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

List of Wireless Standards for Local and Personal Area Networks

While designing your embedded system, you may have to choose between different wireless standards to match your needs. I’ll provide a list a short and mid-range wireless standards, their description and links to open source software stacks (when available) to help you better understand the different options available. Wide Area Network wireless network such as LTE, Wimax, etc.. won’t be discussed in this blog entry. Mesh and IP Networks: Wifi (IEEE 802.11): Wifi is probably the most used wireless standard in consumer electronics devices today as it allows users to connect their device to their LAN wirelessly. An access point has a typical range of about 20 meters indoors and up to 100m outdoors. There are 4 standards 802.11a 802.11b, 802.11g and 802.11n. The latest has a theoretical throughput of 300 Mbps. Check out Wikipedia Wifi page for details. The Wi-Fi stack is part of the Linux kernel but you […]

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 […]