Linux 6.4 release – Main changes, Arm, RISC-V and MIPS architectures

Linux 6.4 has just been released by Linus Torvalds on the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML): Hmm. Final week of 6.4 is done, and we’ve mainly got some netfilter fixes, some mm reverts, and a few tracing updates. There’s random small changes elsewhere: the usual architecture noise, a number of selftest updates, some filesystem fixes (btrfs, ksmb), etc. Most of the stuff in my mailbox the last week has been about upcoming things for 6.5, and I already have 15 pull requests pending. I appreciate all you proactive people. But that’s for tomorrow. Today we’re all busy build-testing the newest kernel release, and checking that it’s all good. Right? Released around two months ago, Linux 6.3 brought us AMD’s “automatic IBRS” Spectre defense mechanism, additional progress on the Rust front with User-mode Linux support (on x86-64 systems only), the NFS filesystem (both the client and server sides) gained support for […]

8K TV box board features Amlogic S928X Cortex-A76/A55 SoC

The “YB910_428_V1.0” is an Amlogic S928X penta-core Cortex-A76/A55 board designed for 8K TV boxes with up to 8GB RAM, an HDMI 2.1a port, Gigabit Ethernet and WiFi connectivity, optical S/PDIF, a 3.5mm audio jack, and a few USB 3.2/2.0 ports. We first started to see Amlogic S928X TV boxes from manufacturers such as SEI Robotics and SDMC last year, but those companies mostly cater to operators and I’ve yet to see any retail Amlogic S928X devices. The YB910 board could mean we are about to see some S928X devices for sale very soon. YB910 board specifications: SoC – Amlogic S928X CPU – Penta-core processor with 1x Cortex-A76 core, 4x Cortex-A55 cores GPU – Arm Mali-G57 MC2 GPU with support for OpenGL ES 3.2, Vulkan 1.2, and OpenCL 2.0 VPU 8Kp60 H.265, AV1, VP9, AVS3/AVS2 10-bit video decoder; 4Kp60 H.264 decoder, 1080p60 MPEG-4, WMV/VC-1, AVS, MPEG-2, MPEG-1 decoder Low-latency 4Kp60 H.265/H.264 […]

Khadas Edge2 Arm mini PC

i-Pi SMARC 1200 (MediaTek Genio 1200) devkit tested with a Yocto Linux image

Last weekend I received ADLINK’s i-Pi SMARC 1200 development kit powered by MediaTek Genio 1200 Octa-core Cortex-A78/A55 AIoT processor, checked out the hardware and wanted to install the Yocto Linux image but stopped in my tracks because it looked like I had to install Ubuntu 18.04 first in a Virtual Machine or another computer. But finally, the documentation has been updated to clarify “Ubuntu 18.04 or greater” is required, and I had no problem flashing the image from a Ubuntu 22.04 laptop after installing dependencies and tools as follows:

That’s it for the tools. Eventually, the development kit will support three images: Yocto Linux, Android 13 (July 2023), and Ubuntu 20.04 (Q3 2023). So that means only the Yocto Linux image is available from the download page at this time, and that’s what I’ll be using today. We’ll need to connect the micro USB to USB cable between the […]

Orange Pi 5/5B SBC gets a fanless aluminum enclosure

Orange Pi 5 and 5B are affordable single board computers based on Rockchip RK3588S processor, but so far they did not have a fanless enclosure nor an easy way to add a heatsink leading some to create an ICE Tower cooling fan for the boards. But Orange Pi has recently launched an aluminum enclosure for $12.99 on Aliexpress(or $25 on Amazon) for both models that should help with cooling and protect the hardware from dust. But note that it does not work with the Rockchip RK3588-powered Orange Pi 5 Plus SBC since its dimensions are different. The Orange Pi 5 fanless enclosure is made of aluminum alloy, measures 105.9 x 68.7 x 27mm, and weighs 126 grams with all ports accessible from the outside, except for the 26-pin header and the 3-pin UART header. The company also included a power button to cleanly shut down the system. We’ve given plenty […]

Orange Pi 800 Keyboard PC gets 128GB flash storage

The Orange Pi 800 keyboard PC, launched as an alternative to the Raspberry Pi 400 last year with a Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core Cortex-A72/A53 processor and 4GB RAM, has gotten an upgrade to 128GB of eMMC flash instead of just 64GB. The keyboard PC still comes with HDMI 2.0 and VGA video outputs, built-in speakers and microphone, Gigabit Ethernet and WiFi 5 connectivity, a few USB ports, and a 78-key QWERTY keyboard, plus a 26-GPIO connector accessible without opening the device.     Orange Pi 800 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core big.LITTLE processor with 2x Arm Cortex-A72 cores up to 1.8GHz, 4x Arm Cortex-A53 cores up to 1.4GHz, and an Arm Mali-T860MP4 GPU System Memory – 4GB LPDDR4 Storage – 128GB eMMC flash, microSD card slot Video Output HDMI 2.0 port up to 4Kp60 VGA port up to Full HD resolution Audio 3.5mm audio (headphone+mic) jack Integrated speaker(s) and microphone […]

GL.iNet Spitz AX review – Part 2: a router with 5G NR, WiFi 6, 2.5GbE, failover and load balancing

Earlier this month I introduced the GL.iNet Spitz AX (aka GL-X3000NR) router with 2.5GbE, WiFi 6, and 5G NR cellular connectivity listing the specifications, doing an unboxing, and going through the initial setup. I’ve now received a new SIM card for testing and installed it into the router to continue the review. 4G/5G cellular connectivity on Spitz AX router After powering the router, the SIM card was detected and showed a 5G connection, but quickly fell back to 4G as can be seen with the cyan icon in the screenshot below. Shortly after, I lost 4G data connectivity, and after a while, the modem was not detected at all. But after restarting the router, and clicking on the “Auto Setup” icon everything looked to be working fine and I was always on a 5G connection from “house 1”. You’ll notice an envelop icon on the top right corner of the […]

Rockchip RK3568/RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs

NanoPC-T6 Arm Linux SBC offers dual 2.5GbE, HDMI 2.1 outputs, HDMI 2.0 input, 2x M.2 sockets, and more

FriendlyELEC NanoPC-T6 is a feature-rich Rockchip RK3588 SBC with up to 16GB LPDDR4X RAM, 256GB eMMC flash, two HDMI 2.1 output ports, one HDMI 2.0 input port, dual 2.5GbE, two M.2 PCIe socket for storage or wireless, a mini PCIe socket and microSIM slot for 4G LTE connectivity, and more. The new NanoPC-T6 single board computer offered many more interfaces than the recent NanoPi R6S or R6C board based on the Rockchip RK3588S with fewer I/Os. As such, it would be suitable for a wider range of applications and FriendlyELEC says it is well suited to enterprise consumers who want to develop mini machine vision systems, and embedded systems hobbyists who want to explore and implement all sorts of prototypes. NanoPC-T6 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3588 CPU – Octa-core processor with 4x Cortex-A76 cores @ up to 2.4 GHz, 4x Cortex-A55 cores @ 1.8 GHz GPU – Arm Mali-G610 MP4 […]

MediaTek Genio 1200 system-on-module powers Cortex-A78/A55 AIoT & robotics development kit

ADLINK Technology’s SMARC 2.1 compliant LEC-MTK-I12000 system-on-module (SoM) features the MediaTek Genio 1200 octa-core Cortex-A78/A55 AIoT processor coupled with up to 8GB RAM and 256GB UFS storage, and powers the I-Pi SMARC 1200 development kit designed for robotics and AIoT applications. LEC-MTK-I1200 MediaTek Genio 1200 system-on-module LEC-MTK-I1200 SoM specifications: SoC – MediaTek Genio 1200 (MT8395) octa-core processor with 4x Cortex-A78 cores @ 2.2GHz, 4x Cortex-A55 cores @ 2.0GHz with penta-core Arm Mali-G57 GPU @ 880MHz with support for OpenGL ES 3.2/2.0/1.1, Vulkan 1.1/1.0, OpenCL 2.2, 5.0 TOPS NPU, HiFi 4 audio DSP, etc… System Memory – 4 or 8 GB LPDDR4X Storage – 32, 64, 128, or 256 GB UFS storage, compatible with UFS gear 2.1 Wireless – 802.11b/g/n/ac WiFi 5 2×2 MU-MIMO, Bluetooth 5.0 314-pin MXM connector with Storage – 1x SDIO (4-bit) compatible with SD/SDIO standard, up to version 3.0 Display HDMI 2.0b up to 4Kp60 Dual-channel LVDS […]

Khadas VIM4 SBC