SBC Case Builder v3.0 can create thousands of cases for popular SBCs and standard motherboards (mini-ITX, Pico-ITX, NUC…)

SBC Case Builder V3.0

SBC Case Builder V3.0 case design utility has just been released with the ability to create over 1,000 standard cases – not including customization – for popular SBCs from Raspberry Pi, Hardkernel, Orange Pi, Radxa, and others, as well as standard motherboards following Mini-ITX, Pico-ITX, NUC, Nano-ITX, etc.., and SBC adapters following these standards, meaning you could install a Raspberry Pi 5 into a mini-ITX case if needed. SBC Case Builder started as a command line utility for designing DIY case for SBCs relying on OpenSDAD in April 2022, but Edward Kisiel (hominoids) quickly released version 2 with a GUI in October or the same, and has now further improved the utility with the release of SBC Case Builder v3.0. Version 3.0 comes with many improvements but the main focus was to reuse existing and new PC standard form factor cases by creating SBC adapters and custom I/O Shields since […]

Kamvas Pro 16 (2.5K) review – A 15.8-inch drawing tablet and stylus with 8192 levels of pressure sensitivity

HUION Kamvas Pro 16 2.5K drawing tablet review

HUION Kamvas Pro 16 (2.5K) is a 15.8-inch drawing tablet with 2.5K resolution that comes with a stylus supporting 8192 levels of pressure. The company sent us a review sample, so I’ll test it as an external display in Windows 11 and Ubuntu 22.04, and check the drawing functions of the Kamvas Pro 16 with the stylus as well as other potential use cases. Kamvas Pro 16 (2.5K) specifications (model GT1602) But before that, let’s list the specifications of the display: Panel – 15.8-inch (diagonal) IPS display at 60 Hz Resolution – 2560 x 1440 (16:9) QHD PPI (Pixels Per Inch) – 186 Active Area – 349.6 x 196.7 mm Contrast Ratio – 1200:1 Brightness – 220nit (Max.) Response Time – 14ms Viewing Angle – 178° (89°/89°(H)/89°/89°(V) (Typ.)(CR>10)) Color Gamut Volume – 145% sRGB Color Gamut Coverage – 99% sRGB / 99% Adobe RGB Colors – 16.7M (8-bit) Surface Finish […]

Vivante NPU (found in Amlogic A311D) gets its open-source driver upstreamed to Mesa

Vivante NPU open source

The Teflon project is an open-source TensorFlow Lite delegate that currently supports VeriSilicon Vivante NPU and aims to support several other AI accelerators over time. The project has recently been upstreamed to Mesa meaning AI inference with open-source software will work out of the box in supported hardware once Mesa 24.1 is released in May 2024. Teflon relies on the Etnaviv open-source driver better known for working with Vivante GPUs found, for instance, in NXP i.MX processors, but Tomeu Vizoso also worked on implementing Vivante NPU support since May 2022 thanks to a sponsorship from Libre Computer and documented the development progress on this blog. The VeriSilicon Vivante “VIPNano-QI.7120” 5 TOPS NPU is found in the Amlogic A311D processor, and Tomeu tested Teflon with the Etnaviv NPU drive on both the Libre Computer AML-A311D-CC Alta and Khadas VIM3 single board computers with decent performance although still slower than with the […]

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

Linux 6.7 release

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 […]

International Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2023 deals and coupon codes

Alixexpress Black Friday 2023

We’ve been writing about international Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals and coupon codes since 2014, as US-centric promotions such as Amazon’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals are not always available to the international audience of CNX Software. So once again, we’ve searched at Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2023 international promotions and discount codes from specific manufacturers as well as popular online stores such as Aliexpress, Banggood, and others. Aliexpress Black Friday and Cyber Monday event Aliexpress will have a Black Friday (and Cyber Monday) event in 2023, but we have limited details at this time since it will only start on November 23, contrary to some of the other deals we’ll feature below which are already up and running. But the event will have two periods: Nov 20-22 PT – Warm Up event where users can find and add items to the cart before purchasing during the […]

Linux 6.6 LTS release – Highlights, Arm, RISC-V and MIPS architectures

Linux 6.6 release

The Linux 6.6 release has just been announced by Linus Torvalds on the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML): So this last week has been pretty calm, and I have absolutely no excuses to delay the v6.6 release any more, so here it is. There’s a random smattering of fixes all over, and apart from some bigger fixes to the r8152 driver, it’s all fairly small. Below is the shortlog for last week for anybody who really wants to get a flavor of the details. It’s short enough to scroll through. This obviously means that the merge window for 6.7 opens tomorrow, and I appreciate how many early pull requests I have lined up, with 40+ ready to go. That will make it a bit easier for me to deal with it, since I’ll be on the road for the first week of the merge window. Linus About two months ago, […]

Khadas Mind Premium review – Part 3: Ubuntu 22.04 tested on an Intel Core i7-1360P mini PC

Khadas Mind Ubuntu 22.04 Review

Khadas Mind Premium is an ultra-thin mini PC powered by an Intel Core i7-1360P Raptor Lake processor and supports various docks through the Khadas Link connector. We reviewed the mini PC with the Mind Dock in Windows 11 a few weeks ago, and we’ve now had time to install Ubuntu 22.04 to check out the mini PC with Linux. Installing Ubuntu 22.04 on Khadad Mind Premium We decided to install Ubuntu 22.04 alongside Windows 11, so we shrank the Windows partition by about half before inserting a Ubuntu 22.04.3 USB drive to install the Linux distribution. This went smoothly, and in no time we could run Ubuntu 22.04 on Khadas Mind Premium with just two cables, one for power, and the other for the display (both video and power) as we used a wireless mouse and keyboard for user input. Ubuntu 22.04.3 system information The system information in Ubuntu 22.04.3 […]

Khadas Mind Review – An ultra-thin Core i7-1360P mini PC tested with Windows 11

Khadas Mind Review Windows 11

We wrote about the Khadad Mind portable mini PC a few weeks ago with quite a unique design bringing the Intel Core i7-1360P Raptor Lake processor to a super thin design and enabling extension through the Mind Link connector with PCIe, HDMI 2.1, and USB 3.2 Gen 2 interfaces. We’ve now had time to test the Khadas Mind with the Khadas Dock adding 2.5GbE, two HDMI ports, and several 5 Gbps USB connectors, as well as an audio jack and a full-size SD card reader with the Windows 11 Home operating system, so we’ll report our experience that has been mostly positive. Software overview and features testing The Khadas Mind ships with Windows 11 Home 22H2 build 22621.1992 and the System About menu confirms we have a mini PC equipped with an Intel Core i7-1360P processor with 32GB RAM. HWiNFO64 provides more details about the Core i7-1360P processor, Khadas Mind […]

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