RAM, microSD and eMMC flash module sockets for storage, a Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 jack, an M.2 socket for WiFi, a USB Type-A port, and a 30-pin GPIO FPC connector for expansion. When I went to find more information about the earlier NanoPi Zero, I quickly realized… it did not exist, and the closest thing we have is the ZeroPi released in 2019 with an Allwinner H3 Cortex-A7 processor and an even smaller 40x40mm form factor. The NanoPi Zero2 comes with a 64-bit processor, more memory, and optional support for an M.2 WiFi module among other improvements. It’s designed for headless applications since there’s no video output/display interface. NanoPi Zero2 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3528A CPU – Quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 @ 2.0 GHz GPU – […]

August 28, 2024August 28, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 26 Comments

NanoPi R3S – A low-cost Rockchip RK3566 SBC and dual gigabit Ethernet router

FriendlyELEC NanoPi R3S is a low-cost Rockchip RK3566 SBC and router with two gigabit Ethernet ports, a USB 3.0 host ports, a USB-C port for power and data, a microSD card slot, Reset and Mask buttons, and a few LEDs. It also features a MIPI DSI connector for people wanting to connect a display. Its design and size are similar to the NanoPi R5C dual 2.5GbE SBC and router, so it could be viewed as a low-cost alternative with dual GbE, no M.2 socket for WiFi & Bluetooth, only one USB 3.0 port, and no HDMI video output. The company promotes it as an inexpensive platform for IoT applications, basic NAS solutions, and so on. NanoPi R3S specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3566 CPU – Quad-core Cortex-A55 processor @ up to 2.0 GHz GPU – Arm Mali-G52 MP2 GPU NPU – 0.8 TOPS AI accelerator VPU 4Kp60 H.265/H.264/VP9 video decoder 1080p60 […]

August 20, 2024August 20, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

NanoPi M6 – A Rockchip RK3588S SBC and fanless HMI solution with an integrated 3.5-inch touchscreen display

NanoPi M6 is a Rockchip RK3588S SBC (single board computer) that is also offered as a complete fanless HMI solution with a metal case and a 3.5-inch capacitive touchscreen display with 800×480 resolution. The M6 is offered with 4GB to 32GB LPDDR5 memory, supports microSD, eMMC flash module, and M.2 NVMe SSD bootable storage, features one HDMI 2.1 port, two MIPI DSI connectors, two MIPI CSI camera connectors, gigabit Ethernet, an M.2 E-Key socket for WiFi and Bluetooth, and a 30-pin GPIO header for expansion among a few other ports and features. NanoPi M6 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3588S CPU – Octa-core processor with 4x Cortex-A76 cores @ up to 2.4 GHz, 4x Cortex-A55 cores @ up to 1.8 GHz GPU – Arm Mali-G610 MP4 GPU compatible with OpenGL ES 3.2, OpenCL 2.2, and Vulkan 1.2 APIs VPU – 8Kp60 video decoder for H.265/AVS2/VP9/H.264/AV1 codecs, 8Kp30 H.265/H.264 video encoder AI […]

July 23, 2024July 23, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

tinySniffer WiFi-connected USB sniffer is based on NanoPi NEO Air SBC

TinySniffer is a USB sniffer based on the Allwinner H3-powered NanoPi Neo Air SBC, designed to capture USB 1.x and 2.0 packets remotely, and whose captured data is compatible with the popular Wireshark packet analyzer tool. Wireshark can already be used to capture USB packets on its own and I reverse-engineered a USB capture video solution that way in the past, but this method has some limitations, for instance, it does not capture some low-level USB packets, in which case a hardware USB sniffer like Total Phase Beagle USB, the PhyWhisperer USB, or the tinySniffer is required. The micro USB OTG port of the NanoPi NEO Air SBC is connected to the host computer and the company added a USB 2.0 Type-A port connected to the USB interface on the GPIO header to connect a device under test such as a USB keyboard, a USB Ethernet dongle, a USB printer, […]

June 4, 2024June 3, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

SBC software news – Armbian 24.5.1, DietPi 9.4, and Otii server for the Raspberry Pi 4/5

There’s been some notable software news for single board computers (SBCs) in the last few weeks with the release of Armbian 24.5.1 Havier with a focus on stability and UX improvement, the release of DietPi 9.4 lightweight Debian distritions for SBCs, and Otii server, the software for Qoitech Arc power supply, meter, and DAQ, has been finally released for the Raspberry Pi 4/5. Armbian 24.5.1 Havier Armbian announced 24.5.1 Havier on May 25 with bug fixes and improvements as a point release, but also some new boards. Here are some of the highlights. New boards Orange Pi 5 Pro FriendlyElec CM3588 NAS board Radxa ROCK 5 ITX Radxa Zero 3E/3W Avaota A1 SBC SK-AM68 board tqma8mpxl board CSC Hinlink H6xk boards RK3588-based Cool Pi CM5 EVB Improve Khadas support Resolve Rockchip patch maintenance nightmare Add functionality to freeze git resources Improve support for Radxa Rock S 0 and test USB […]

May 5, 2024May 6, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 16 Comments

LibreELEC 12 released with Kodi 21, 64-bit Arm support for Raspberry Pi 4/5, and platforms

As one should have expected after the Kodi 21 “Omega” release last month, the LibreELEC 12 lightweight Linux media center distribution is now out with many devices updated to 64-bit, including the Rasberry Pi 4 and 5 SBCs. LibreELEC 11 was released last year based on Kodi 20 “Nexus” and bringing back support for Amlogic devices. LibreELEC 12 builds on that and benefits from the new features added to Kodi 21 such as FFmpeg 6 and works on Arm platforms based on Allwinner, Amlogic, Broadcom (Raspberry Pi), and Rockchip processors, as well as generic x86 computers. It’s an easy option to create a dedicated HTPC based on a range of hardware with all the features brought by Kodi 21 media center. Since so many platforms are supported there are always some limitations for each and known problems: Raspberry Pi – 50/60fps H.264 HW decoding may need force_turbo=1 or core_freq_min=500 in […]

January 8, 2024January 8, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

NanoPC-T6 LTS SBC adds USB ports, 32MB SPI flash, drops 4G LTE support

NanoPC-T6 LTS is an update to the Rockchip RK3588-powered NanoPC-T6 SBC introduced in May 2023, which removes the mini PCIe socket and SIM card slot for 4G LTE connectivity, but adds two USB 2.0 ports, a USB-C debug port, a 10-pin header with UART and USB 2.0, and comes with 32MB SPI flash by default. The single board computer is offered with up to 16GB RAM and 256GB eMMC flash and also features M.2 sockets for NVMe storage and a wireless module, two 2.5GbE RJ45 ports, two HDMI 2.1 output ports, one HDMI 2.0 input port, MIPI DSI and CSI interfaces, and a 40-pin GPIO header for expansion. NanoPC-T6 LTS specifications with changes in bold or strikethrough: SoC – Rockchip RK3588 CPU – Octa-core processor with 4x Cortex-A76 cores @ up to 2.4 GHz, 4x Cortex-A55 cores @ 1.8 GHz GPU – Arm Mali-G610 MP4 GPU with support for OpenGL […]

January 8, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Linux 6.7 release – Main changes, Arm, RISC-V, and MIPS architectures

Linus Torvalds has just announced the release of Linux 6.7, following Linux 6.6 LTS a little over two months ago: So we had a little bit more going on last week compared to the holiday week before that, but certainly not enough to make me think we’d want to delay this any further. End result: 6.7 is (in number of commits: over 17k non-merge commits, with 1k+ merges) one of the largest kernel releases we’ve ever had, but the extra rc8 week was purely due to timing with the holidays, not about any difficulties with the larger release. The main changes this last week were a few DRM updates (mainly fixes for new hw enablement in this version – both amd and nouveau), some more bcachefs fixes (and bcachefs is obviously new to 6.7 and one of the reasons for the large number of commits), and then a few random […]