Linux

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on AMD Introduces AMD G-T16R G-Series APU with 2.3 Watts Power Consumption

AMD Introduces AMD G-T16R G-Series APU with 2.3 Watts Power Consumption

AMD has unveiled another APU in its Embedded G-Series processor family with the AMD Embedded G-T16R, which aims to provide a more powerful (up to 3x) and less power-hungry (7% less) replacement to AMD Geode LX processors. The AMD G-T16R is targeted at very low power, small form factor and cost-sensitive embedded designs. The company claims the processor consumes about 2.3 watts on average or 4.5 watts thermal design power (TDP). This new AMD embedded processor targets industrial control, point-of-sale, medical appliance and transportation markets.  As with the other G-Series platforms, the G-T16R can fit into small form factor boards by implementing a two-chip platform: APU + controller hub. AMD G-T16R is clocked at 615MHz, features a Radeon HD 6250 GPU and supports 1920×1200 resolution via VGA, single link DVI and DisplayPort 1.1a video outputs. It can also output 1080p via HDMI and LVDS. The APU supports Windows Embedded Compact […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 20 Comments on List of 39 Low Cost Linux Friendly Boards and Products

List of 39 Low Cost Linux Friendly Boards and Products

Dmitry (omgfire), one of my awesome readers, compiled a great tabular list of Linux friendly boards and products that sells for less than $300 US (usually less than $200). This list includes technical details such as the processor, GPU, memory, NAND flash, connectivity, ports, supported Linux distributions… as well as availability and pricing information. There are currently 39 Linux devices in total. The vast majority are ARM based boards, but he also included 2 x86 products by VIA, but those are relatively pricey ($265 and up). Here’s a summary list with SoCs used, links to blog posts and product pages (if available), as well as price information. Raspberry Pi Model B – Broadcom BCM2835 (ARM11) – Blog post (That’s my first post about the R-Pi last year, and the board is much different now) –  Product page – Price: $35 + shipping Rikomagic MK802 – Allwiner A10 (Cortex A8) –  […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on The Future of ARM Linux by David Rusling, Linaro CTO

The Future of ARM Linux by David Rusling, Linaro CTO

David Rusling, Linaro CTO, gave a presentation about the future of ARM Linux at Linaro Connect, in Hong Kong, at the end of May, where he discussed the current status of ARM Linux for mobile, consumer and enterprise markets, the future of ARM Linux and Linaro involvement. He started by saying what he wants personally: A mobile phone that can’t be easily hacked, with 10 hours of battery life for any kind of applications and data must be synchronized in the cloud. The second slide entitled “Future”, but it looked like more the present to me, addresses 3 markets: Mobile: Android vs. iOS, although Windows 8 is coming Post PC: The desktop fades and laptop/tablet merge (think Asus Transformer) Enterprise: Cooling and Power is key and the enterprise is ready for innovation, meaning it will start using ARM platforms. He then focuses on Linux explaining that Android has been the […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on Collabora and Fluendo Release GStreamer SDK 2012.5 Amazon

Collabora and Fluendo Release GStreamer SDK 2012.5 Amazon

Last week, Collabora and Fluendo jointly announced the release of an open source software development kit (SDK ) for GStreamer multimedia framework. The SDK aims at easing the integration of Gstreamer  into projects and provides a pre-built version of the framework which is available for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X. GStreamer is used in many Linux applications such as media players (Rhythmbox, Banshee and Amarok),  video editors (PitiVi), and media centers such as XBMC among other applications. It’s also often the framework used to play videos on ARM platforms with implementations for OMAP 4/5 and devices compliant with the OpenMAX standard. Gstreamer website has also been updated and provides links to download GStreamer SDK and documentation on the home page. The new documentation looks pretty good with fives main sections: Instructions for installing the SDK on Linux (Ubuntu, Debian and Fedora), Windows or Mac OS. 11 basic and 2 advanced tutorials. […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 81 Comments on Hardware Packs for AllWinner A10 Devices and Easier Method to Create a Bootable Ubuntu 12.04 SD Card

Hardware Packs for AllWinner A10 Devices and Easier Method to Create a Bootable Ubuntu 12.04 SD Card

Linaro has a tool called linaro-media-create to install Linaro Ubuntu to an SD card by passing the device, hardware pack file, the rootfs and the board as arguments. Hardware packs are files that contains hardware specific binaries and configs files (e.g. bootloader, kernel…). I’ve done something similar (albeit more basic) for AllWinner A10 devices so that you can easily install and run Ubuntu (and possibly other distributions) on an SD card. I’ve written 2 scripts for this: a10-hwpack-bld.sh – Script to generate evb.bin, build the latest u-boot and linux kernel, retrieve some config files and compress all this in an hardware pack file a1x-media-create.sh – Script to make a bootable SD card for AllWinner A10 devices. You can get the scripts with git:

I’ve only tested it with Mele A1000, but if you have other A10 devices such as MK802 mini PC or MINI X media player, it should […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments on GeneralPlus GP3300 Cortex A8 Processor and Android Tablet Reference Design

GeneralPlus GP3300 Cortex A8 Processor and Android Tablet Reference Design

I’ve recently come across Eken D70 Tablet which is a typical 7″ Android ICS tablet, except it’s product description shows a Cortex A8 chip called GP33003. After some research, I found that this chipset is provided by GeneralPlus (previously part of Sunplus). GP3300x application processor features a cortex A8 clocked at 1 GHz together with a PowerVR SGX531 GPU, and comes in 216pins LQFP package.  This SoC integrates LVDS and HDMI, and the company told me that the GP33XX targets “higher resolution displays, but still keep the lower PCB cost, compared to its current competitors”.  It also features an hardware video decoder and encoder (up to 1080p), and can handle a 720p full-duplex video conference. That’s about all the information I could get about the SoC itself. I’ll update this post If I find out more. The company also provides a tablet reference design (GP3300xA Tablet) with the following specifications: […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on Advantech RSB-4210: Freescale i.MX53 Single Board Computer

Advantech RSB-4210: Freescale i.MX53 Single Board Computer

Advantech has just launched the RSB-4210, a fanless and heatsink-less RISC Single Board (RSB) powered by Freescale i.MX53 (Cortex A8) with 512 MB DDR3 and 2 GB NAND Flash. This board can operate in industrial temperature range (-40 to 85° C) and targets industrial control, digital signage, HMI/kiosk, medical, and portable applications. Here are the key features of this board: Freescale ARMCortex-A8 i.MX536 @ 800MHz Supports OpenGL ES 2.0 and OpenVG 1.1 hardware accelerators Supports full HD 1080p video decode and HD 720p hardware video encode Video Output LCD support with resolution up to 1920×1080 (default 800×480) via LVDS connector HDMI VGA Touch, UART, I2C, I2S, SPI, GPIO, USB Supports SATA storage interface and CAN-bus for vehicle applications Dimensions – 146 x 102 x 20 mm Power – 9 ~ 24 V DC with 3-watt power consumption Operating temperature – -40 ~ 85° C If you don’t mind about the […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on Dell Announces Copper ARM Servers Based on Marvell ARMADA XP SoC

Dell Announces Copper ARM Servers Based on Marvell ARMADA XP SoC

It looks like 2012 will be the year of ARM servers. After previous announcements of ARM servers based on Calxeda and Applied Micro SoC, Dell has just announced its own “Copper” ARM servers powered by Marvell ARMADA XP SoC (MV78460) that allegedly runs Ubuntu Server with a LAMP stack. Dell “Copper” ARM server is composed of 12 sleds with 4 SoC each slotted into a 3U C5000 Chassis. Here are the specs: Form factor 3U chassis 48 independent servers Architecture 1S 1.6GHz, quadcore Marvell Armada XP system on a chip (SoC) 4 discrete server nodes per sled 12 sleds per 3U chassis Memory 1 DIMM slot DDR3 UDIMM VLP, 1333MHz up to 8GB per node Drive bays 1 x 2.5″ SATA per node Hard disk drives 2.5″ SATA (7.2K rpm) Networking 1GB Marvell Ethernet uplink per node (QSGMII) connected to Marvell Integrated L2 Switch (98DX4122) Dell believes that ARM based […]

UP 7000 x86 SBC