The price of single board computers and development boards has really gone down in recent years, and it’s easy to find a low cost Arm based board for most project. But C-SKY Linux development board is quite different since it’s based on the little known C-SKY architecture, and the price in China ($6) is really competitive for a media capable board. If you live outside of China, the board is now sold for about $18 including shipping, and MickMake decided to buy one to have a closer look and review the board. As we covered during the announced the board is powered by NationalChip GX66058 C-SKY 32-bit processor clocked at up to 574 MHz and integrating 64MB DDR2 on-chip. Getting the board on-hand allowed Mick to get more details about the other chips included in the board namely: STMicro STM32F103 to handle all the JTAG control through a micro USB […]
An Attempt to Benchmark Entry-level x86 Boards against RK3399 & Exynos Arm Boards
Some Arm boards have become quite powerful, while hardware based on low power Intel processor has generally become cheaper with both architectures somewhat converging in terms of performance and price. Piotr Maliński got interested and purchased some low cost (<$150) Intel hardware to compare to mid-range Arm boards, throwing a Raspberry Pi 3 B+ into the mix as well for comparison. Those are the Intel test boards / computers: Qotom motherboard with Intel Atom Z3735F Bay Trail processor, 2GB RAM, 32GB flash – $74 + shipping on Aliexpress Piesia nano ITX board with Intel Celeron N2806 Bay Trail processor, DDR3 SO-DIMM socket, SATA / mSATA interfaces – Piotr found it for around $85 on Aliexpress, but the price now jumped to over $150 plus shipping, which does not make it very attractive Generic thin mini ITX motherboard based on Celeron N3160 “Braswell” processor, DDR3 SO-DIMM socket, SATA / mSATA interfaces. $62.68 […]
Intel NUC7CJYSAL “June Canyon” Gemini Lake NUC Mini PC Review with Windows 10 and Ubuntu
The hardware specification for mini PCs has recently evolved past the traditional fixed amount of memory and storage. Now mini PCs are shipping with SODIMM slots allowing RAM expansion and a variety of M.2 or SSD combos providing flexible storage options. Recent mini PCs are also coming to market with desktop processors rather than mobile processors because there has been a gradual acceptance of the necessary inclusion of a small internal fan. In doing so not only is this addressing the key limiting factors for mini PCs but it is also redefines the very definition of a mini PC. Until recently Intel NUCs (Next Unit of Computing) were seen as small-form-factor personal computers primarily because they consisted of the traditional motherboard with a processor, included removable RAM and storage and were enclosed in a case with an external power supply. They were also sold as kits meaning they were essentially […]
MINIX NEO N42C-4 Pro Review – Part 3: Ubuntu / Linux
In the second part of MINIX NEO N42C-4 review (and on linuxium website), we looked at the device and the performance using Windows. In this third part, we will look at how to install and the performance of using Linux (Ubuntu). The BIOS does not include an option to select Linux as a boot OS and a standard Ubuntu ISO written to a USB will not boot. So to install Ubuntu to the eMMC as dual-boot first it was necessary to respin a standard Ubuntu ISO using my ‘isorespin.sh’ script with the ‘–apollo’ option, and which after creating a LiveUSB using the ‘dd’ command was used to boot and install Ubuntu. First let’s remind ourselves of the hardware configuration by running some standard Linux commands:
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linuxium@N42C-4:~$ lsb_release -a Distributor ID: Ubuntu Description: Ubuntu 17.04 Release: 17.04 Codename: zesty linuxium@N42C-4:~$ linuxium@N42C-4:~$ uname -a Linux N42C-4 4.10.0-19-generic #21-Ubuntu SMP Thu Apr 6 17:04:57 UTC 2017 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux linuxium@N42C-4:~$ linuxium@N42C-4:~$ inxi -Fc0 System: Host: N42C-4 Kernel: 4.10.0-19-generic x86_64 (64 bit) Desktop: N/A Distro: Ubuntu 17.04 Machine: Device: desktop Mobo: MINIX model: N42C-4 v: Default string serial: Default string UEFI: American Megatrends v: 5.12 date: 11/14/2017 CPU: Quad core Intel Pentium N4200 (-MCP-) cache: 1024 KB clock speeds: max: 2500 MHz 1: 897 MHz 2: 2394 MHz 3: 1333 MHz 4: 2319 MHz Graphics: Card: Intel Celeron N3350/Pentium N4200/Atom E3900 Series Integrated Graphics Controller Display Server: X.org 1.19.3 drivers: modesetting (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) tty size: 204x62 Advanced Data: N/A for root Audio: Card Intel Celeron N3350/Pentium N4200/Atom E3900 Series Audio Cluster driver: snd_hda_intel Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.10.0-19-generic Network: Card-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller driver: r8169 IF: enp1s0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: a0:1e:0b:09:64:59 Card-2: Intel Device 24fb driver: iwlwifi IF: wlp2s0 state: down mac: 5e:8e:91:6c:84:80 Drives: HDD Total Size: NA (-) ID-1: /dev/mmcblk0 model: N/A size: 31.3GB Partition: ID-1: / size: 9.8G used: 5.8G (62%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/mmcblk0p5 RAID: No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 47.0C mobo: N/A Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A Info: Processes: 212 Uptime: 7 min Memory: 633.4/3796.5MB Client: Shell (review-tests.sh) inxi: 2.3.8 linuxium@N42C-4:~$ linuxium@N42C-4:~$ df -h Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on udev 1.9G 0 1.9G 0% /dev tmpfs 380M 6.3M 374M 2% /run /dev/mmcblk0p5 9.8G 5.8G 3.6G 62% / tmpfs 1.9G 12K 1.9G 1% /dev/shm tmpfs 5.0M 4.0K 5.0M 1% /run/lock tmpfs 1.9G 0 1.9G 0% /sys/fs/cgroup /dev/mmcblk0p2 96M 74M 23M 77% /boot/efi tmpfs 380M 172K 380M 1% /run/user/1000 /dev/mmcblk0p4 19G 17G 2.1G 90% /media/linuxium/309476E59476ACCA tmpfs 380M 0 380M 0% /run/user/0 linuxium@N42C-4:~$ linuxium@N42C-4:~$ lsblk -a NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT loop0 7:0 0 0 loop loop1 7:1 0 0 loop loop2 7:2 0 0 loop loop3 7:3 0 0 loop loop4 7:4 0 0 loop loop5 7:5 0 0 loop loop6 7:6 0 0 loop loop7 7:7 0 0 loop mmcblk0 179:0 0 29.1G 0 disk ├─mmcblk0p1 179:1 0 499M 0 part ├─mmcblk0p2 179:2 0 100M 0 part /boot/efi ├─mmcblk0p3 179:3 0 16M 0 part ├─mmcblk0p4 179:4 0 18.5G 0 part /media/linuxium/309476E59476ACCA └─mmcblk0p5 179:5 0 10G 0 part / mmcblk0boot0 179:8 0 4M 1 disk mmcblk0boot1 179:16 0 4M 1 disk mmcblk0rpmb 179:24 0 4M 0 disk linuxium@N42C-4:~$ linuxium@N42C-4:~$ sudo lshw -C cpu *-cpu description: CPU product: Intel(R) Pentium(R) CPU N4200 @ 1.10GHz vendor: Intel Corp. physical id: 34 bus info: cpu@0 version: Intel(R) Pentium(R) CPU N4200 @ 1.10GHz slot: SOCKET 0 size: 2399MHz capacity: 2500MHz width: 64 bits clock: 100MHz capabilities: x86-64 fpu fpu_exception wp vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp constant_tsc art arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology tsc_reliable nonstop_tsc aperfmperf tsc_known_freq pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 sdbg cx16 xtpr pdcm sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave rdrand lahf_lm 3dnowprefetch cat_l2 intel_pt tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid fsgsbase tsc_adjust smep erms mpx rdt_a rdseed smap clflushopt sha_ni xsaveopt xsavec xgetbv1 xsaves dtherm ida arat pln pts cpufreq configuration: cores=4 enabledcores=4 threads=4 linuxium@N42C-4:~$ linuxium@N42C-4:~$ sudo lshw -C memory *-firmware description: BIOS vendor: American Megatrends Inc. physical id: 0 version: 5.12 date: 11/14/2017 size: 64KiB capacity: 5056KiB capabilities: pci upgrade shadowing cdboot bootselect socketedrom edd int13floppy1200 int13floppy720 int13floppy2880 int5printscreen int9keyboard int14serial int17printer acpi usb biosbootspecification uefi *-memory description: System Memory physical id: 2e slot: System board or motherboard size: 4GiB *-bank:0 description: SODIMM DDR3 Synchronous 1600 MHz (0.6 ns) product: M471B5173EB0-YK0 vendor: Samsung physical id: 0 serial: 96537C8F slot: ChannelA-DIMM0 size: 4GiB width: 64 bits clock: 1600MHz (0.6ns) *-bank:1 description: DIMMProject-Id-Version: lshwReport-Msgid-Bugs-To: FULL NAME <EMAIL@ADDRESS>POT-Creation-Date: 2009-10-08 14:02+0200PO-Revision-Date: 2012-02-02 13:04+0000Last-Translator: Joel Addison <jaddi27@gmail.com>Language-Team: English (Australia) <en_AU@li.org>MIME-Version: 1.0Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bitX-Launchpad-Export-Date: 2017-04-04 11:54+0000X-Generator: Launchpad (build 18335) [empty] physical id: 1 slot: ChannelB-DIMM0 *-cache:0 description: L1 cache physical id: 32 slot: CPU Internal L1 size: 224KiB capacity: 224KiB capabilities: synchronous internal write-back configuration: level=1 *-cache:1 description: L2 cache physical id: 33 slot: CPU Internal L2 size: 2MiB capacity: 2MiB capabilities: synchronous internal write-back unified configuration: level=2 linuxium@N42C-4:~$ linuxium@N42C-4:~$ free -mh total used free shared buff/cache available Mem: 3.7G 573M 2.4G 158M 744M 2.8G Swap: 472M 0B 472M linuxium@N42C-4:~$ linuxium@N42C-4:~$ sudo lshw -C network *-network description: Ethernet interface product: RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. physical id: 0 bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0 logical name: enp1s0 version: 07 serial: a0:1e:0b:09:64:59 size: 1Gbit/s capacity: 1Gbit/s width: 64 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix vpd bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8169 driverversion=2.3LK-NAPI duplex=full firmware=rtl8168e-3_0.0.4 03/27/12 ip=XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes port=MII speed=1Gbit/s resources: irq:369 ioport:e000(size=256) memory:a1200000-a1200fff memory:c0000000-c0003fff *-network description: Wireless interface product: Intel Corporation vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 0 bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0 logical name: wlp2s0 version: 10 serial: 5e:8e:91:6c:84:80 width: 64 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless configuration: broadcast=yes driver=iwlwifi driverversion=4.10.0-19-generic firmware=22.361476.0 latency=0 link=no multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11 resources: irq:373 memory:a1100000-a1101fff linuxium@N42C-4:~$ linuxium@N42C-4:~$ dmesg | grep "MMC card" [ 2.456272] mmc0: new HS400 MMC card at address 0001 linuxium@N42C-4:~$ linuxium@N42C-4:~$ lsusb Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub Bus 001 Device 003: ID 8087:0aa7 Intel Corp. Bus 001 Device 005: ID 046d:c52b Logitech, Inc. Unifying Receiver Bus 001 Device 004: ID 10d5:55a4 Uni Class Technology Co., Ltd Bus 001 Device 002: ID 1a40:0101 Terminus Technology Inc. Hub Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub linuxium@N42C-4:~$ linuxium@N42C-4:~$ lspci 00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Celeron N3350/Pentium N4200/Atom E3900 Series Host Bridge (rev 0b) 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Celeron N3350/Pentium N4200/Atom E3900 Series Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0b) 00:0e.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Celeron N3350/Pentium N4200/Atom E3900 Series Audio Cluster (rev 0b) 00:0f.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Celeron N3350/Pentium N4200/Atom E3900 Series Trusted Execution Engine (rev 0b) 00:12.0 SATA controller: Intel Corporation Celeron N3350/Pentium N4200/Atom E3900 Series SATA AHCI Controller (rev 0b) 00:13.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Celeron N3350/Pentium N4200/Atom E3900 Series PCI Express Port A #2 (rev fb) 00:13.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Celeron N3350/Pentium N4200/Atom E3900 Series PCI Express Port A #3 (rev fb) 00:15.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Celeron N3350/Pentium N4200/Atom E3900 Series USB xHCI (rev 0b) 00:1c.0 SD Host controller: Intel Corporation Celeron N3350/Pentium N4200/Atom E3900 Series eMMC Controller (rev 0b) 00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Celeron N3350/Pentium N4200/Atom E3900 Series Low Pin Count Interface (rev 0b) 00:1f.1 SMBus: Intel Corporation Celeron N3350/Pentium N4200/Atom E3900 Series SMBus Controller (rev 0b) 01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 07) 02:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Device 24fb (rev 10) linuxium@N42C-4:~$ |
This shows the memory will be dual-channel once the second slot (bank:1) is populated and also confirms that the eMMC 5.1 (mmc0) is running […]
Linux Benchmarks – Intel J3455 Apollo Lake vs Z3735F Bay Trail vs RK3399 and Other ARM Platforms
Since I’ve just installed Ubuntu 17.10 on MeLE PCG35 Apo, I decided I should also run some benchmarks comparing with other ARM and x86 Linux platforms I’ve tested in the past.I was particularly interested to compare the performance of Intel Apollo Lake processors (Celeron J3455 in this case) against higher end ARM processors like Rockchip RK3399 (2x A72, 4x A53) since systems have a similar price (~$150+), as well as against the older Bay Trail processor to see the progress achieved over the last 2 to 3 years. To do so, I used Phoronix Benchmark Suite against Videostrong VS-RK3399 results (RK3399 development board):
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sudo apt install php-cli php-gd php-xml php-zip wget http://phoronix-test-suite.com/releases/repo/pts.debian/files/phoronix-test-suite_7.4.0_all.deb sudo dpkg -i phoronix-test-suite_7.4.0_all.deb phoronix-test-suite benchmark 1709271-TY-1704029RI26 |
The benchmark first issued a warning about “powersave” governor, but I still went ahead, and once completed I change it to “performance” governor:
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sudo apt install cpufrequtils sudo cpufreq-set -r -g performance |
…and ran the tests again. All results are available on OpenBenchmarking. Let’s address the governor results first. cpufreq-info reports that powersave governor […]
Intel Compute Card and Dock Hands On, Windows 10 and Ubuntu Benchmarks
We’ve recently seen Intel introduced Dock DK132EPJ for their Compute Cards, and released some pricing info. Ian Morrison (Linuxium) got sent a full kit by Intel with the dock and Compute Card CD1M3128MK powered by a dual core / quad Core m3-7Y30 processor with 4GB RAM, 128GB PCIe SSD, and Intel Wireless-AC 8265 module. You can get the full details in Ian’s post, but I’ll provide a summary of the key points here. While the compute card and dock are thinner than most product, the computer card is quite wider than TV sticks, and the dock larger than an Intel NUC. It also comes with a fan, and cooling works well with maximum CPU temperature under being 70°C. The Compute Cards do not come with any operating system, but you get to the BIOS easily, and install Windows or Linux distributions. Ian’s started with Windows 10 Enterprise Evaluation, and ran […]
ECDREAM A9 Apollo Lake HDMI “TV Stick” Review with Windows 10 and Ubuntu 17.04
The ECDREAM A9 is arguably the first Intel Apollo Lake ‘PC stick’ available for purchase. However, in reality it is surprisingly large, and when compared to earlier Intel Atom ‘sticks’ and mini PC ‘boxes’ it lies somewhere in between. Measuring 2.3 inches (58 mm) wide and 0.6 inches (16 mm) thick it feels almost double in size of the original Intel Compute Stick (1.5 in/38 mm by 0.5 in/12 mm) and like nearly half of a mini PC (Beelink’s AP34 is 4.7 in/119 mm by 0.8 / 20 mm). Given that you only get two USB ports, an micro SD card slot and the obligatory HDMI and power port, the large size would be better justified if an Ethernet port had also been included given other smaller ‘sticks’ have shown this is possible. However the reason for its size is due to the oversized fan and heatsink… and that […]
NanoPi NEO2 Board Benchmarks with Ubuntu 16.04.2 using Linux 3.10 and Linux 4.10
I’ve received NanoPi NEO 2 boards, add-boards and sensor modules last week, where we could see how small the boards were, and how it could be suitable for IoT projects or “hardware hacking” education. Before testing the board with the add-ons, I have to select the image to run on the board, and currently we have two choices: Ubuntu 16.04.2 FriendlyELEC image with Linux 3.10 “legacy” kernel, or Armbian Ubuntu 16.04.2 Xenial nightly build with Linux 4.10 “mainline” kernel. So I decided to try both: dfssf nanopi-neo2-ubuntu-core-qte-sd4g-20170329.img.zip (296 MB) is the image from FriendlyELEC (previously FriendlyARM) Armbian_5.27.170401_Nanopineo2_Ubuntu_xenial_dev_4.10.0.7z (222 Mb) is the image from Armbian, which I downloaded on March 31st despite the filename including “170401” string You can flash the image with Win32DiskImager (Windows) or dd (linux) to a micro SD card the usual way, and while I’ve never personally had troubles with dd, I’ve been told Etcher was better, […]