Linux News - Page 445 of 451 - CNX Software

August 1, 2011August 7, 2011 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Calao Snowball Development Boards Are now Available

Earlier in February, ST Ericsson had announced the availability of development boards running Linaro based on their Nova A9500 processor. 4 different development kits based on this platform can now be purchased online on Calao store: SKY-S9500-ULP-C22 (SNOWBALL SDK LITE – Without WLAN/BT/GPS) – 155.73 Euros SKY-S9500-ULP-C32 (SNOWBALL PDK LITE – Without WLAN/BT/GPS) – 226.22 Euros SKY-S9500-ULP-C12 (SNOWBALL SDK) – 164.59 Euros SKY-S9500-ULP-C02 (SNOWBALL PDK) – 241.47 Euros The differences between the SDK (Software Development Kit) and PDK (Production Development Kit) are that the former has no expansion connectors, no battery backup for RTC and only support serial over USB port (for Linux console). Finally, the PDK has a larger e-MMC (8GB vs. 4GB). The price mentioned above exclude VAT (if applicable) and shipping costs. Please note that the boards can be shipped to many countries but not anywhere worldwide (e.g. Shipping is not available to Thailand) and you’ll need to […]

May 8, 2011May 8, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

25 USD ARM11 Linux Computer

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has designed a 25 USD Linux computer prototype for computer education in both the developing and developed worlds. The foundation, a registered British charity, plans to develop, manufacture, and distribute the USB key-sized computer within the next 12 months. Their computer has a USB key form factor and is designed to plug into a TV or be combined with a touch screen for a low-cost tablet. Provisional specifications: 700MHz ARM11 128MB of SDRAM OpenGL ES 2.0 1080p30 H.264 high-profile decode Composite and HDMI video output USB 2.0 SD/MMC/SDIO memory card slot General-purpose I/O Open software (Ubuntu, Iceweasel, KOffice, Python) This device is much cheaper than OLPC XO (target price 100 USD), however, it does not include a keyboard, display nor batteries, so the market is different as it won’t work in places where electricity is unreliable. Watch the video below of David Braben introducing the 25 […]

April 29, 2011August 23, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

Yocto Project: Build Your Own Custom Embedded Kernel Image

The Yocto Project is an open source collaboration project that provides templates, tools and methods to help you create custom Linux-based systems for embedded products regardless of the hardware architecture. The first official release (Yocto Project 1.0) has been made available on the 6th of April 2011. Yocto Project Overview See this short video presentation of the Yocto Project which explains its goals. It’s a complete embedded Linux development environment with tools, metadata, and documentation – everything you need such as emulation environments, debuggers, an Application Toolkit Generator, etc… It is not a new build system however such as buildroot, instead it relies on the Poky build tools that provide an open source development environment targeting the ARM, MIPS, PowerPC and x86 architectures. Here’s what the Yocto Project provides: A recent Linux kernel along with a set of system commands and libraries suitable for the embedded environment. System components such […]

April 26, 2011April 26, 2011 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Ali M3701G: New MIPS based STB SoC

Ali, a Taiwan company, manufacturer of chips for multimedia devices such as DVD player , Set-top boxes, media player has recently announced a new chipset for DVB STB based on MIPS architecture called the M3701G. Here’s an excerpt of MIPS press release (25/04/2011) for this system on chip: MIPS Technologies, Inc.announced today that Taiwan’s ALi Corporation based its new system-on-chip (SoC), which is targeted for the emerging “triple play” market, on the popular MIPS32® 24KEfTM core. MIPS32 24K® cores are widely used across the globe in digital home and networking products including broadband access devices, digital televisions, set-top boxes, and digital media players. … With a hybrid design for DVB-C HD / DVB+IP dual-mode operation, the new M3701G chipset from ALi is targeted for products that support triple play services, such as the next generation of networked media players and set-top boxes. … The M3701G chipset is available now from […]

April 21, 2011April 21, 2011 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Is it IPv6 Time ? IPv6 Basics on Linux

The first time I worked on IPv6 was in 2000 in my master’s degree thesis where I started an implementation of Mobile IP based on IPv6 in Linux Redhat. Over a decade later, IPv6 has not really taken off, even though we hear stories about the IPv4 address space running out and I have yet to see an embedded device using anything else than IPv4. APNIC Ran out of IPv4 However, this may be about the change as on the 15th of April 2011, Japan Network Information Center (JPNIC) announced that APNIC (Asia Pacific Network Information Centre) ran out of IPv4 addresses. They will still try to make it last longer by reusing previously allocated IPv4 and an “IPv4 address transfer system” whose details will be made available later. You can also see a chart based on IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) data that shows this is a problem right […]

April 19, 2011April 19, 2011 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Embedded Linux Quick Start / Tutorial Videos

Free Electrons recorded some videos from the Embedded Linux Conference Europe, in Cambrigde, United Kingdom on October 2010 by Chris Simmonds, the founder of 2net Limited, a UK company providing training, consultancy and custom software for Linux and other embedded platforms. The videos can either be downloaded in webm HD format at http://free-electrons.com/blog/elce-2010-tutorial-videos/ or you can watch them in HD format below. The PDF slides for the three parts and the lab notes are available at http://elinux.org/images/c/cc/Linux-quick-start.tar.gz The first video (53 minutes) deals with the following key points: Genesis of a Linux project The four elements: Tool chain; boot loader; kernel; user space Element 1: Tool chain Element 2: Boot loader The second video (1h19m) focuses on: Third element: Kernel Fourth element: User space The last video (1h07m) is more practical as it shows how to use embedded Linux on an NXP LPC3250 Stick (ARM9): Description of the hardware Installing […]

April 15, 2011August 7, 2011 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

MIPS Launches New Android and Linux Developer Community

MIPS Technologies announced the launch of its new Developer Community at developer.mips.com. The new site is specifically tailored to the needs of software developers working with the Android™ platform, Linux operating system and other applications for MIPS-Based™ hardware. All information and resources on the site are openly accessible. “This new community demonstrates our ongoing commitment to the vibrant open source effort around the MIPS cores and architecture, as well as around our customers’ and their customers’ hardware platforms,” said Art Swift, vice president of marketing and business development, MIPS Technologies. “As the MIPS architecture continues to expand into new high-volume markets such as mobile handsets and tablets, we see an increasing need for these resources among the growing MIPS developer community.” Software engineers can find development resources and tools on the site including: Android on MIPS source code, porting instructions, a native development kit (NDK) for Android applications development on […]

April 13, 2011September 10, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Boot Linux in 300 milliseconds

MakeLinux.com managed to boot Linux from the bootloader to console within 300ms using a customized (and minimal) version of Linux running on Beagleboard based on TI OMAP 3530 (Cortex A8) as per their Super Fast Boot project. Here’s the analysis of the boot sequence and timings: Logging starts at 70 ms from reset. Boot time from reset is 300 + 70 = 370 ms. Logging starts at 330 ms from power on. Cold boot time is 330 + 300 = 630 ms. Loading of 1.5 MiB Linux image from NAND takes 237 ms with throughput 6 MiB/s. Code execution takes 60 ms or 43M CPU cycles. (For other CPU frequency execution time is different, but the number of processor cycles is the same) The most time-consuming operation is coping firmware from NAND flash. They used a Linux 2.6.32 kernel from DVSDK 3.01, in a minimal configuration (900KB footprint), the boot […]