odroid-xu3 News - CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

May 2, 2018May 2, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

Hardkernel & Libre Computer Release Ubuntu 18.04 Images for ODROID-XU4/3 & AML-S905X-CC Boards

Ubuntu 18.04 “Bionic Beaver” LTS operating system was released just last week, and at least two Arm board companies have independently released Ubuntu 18.04 images for their boards. First, Hardkernel has released an Ubuntu 18.04 MATE image for their Exynos 5422 powered ODROID-XU4(Q), ODROID-XU3 (Lite), ODROID-HC1, and ODROID-MC1 boards/kits. The ODROID Ubuntu image comes with the following key features: Linux 4.14.37 LTS GPU hardware acceleration via OpenGL ES 3.1 and OpenCL 1.2 drivers for Mali T628MP6 GPU FFMPEG/ffplay with hardware accelerated H.264 decoder X11 armsoc display driver with 2D acceleration GPU accelerated Chromium browser (WebGL contents and YouTube 720p plays well) Kodi 17.6 can play H.264 1080p/60fps BigBuckBunny sample video. (Note: no h.265, no 4K in Exynos-5422 processor) WiringPi and other GPIO/SPI/I2C/ADC/I2S tinkering libraries are available. KVM & Docker More stable and performant USB 3.0 and Gbit Ethernet drivers The company sent me a kit based on ODROID-XU4Q board to […]

December 27, 2015May 2, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Hardkernel ODROID-XU4 Development Board Now Supports Android 6.0 Marshmallow

Android 6.0 source code was released in October, but so far few development boards are supporting it properly. There’s Android 6.0 for Raspberry Pi 2, but without GPU hardware acceleration is not really usable, and Intrinsyc Open-Q 820 board that will start shipping in a few days with Android 6.0 on Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor, is pricey and with limited availability. So there are only two options that I’m aware of LeMaker Hikey with Android 6.0 as part of the Reference Platform Release 2015.12, and Hardkernel ODROID-XU4 with an unofficial port for Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow by voodik odroid community member, which should also work for ODROID-XU3 and XU3 Lite boards. Despite being an alpha version, the current image looks pretty good, as most required features seem implemented: Android 6.0.1 Lollipop Cyanogenmod 13.0 with Linux kernel 3.10.9 OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0/3.0 (GPU acceleration) OpenCL 1.1 EP (GPU acceleration) Multi-user feature is enabled […]

January 2, 2015May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 14 Comments

Linux Benchmarks – Rockchip RK3288 vs Exynos 5422 vs AllWinner A80 vs Intel Atom Z3735F

With all these Intel Atom Z3735F been released right now at a price similar to ARM based mini PCs, many people, including myself, are wondering about the performance of the low cost Intel processor against their ARM competitors. Ian Morrison just published some results from Phoronix Test Suite comparing the performance of Firefly-RK3288 (Rockchip RK3288), ODROID-XU3 Lite (Samsung Exynos 5422 BIN2), and A80 OptimusBoard (Allwinner A80) in Linux (Ununtu 12.04.5), against the performance of MeegoPad T01 (Intel Atom Z3735F) running Linux from a Live CD on a USB drive. Some of the benchmarks failed because Phoronix Test Suite got apparently confused with the file systems located on a USB drive, but at least we’ve got a comparison point, and the results are a bit confusing, as they’re no clear winner. In some tests like FFmpeg, the Intel SoC really crushed the ARM competition being at least twice as fast as […]

December 23, 2014December 23, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

TyGL OpenGL ES 2.0 Backend for WebKit Speeds Up Web Rendering by Up to 11 Times

ARM, Szeged University in Hungary, and Samsung Research UK have been working on TyGL, a new backend for WebKit accelerated with OpenGL ES2.0, and developed and tested on ARM Mali-T628 GPU found in Samsung ARM Chromebook. It will typically provide 1.5 to 4.5 times higher performance, but in the best cases, it can achieve up to eleven times the performance of a CPU-only rendered page. The key features of TyGL include: Web rendering accelerated by GPU – Batching of draw calls delivers better results on GPUs. TyGL groups commands together to avoid frequent state changes while calling the Graphics Context API. Automatic shader generation – TyGL generates complex shaders from multiple shader fragments, and ensures the batches fit into the shader cache of the GPU. Trapezoid based path rendering – Work in progress. It will leverage GPU capabilities such as the Pixel Local Storage extension for OpenGL ES. No software […]

December 14, 2014April 19, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 18 Comments

ODROID-XU3 Lite Board Ubuntu Review – Setup, Usability, and Performance

After testing ODROID-XU3 Lite with Android 4.4, and finding a workaround to some HDMI issues, I could finally try out Ubuntu, or rather Lubuntu with LXDE instead of Unity, in Hardkernel low cost octa-core development board. I’ll start this review by explaining how to install and setup Lubuntu on the board, followed by running various program to test the system usability as a desktop computer with LibreOffice, Chromium, XBMC, and 3D graphics, and finally run some performance tests with Phoronix Test Suit, build the Linux kernel natively, and transcode a video with avconf. Setting Up Ubuntu on ODROID-XU3 Lite All firmware images for ODROID development boards, can be found on odroid.in website, and if you want Ubuntu 14.04 image, go to ubuntu_14.04lts folder, to select the latest firmware file for your board. The latest image for ODROID-XU3 (Lite) is currently ubuntu-14.04.1lts-lubuntu-odroid-xu3-20141105.img.xz, it’s the same for micro SD card or eMMC […]

December 13, 2014February 13, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

How to Modify HDMI Output Parameters in Linux for ODROID-XU3 (Lite) Development Board

Good news, I’ve finally managed to make HDMI output in my ODROID-XU3 Lite development board work with the Ubuntu image after some more tweaking. So ODROID XU3 Lite Ubuntu review is coming in the next few days. But first, I’ll explain the few steps I went through, in case others experience a similar issue. I downloaded, extracted, and flashed the latest Ubuntu image to a micro SD card with dd to give another try at running Ubuntu on my board, but no luck, I still got that black screen, albeit the system boots properly, as I got the command line using the serial console. During my Android review of ODROID-XU3 Lite, I noticed the system would always revert back to 720p60 video output, and HDMI output settings can be selected in /media/boot/boot.ini with the following content:

ODROIDXU-UBOOT-CONFIG

# U-Boot Parameters
setenv initrd_high "0xffffffff"
setenv fdt_high "0xffffffff"

# Mac address configuration
setenv macaddr "00:1e:06:61:7a:39"

#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Basic Ubuntu Setup. Don't touch unless you know what you are doing.
# --------------------------------
setenv bootrootfs "console=tty1 console=ttySAC2,115200n8 root=UUID=e139ce78-984"
                                                                                
# boot commands                                                                 
setenv bootcmd "fatload mmc 0:1 0x40008000 zImage; fatload mmc 0:1 0x42000000 u"
                                                                                
# --- Screen Configuration for HDMI --- #                                       
# ---------------------------------------                                       
# Uncomment only ONE line! Leave all commented for automatic selection.         
# Uncomment only the setenv line!                                               
# ---------------------------------------                                       
# ODROID-VU forced resolution                                                   
# setenv videoconfig "video=HDMI-A-1:1280x800@60"                               
# -----------------------------------------------                               
# 1920x1080 (1080P) with monitor provided EDID information. (1080p-edid)        
# setenv videoconfig "video=HDMI-A-1:1920x1080@60"                              
# -----------------------------------------------                               
# 1920x1080 (1080P) without monitor data using generic information (1080p-noedi)
# setenv videoconfig "drm_kms_helper.edid_firmware=edid/1920x1080.bin"          
# -----------------------------------------------                               
# 1280x720 (720P) with monitor provided EDID information. (720p-edid)           
# setenv videoconfig "video=HDMI-A-1:1280x720@60"                               
# -----------------------------------------------                               
# 1280x720 (720P) without monitor data using generic information (720p-noedid)  
# setenv videoconfig "drm_kms_helper.edid_firmware=edid/1280x720.bin" <strong>          </strong>  
# -----------------------------------------------                               
# 1024x768 without monitor data using generic information                       
# setenv videoconfig "drm_kms_helper.edid_firmware=edid/1024x768.bin"           
                                                                                
                                                                                
# final boot args                                                               
setenv bootargs "${bootrootfs} ${videoconfig} smsc95xx.macaddr=${macaddr}"      
# drm.debug=0xff                                                                
# Boot the board                                                                
boot

ODROIDXU-UBOOT-CONFIG

# U-Boot Parameters

setenv initrd_high "0xffffffff"

setenv fdt_high "0xffffffff"

# Mac address configuration

setenv macaddr "00:1e:06:61:7a:39"

#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

# Basic Ubuntu Setup. Don't touch unless you know what you are doing.

# --------------------------------

setenv bootrootfs "console=tty1 console=ttySAC2,115200n8 root=UUID=e139ce78-984"

# boot commands

setenv bootcmd "fatload mmc 0:1 0x40008000 zImage; fatload mmc 0:1 0x42000000 u"

# --- Screen Configuration for HDMI --- #

# ---------------------------------------

# Uncomment only ONE line! Leave all commented for automatic selection.

# Uncomment only the setenv line!

# ---------------------------------------

# ODROID-VU forced resolution

# setenv videoconfig "video=HDMI-A-1:1280x800@60"

# -----------------------------------------------

# 1920x1080 (1080P) with monitor provided EDID information. (1080p-edid)

# setenv videoconfig "video=HDMI-A-1:1920x1080@60"

# -----------------------------------------------

# 1920x1080 (1080P) without monitor data using generic information (1080p-noedi)

# setenv videoconfig "drm_kms_helper.edid_firmware=edid/1920x1080.bin"

# -----------------------------------------------

# 1280x720 (720P) with monitor provided EDID information. (720p-edid)

# setenv videoconfig "video=HDMI-A-1:1280x720@60"

# -----------------------------------------------

# 1280x720 (720P) without monitor data using generic information (720p-noedid)

# setenv videoconfig "drm_kms_helper.edid_firmware=edid/1280x720.bin" <strong> </strong>

# -----------------------------------------------

# 1024x768 without monitor data using generic information

# setenv videoconfig "drm_kms_helper.edid_firmware=edid/1024x768.bin"

# final boot args

setenv bootargs "${bootrootfs} ${videoconfig} smsc95xx.macaddr=${macaddr}"

# drm.debug=0xff

# Boot the board

boot

I actually tried a few settings in my previous attempt but unsuccessfully. Now […]

November 21, 2014April 1, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 24 Comments

ODROID-XU3 Lite Development Board – Android Setup and Benchmarks

It’s been nearly ten days since I make ODROID-XU3 Lite unboxing, and my plans to first test Linux on the board were thwarted due a problem with HDMI. Luckily, after several attempts I managed to boot the board with Android. So today, I’ll show how to install or update Android on the board, and run a few benchmarks. But since there’s always a silver lining, I’ll start buy writing a bit about the HDMI issue, as I learned a few things on the way. HDMI Output Tribulations ODROID-XU3 Lite looks like a nice and powerful kit, and it may be one of the most cost effective ARM board on the market since it comes to performance to price ratio, so I was excited to try it, but as you know if you’ve read my unboxing post I did not work quite as planned, as all I got was a black […]

November 12, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 23 Comments

Unboxing of ODROID-XU3 Lite Exynos 5422 Development Board

Hardkernel recently unveiled a low cost version of ODROID-XU3 board powered by Exynos 5422 SoC, and selling for $99 instead of $179 with the original version that adds a DisplayPort connector, current and voltage sensors, as well as a faster CPU frequency (2+ GHz vs 1.8 GHz). The company sent me a sample for evaluation, so today I’ll take some pictures of the ODROID-XU3 Lite kit, and I also planned to show a Linux demo, but unfortunately my board appears to have an hardware glitch with HDMI output not working, so I’ll still show some info from the first boot, but that’s just an headless system. Anyway, I’ll soon receive a replacement unit, and I’ll be able to test Lubuntu and Android in more details later. ODROID-XU3 Lite Unboxing Hardkernel sent the parcel on Thursday by UPS, and I received the board on Monday in an ODROID branded cardboard box. […]