Raspberry Pi Fedora 14 Remix Available for Download

Seneca has officially released Raspberry Pi Fedora 14 Remix, the main distributions for the Raspberry Pi low cost ARM11 board based on Broadcom BCM2835. There are two methods to install Fedora 14 for the Raspberry Pi on the SD Card: Using the Installer This method is available for: Fedora 16 – http://files.velocix.com/c1410/fedora/installer/fedora/fedora-arm-installer-1.0.0-1.fc16.noarch.rpm Windows Vista or Windows 7 – http://files.velocix.com/c1410/fedora/installer/windows/fedora-arm-installer-1.0.0.zip Other Linux (Python) – http://files.velocix.com/c1410/fedora/installer/source/faii-1.0.0.tar.gz For details on the installation procedure, go to http://zenit.senecac.on.ca/wiki/index.php/Raspberry_Pi_Fedora_Remix_Installation Using dd This is the method used for the previous Linux images released for the Raspberry Pi. You can download it via Bittorrent. The HTTP download links are not yet available but will be soon on Raspberry Pi Download page. The Raspberry Pi Fedora Remix 14 is based on the following: Fedora package collection version: 14 Kernel version: 3.1.9 Architecture: armv5tel The Raspberry Pi Fedora Remix 17 will be the second version of the Remix released: Release […]

Raspberry Pi Releases Arch Linux SD Card Image

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has just announced the release of Arch Linux for the Raspberry Pi. This image is based on a minimal image of Arch Linux and does not come with a graphical interface. This distribution may not be suitable for beginners and you may be better off using the Debian SD Card image or even the upcoming Fedora 14 Raspberry Pi Remix image. You can always install extra packages with Pacman,  the Arch Linux package manager. To update the package list:

To Install LXDE Graphical Interface:

To run LXDE:

You can download it using BitTorrent: archlinuxarm-01-03-2012.zip.torrent (preferred method) or via one of the HTTP mirrors: archlinuxarm-01-03-2012.zip. (This link will redirect your download to the closest available HTTP server). The default login credentials are: root/root I haven’t tried it, but you should be able to use this release in qemu, by following instructions similar to the one […]

Seneca Uses GuruPlug Server Farm to Build Raspberry Pi Fedora Distribution

Prior to the Raspberry Pi Fedora 14 Remix launch party, Seneca has uploaded a video showing the work they have done to have Fedora 14 work on Raspberry Pi. Here are some interesting points ion this video: All basics application such as a web browser, office suite, the components you need to build a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) server… are already working. 2D graphics acceleration is not implemented yet, so the first release may feel a bit sluggish. But eventually, since the Raspberry Pi has a pretty good GPU, 2D support (OpenVG in Cairo library?) will be implemented at some points in time, either by Seneca or other people in the development community. Seneca uses around 60 ARM devices in their build farm that generates all the binaries for the Fedora ARM  Remix release (e.g. the ones you can get with “yum install”) and among those device there are […]

Raspberry Pi OpenGL and OpenMAX IL “Hello World!” Applications

As you may already know, Raspberry Pi has released their first SD card image with Debian. This morning, I explained how to use that image in qemu. I’ve been waiting for samples to take advantage of the power Videocore GPU inside Broadcom BCM2835 SoC used in the Raspberry Pi board and the goods news is that they added Hello World code samples in C to make use of those capabilities. The sample are located in /opt/vc/src/hello_pi directory: hello_audio – Audio output demo using OpenMAX IL through the ilcient helper library hello_triangle – A rotating cube rendered with OpenGL ES with 3 images used as textures on the cube faces. hello_video – Video decode demo using OpenMAX IL through the ilcient helper library You can either compile those samples in the board or cross-compile them in your host machine. Since you need the GPU, you will obviously not be able to […]

Raspberry Pi Releases 1st SD Card Image (Debian) – How-to use it in QEMU

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has just released the first SD Card Image that you will be able to use with your Raspberry Pi board. This image is based on Debian Squeeze (6.0) and comes with  LXDE user interface and Midori browser, development tools, and sample code for accessing the multimedia functionality on the device. You can download it using BitTorrent: debian6-17-02-2012.zip.torrent (preferred method) or via one of the many http mirrors available on RPi Community page. This image contains all necessary files including the binary blob and closed source libraries, the kernel and the root file systems. If you want to to prepare an SD Card with this image simply use dd in Linux: unzip debian6-17-02-2012.zip sudo dd if=debian6-17-02-2012/debian6-17-02-2012.img of={sd_card_path} where sd_card_path is the device pointing to you SD Card (e.g. /dev/sdc). Make sure you use the correct device (e.g. with fdisk -l) or you may wipeout your hard drive […]

Cross-compiling VMWare View for ARM Linux (in Debian/Ubuntu)

Earlier this month, I wrote an article about PCoIP Technology which shows an Android application (VMWare View) running on an OMAP4 Tablet displaying a Windows 7 desktop. This remote desktop technology relies on a powerful server to do the processing and thin clients (in that case Tablets) to display the desktop. Since only pixels are transferred any OS (supported by the server) could be displayed in the thin client. That made me wonder if there was an open source PCoIP client that could run on low end Linux client such as the Raspberry Pi. VMWare View Open Client provides just what we need, but is only available in source code so we need to cross-compile it for ARM or build it in an ARM machine. Today, I’ll show the instructions I followed to cross-compile it for ARM in Debian using Emdebian Toolchain. First download and extract VMware View Open Client […]

Raspberry Pi Linux Distribution: Raspberry Pi Fedora Remix 14

Several operating systems will be able to run on the Raspberry Pi boards.  However, the Raspberry Foundation had announced that they were working with Red Hat to deliver a Fedora release optimized for the board and Broadcom BCM2835 processor (ARMv6 + hard-float support). It appears the full name of this distribution is “Raspberry Pi Fedora Remix 14” most probably based on Fedora 14 (as the name implies), and not the latest Fedora 16 release. This Linux distribution will officially be launched on the 22nd of February 2012 at the  Seneca Centre for the Development of Open Technology in Toronto, Canada during a 2-hour event (15:00-17:00) featuring: A hands-on opportunity to use a Raspberry Pi Live demonstrations of the Raspberry Pi Fedora Remix software Examples of the educational uses of the Raspberry Pi The 60-computer build farm used to build the Fedora ARM software on which the remix is based Information […]

armStoneA8: 49 Euros ARM Cortex-A8 Single Board Computer

F&S Elektronik Systeme GmbH, a German company,  has announced the armStoneA8 , a Single Board Computer (SBC) based on an ARM Cortex A8 that will be available by the first day of the Embedded World 2012 Conference.  The great part is that for a limited period (27 February 2012 to 4 March 2012) you’ll be able to buy the board for 49 Euros on their (yet to be launched) online shop. The board, that comes in PicoITX form factor (100 x 72mm), is powered by a Cortex A8 CPU running at 1GHz and the company provides support for Linux, WinCE 6.0 and Windows Embedded Compact 7. The company says the bootloader, SDK, BSP and kernels are already available with support for DirectX, OpenGL and hardware accelerated GStreamer. The company plans to release the detailed specifications before Embedded World 2012, but in the meantime, I found some PDF about the board […]

UP 7000 x86 SBC