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) – […]
Monkey, an Open Source High Performance Embedded Web Server
Some time ago, I mentioned 5 web servers (mathopd, thttpd, busybox httpd, boa and lighttpd) suitable for embedded systems (including those featuring no MMU processors) and low end machines. I’ve recently come across Monkey web server, a lightweight open source Web Server for Linux (2.6.29 or greater), which has been designed with focus in embedded devices. Monkey is currently supported on ARM, x86 and x64, although a quick analysis of the source code shows it forks, so it won’t be supported on processors that do not feature a memory management unit (MMU) without modifications. Monkey supports the following features: HTTP/1.1 compliant Virtual Hosts Asynchronous networking model (event-driven) Indented configuration Plugins Support C API Interface Other features through base plugins: SSL Security Log writter Directory Listing Shell: Command line The developers have benchmarked Monkey against busybox httpd and nginx on a now well-know ARMv6 platform: the Raspberry Pi. They used Siege […]
Raspberry Pi Debian Wheezy Alpha, Bodhi Linux Alpha and Pwn, A Security Test Suite
I still haven’t received my Raspberry Pi board, but there have been a couple of interesting Raspberry Pi software news this week. Raspberry Pi Debian Wheezy “Alpha” This is an update to Raspberry Pi Debian Squeeze 6.0, based on Wheezy (Debian 7.0) and the maintainer (Alex) is looking for volunteer to help test it and iron it out, before the Raspberry Pi foundation officially announce the distribution on its blog. This distribution comes will the following: * Scratch, Python, Midori etc as before * A configuration tool for common initial setup tasks (resize root partition, change keyboard layout) * omxplayer * USB drives auto mount * Lots more This is alpha quality, so you can’t expect it something very stable, but if you want to test drive it, you can download it via BitTorrent (447 MB). Sha1sum: bdad7f1c504e22f8d754028843abb9da4330107f. You can login with the following credentials: User: pi | password:raspberry Known […]
Make Your Own Raspberry Pi Laptop With a Motorola Lapdock
There is a very interested thread over the Raspberry Pi forums started by user veryevil where he explains how he built a Raspberry Pi laptop based on Motorola Lapdock (normally used with Motorola Atrix smartphone). This is actually a real hack, because the Raspberry Pi still have to sit outside and you need to make custom cables. But the result still looks great, and veryevil claims the system runs Linux smoothly with a resolution of 1366×768 and the battery can last for hours. Some other users have joined the party, and improved on the design with shorter cables. You can check that forum post for detailed pictures of each cables. Motorola Lapdock used to be an expensive piece of equipment, but Raspberry Pi users indicated it’s currently discounted to 69.98 GBP on Amazon UK and I found it for 81 USD on Amazon US (AT&T Version) which makes it somewhat […]
VIA Technologies Unveils the APC, an ARM11 $49 Android PC
VIA Technologies has today introduced the Android PC system (APC) powered by WonderMedia ARM11 processor, with 512 MB RAM and 2MB Flash in a small Neo-ITX motherboard and that will sell for a mere 49 USD, slightly higher than the 35 USD Raspberry Pi. But whereas the Raspberry Pi would struggle to run Android with 256 MB, the APC has just enough memory top run Android 2.3 and Android 4.0. Another advantage is the presence of a VGA connector which is missing on the Raspberry Pi, as well as a few other connectors. Here are VIA APC hardware specifications: VIA WonderMedia 8750 ARM11 CPU@ 800 MHz 2GB NAND Flash 512 DDR3 SDRAM Hardware Video Decoder supporting up to 1080p resolution VGA and HDMI display ports 4x USB 2.0 ports microSD slot 10/100 Ethernet port Audio-out/ Mic-in 15W power adapter Power consumption: 4 Watts (Idle) 13.5 Watts (Max. load) Dimensions: 17cm […]
Raspberry Pi Camera Module Up and Running. Retail Version Coming Soon
The Raspberry Pi foundation is working on a camera module for the Raspberry Pi board and today they showed the very first picture taken with the “PiCam” module. The picture below has been taken with a camera module connected via the MIPI CSI-2 interface of the Raspberry Pi. On another subject, if you look closely at the top left of the picture, you can see the Raspberry Pi foundation (and probably Broadcom) uses Synopsys MetaWare Debugger (and Compiler?) to work on the software and fix bugs. Maybe more on that later… The camera module used supports up to 14 Mpixel resolution, but the final module will most probably have a 5MP resolution in order to make it cheaper. The mechanical design is not complete and the foundation does not have a price for the camera module yet. You can see what the 14MP camera module looks like (it’s basically a […]
Raspberry Pi Releases 19-04-2012 Debian and Arch Linux Images
Within less than a week, a new image for Raspberry Pi Debian has been released as well as an Arch Linux image. Debian 6 can be downloaded via: BitTorrent – debian6-19-04-2012.zip.torrent Direct HTTP download – debian6-19-04-2012.zip Username/Password: root/raspberrypi Arch Linux can be downloaded via: BitTorrent – archlinuxarm-19-04-2012.zip.torrent Direct HTTP download – archlinuxarm-19-04-2012.zip Username/Password: root/root The following Changelog is provided for Debian 6 release: Overscan adjustments ALSA driver Re-enable 1600×1200 output (regression in 13-04-2012 release) Boot file tidyup – and remove test cmdline file vcgencmd provides a version number Fixes for EDID parsing Drive DMT modes in DVI modes by default, even if HDMI is reported as supported Some initial packages that might make setting up Wi-Fi possible Includes the non-free software source (nothing from it though) – useful for Wi-Fi firmware Qt5 snapshot A small package that will allow Raspberry Pi to be used as for Qt5 development out of […]
Raspberry Pi Schematics (Model B) are Available
Now that Raspberry Pi passed all certifications and a few boards are out in the wild, the Raspberry Pi foundation has released the schematics of model B, bringing the Raspberry Pi board closer to becoming an open hardware platform like Texas Instruments Beaglebone or Beagleboard. The Raspberry Pi schematics are available in PDF format, which is a good start and would also people to use the expansion headers (e.g. P1 provides access to GPIOs, SPI, I2C and UART interfaces) and create modules more easily. For the Raspberry Pi to come an open hardware platform, the schematics in .sbk format (so that they can be modified if needed), Bill of materials, Gerber files and PCB layout files (they laid out the board with Mentor Graphics Expedition) would have to be released, something which apparently they plan to do at a later stage. Once they do, it will be interesting to see […]