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Linaro 11.10 Release with Linux Kernel 3.1

Linaro has just released version 11.10 based on Linux Kernel 3.1. Here are the highlights of the release: Android Audio playback and recording works on LEB-panda. TJBench into all Android builds benchmarked against the original Android libjpeg implementation: TomGall/LibJpegTurbo All strict-aliasing violations in 2.3.5 have been fixed and sent to AOSP. (for build optimization) Linaro Gerrit is integrated with Android Build Service for change verification as part of Continuous Integration effort. Tip toolchain tracked and released against all targets for 11.10. iMX53 will now boot with a 3.0 or later Android Kernel. The multimedia test application has been extended to cover encoding and give better benchmark results. Linaro’s Android distribution can now base builds off a tip toolchain build. Linaro’s 11.09 toolchain has been benchmarked. USB camera (UVC) now works on linaro-android builds. Developer Platform The Linux Linaro packages are now generated and validated in a continuous integration loop. New […]

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Xibo Digital Signage on ARM (Full Version)

Last month, I wrote a post showing how to run Xibo Open Source Digital Signage in a BeagleBoard/Overo emulator. That version could communicate with Xibo server, download the required files, display pictures and (maybe) play videos with the real hardware. However, it had serious limitation as Text, RSS and web pages could not be displayed. I’ve now fixed those issues and the full Xibo 1.3.1 can run on ARM platform. First, you need to follow the instructions given in Xibo Digital Signage on ARM (Beagleboard / Overo), although we’ll need to modify something with libavg compilation (see below). Then cross-compile berkelium for ARM using Linaro toolchain. Add libbrowser-node to libavg plugin directory and build libavg again. Also copy the Berkelium header files in to src/test/plugin (i.e. src/test/plugin/berkelium) or add the include file path to CFLAGS/CXXFLAGS.

Create libberkeliumwrapper.so:

Copy the required files to the qemu image: sudo mount -o […]

Khadas Edge2 Arm mini PC
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Pandaboard Cloud Cluster Running Google App Engine

Noritsuna Imamura showed an ARM cloud cluster built with 6 Pandaboards at  Linaro Connect Q4.11. Noritsuna is a member of the Open Embedded Software Foundation (OESF), a Japanese organization that support Open Source embedded software. The cluster is made of 6 panda boards with a total 6 GB of RAM (1GB per board) that runs the Google App Engine (http://code.google.com/appengine/) in Ubuntu/Linaro 11.09 release. The middleware used is TyphoonAE, a full-featured and productive serving environment to run Google App Engine (Python) applications. This type of server hosts web applications such as Rietveld (used in the demo below) to be run on (thin) clients. There are also plenty of other software (required by Google App Engine) that runs in this ARM cloud such as MySQL, Apache2, memcached and more. In the video, a power meter shows that the cluster consumes about 35 W in low activity mode. Norisuna had a comparison […]

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Epiq Solutions Matchstiq: World’s smallest Software Defined Radio

Epiq Solutions recently announced the Matchstiq, a software defined radio (SDR) combining a broadband RF transceiver with CPU (TI DM3730)/FPGA (Xilinx Spartan-6) processing running Linux 2.6.35. The device offers a complete stand-alone software-defined radio solution with  flexibility at a fraction of the size/weight/power consumption of similar products. Epiq Solutions also provides a library of ready-to-run specialty software applications that allows the Matchstiq platform to be immediately used to solve challenging signal processing requirements. The device can be deployed as stand-alone device in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), as a wireless interface to an (Android) host via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi or as wired interface to a PC via USB. The key features include: Integrated CPU (TI DM3730) /FPGA (Xilinx Spartan-6) for signal processing applications Single RF transceiver covering 300 MHz to 3.8 GHz Supports RF channel bandwidths up to 28 MHz Integrated GPS receiver with 1PPS Run-time loadable/executable software applications Full suite of specialty […]

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Nippon Electric Showcases (Quasi) Invisible Glass

Nippon Electric Glass Co Ltd developed a glass substrate that it calls “invisible glass” and exhibited it at FPD International 2011. The company reduced the reflection of light so that light reflections can hardly be seen on the glass substrate. Many visitors at the exhibitions were said to be  gazing at the invisible glass with surprised looks on their faces. Nippon Electric Glass reduced the the reflection of light by forming an anti-reflection film on each of the front and back sides of the glass substrate. In the case of a normal glass substrate, about 92% of incoming light passes through it, and the rest 8% of the light is reflected on it. On the other hand, about 99.5% of incoming light passes through the new glass substrate. So, only about 0.5% of the light is reflected on it. Nippon Electric Glass claims that the luminous reflectance of the substrate […]

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Linux Kernel Debugging – Linaro Connect Q4 2011

Linaro Connect Q4.2011 takes place on the 31 October – 4 November 2011 in Orlando. In the video below, Linaro toolchain developers asked kernel developers about their potential needs for kernel debugging. Several options to improve the kernel debugging experience were discussed. In particular, the toolchain group will make sure that OpenOCD works at least on one of the member boards to allow for easy debugging through JTAG. They also mentioned support for o-profile. This session was an opportunity to review debugging techniques used by kernel developers. It also allowed most participants to discover the GDB Text User Interface (GDB TUI), a very convenient way to interact with GDB, without having to go through heavyweight environments like Eclipse. You can follow this subject on Blueprints for Toolchain support for Kernel Debugging on Linaro website. The audio is quite poor, so use some headphones or boost the volume to hear anything.

Rockchip RK3568/RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs
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TI Unveils Sitara AM335x ARM Series Cortex-A8 Processors

Texas Instruments has just announced the new Sitara AM335X Processors and the low cost Beaglebone development board. The low cost Cortex-A8 SoCs start at 5 US dollars per piece and are aimed at upgrading ARM9 solutions (software compatible) and adding new features such as 3D interfaces and touch screen, high resolution displays with faster performance. Texas Instruments says you could take those new upgraded products to market within 6 months thanks to their inexpensive development board (Beaglebone) and complete SDK. There are six models in the Sitara AM335X series: AM3552: Cortex A8 up to 720 MHz. AM3554: Cortex A8 up to 720 MHz with 3D Graphics (PowerVR SGX GPU). AM3556: Cortex A8 up to 720 MHz with programmable real-time unit (PRU) @ 200 Mhz. AM3557: Cortex A8 up to 720 MHz with PRU @ 200Mhz and EtherCat. AM3558: Cortex A8 up to 720 MHz with 3D Graphics and PRU @ […]

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BeagleBone: New 89 USD Beagleboard

The BeagleBone is a low-cost, high-expansion hardware-hacker focused BeagleBoard. It is a bare-bones BeagleBoard that acts as a USB or Ethernet connected expansion companion for your current BeagleBoard and BeagleBoard-xM or works stand-alone. The BeagleBone is smaller than the previous version of BeagleBoards (looks like the business of a credit card) and features TI Sitara™ AM3358 Cortex A8 processor clocked at 700Mhz. The BeagleBone is also able to run a full-featured Linux. Here are the current hardware specifications: TI AM3358 ARM Cortex-A8 @ 700 MHz 256 MB DDR2 RAM Board size: 3.4″ x 2.1″ Shipped with 2GB microSD card with the Angstrom Distribution with node.js and Cloud9 IDE Single cable development environment with built-in FTDI-based serial/JTAG and on-board hub to give the same cable simultaneous access to a USB device port on the target processor Industry standard 3.3V I/Os on the expansion headers with easy-to-use 0.1″ spacing On-chip Ethernet, not […]

Khadas VIM4 SBC