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Linux 4.8 Release – Main Changes, ARM & MIPS Architectures

Linus Torvalds has officially released Linux 4.8 last Sunday: So the last week was really quiet, which maybe means that I could probably just have skipped rc8 after all. Oh well, no real harm done. This obviously means that the merge window for 4.9 is open, and I appreciate the people who already sent in some pull requests early due to upcoming travel or other reasons. I’ll start pulling things tomorrow, and have even the most eager developers and testers hopefully test the final 4.8 release before the next development kernels start coming 😉 Anyway, there’s a few stragging fixes since rc8 listed below: it’s a mixture of arch fixes (arm, mips, sparc, x86), drivers (networking, nvdimm, gpu) and generic code (some core networking, with a few filesystem, cgroup and and vm things). All of it pretty small, and there really aren’t that many of them. Go forth and test, […]

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Review of Allo Vana Player Linux HiFi Audio System with Max2Play, SqueezeBox and Kodi

Last month I showcased what I called “Allo Sparky Audio Kit” with a DAC board (Piano), an amplifier board (Volt), and usually hard to find  reclocker and capacitance multiplier boards (Kali & CM), all connected to Allo Sparky ARM Linux development board powered by Actions Semi S500 quad core Cortex A9 processor, and running Ubuntu 12.04. In the first post, I just described the boards, and showed how to assemble the kit, but now that I have received the user’s manual, it turns out the kit is actually called “Vana Player” and the provided Ubuntu firmware image runs Max2Play Browser based system that’s also available for Raspberry Pi and ODROID boards. Before starting the kit, you’ll need to connect speakers to Piano DAC board and/or Kali board, as well as a 19.5V power source such as a laptop power supply to connect to the CM board. I connected some USB […]

Khadas Edge2 Arm mini PC
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Nextcloud Box is a $80 Private Cloud Server with 1TB HDD for Development Boards

While there are plenty of cloud services provided by companies such as Dropbox or Google, you may want to manage you own private cloud server instead for performance and/or privacy reasons. One typical way to do this is to install Owncloud or Nextcloud (a fork of Owncloud), on a Linux computer or board such as Raspberry Pi 3. The former is usually a little expensive for just this task, the latter often results in cable mess, and in both case, some people may not be comfortable with setting it all up. Nextcloud, Western Digital, and Canonical seems to have addressed most of those issues with Nextcloud Box including a 1TB USB 3.0 WDLabs harddrive, Nextcloud case with space for the drive and small ARM or x86 Linux development boards, and a micro USB power supply. The kit also include a micro SD card pre-loaded with Snappy Ubuntu Core, Apache, MySQL […]

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$20 pcDuino4 Nano is Yet Another Allwinner H3 Development Board (Sort of)

We already have plenty of low cost Allwinner H3 development boards thanks to several Shenzhen Xunlong Orange Pi boards and FriendlyARM NanoPi boards among a few others. Here comes another one with pcDuino4 Nano. pcDuino4 Nano (preliminary?) specifications: SoC – Allwinner H3 quad core Cortex A7 @ 1.2 GHz with an ARM Mali-400MP2 GPU up to 600 MHz System Memory – 1GB DDR3 SDRAM Storage – micro SD card slot Video & Audio Output – HDMI and 3.5mm jack for CVBS (composite + stereo audio) Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet USB – 3x USB 2.0 host ports, 1x micro USB OTG port Camera – DVP Interface Expansions – 40-pin Raspberry Pi compatible header with UART, SPI, I2C, PWM, GPIOs, etc… Debugging – 4-pin header for serial console Misc – Power and reset buttons; 2x LEDs; IR receiver; on-board microphone. Power Supply – 5V/2A via micro USB port; 5V via VDD_5V pin […]

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OpenRex Open Source Hardware NXP i.MX6 Board Launched for 199 Euros and Up

OpenRex is an open source hardware board powered by NXP i.MX6 Cortex A9 processor designed by Fedevel for their hardware design course, and manufactured by Voipac, both companies based on Slovakia. The schematics, PCB layout, gerber files and other manufacturing files were released in February, but the company has only started selling the board a few days ago with OpenRex Basic SBC and OpenRex Max SBC boards. OpenRex Basic and Max boards specifications: SoC OpenRex Basic – NXP i.MX 6Solo single core Cortex A9 processor @ 1 GHz with 2D and 3D GPU OpenRex Max – NXP i.MX 6Quad quad core Cortex A9 processor @ 1 GHz with 2D and 3D GPU MCU – NXP LPC1345FHN33 ARM Cortex-M3 micro-controller @ 72 MHz System Memory Basic – 512 MB DDR3-1066 (400MHz) Max – 2GB DDR3-1066 (533 MHz) Storage Basic – micro SD slot, 1x 2Kbit I2C EEPROM, 1x 32Mbit SPI flash Max […]

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Allo Sparky Audio Kit Combines an ARM Linux Board with Amplifier, Audio DAC, Reclocker and Capacitance Multiplier Boards

Last year I wrote about Allo Sparky SBC Linux and Android development powered by Actions Semi S500 quad core Cortex A9 processor, which mostly differentiates itself from the competition by the many add-on boards for audio, VoIP, and IoT (WiFi+Bluetooth+Zigbee ). While most of development boards are manufactured in China, Allo company is based in India, and all boards are manufactured there, which could be a benefit to Indian readers who want to avoid potential custom issues with other boards. The company has shipped me their complete audio development kit, and I’ll first check out the hardware, before taking time to experiment with the kit in a few weeks or months… I could find 6 different boards in the kit, which I detailed below, as well as a 5V/3A power supply with AU and EU adapter,  a micro USB adapter, a micro SD card apparently pre-loaded with Ubuntu 12.04, a […]

Rockchip RK3568/RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs
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USB Fun – Tiny USB WiFi and Hub Boards and micro USB Hub

I’ve come across a few interesting tiny USB boards and hubs in the last few days, so instead of writing a post for each, I’ve gathered all info into a single article. Small ESP8285 USB Board A couple of weeks ago, CNLohr released his first ESPUSB virtual USB implementation for ESP8266 allowing to use USB with external hardware, barring a resistor, and only two GPIOs. He has now made a tiny board based on ESP8285 with a USB interface leveraging ESPUSB. Hardware files can be found on github. So what can you do with it? CNLohr leveraged the work of the community in order to emulate a keyboard and mouse using a smartphone. The only bit of bad news in the video is that finally USB full speed (12 Mbps) can’t be supported. NanoUSB Hub Board Mux wanted to add more USB devices to its tablets, but there was none […]

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SZTomato TVI Amlogic S905X Development Board to Support Android 6.0, OpenELEC 7.0, and Ubuntu 16.04

Shenzhen Tomato has been selling Android TV boxes for a few years now, but one of their next product will be a development board based on Amlogic S905X processor with 8GB flash, 2GB RAM, and the usual 40-pin Raspberry Pi header. SZTomato TVI development board specifications: SoC –  Amlogic S905X quad core ARM Cortex-A53 @ up to 2.0GHz with penta-core Mali-450MP GPU @ 750 MHz System Memory – 2GB DDR3 (1GB or less as option) Storage – 8GB Samsung eMMC flash (other capacities as option)  + micro SD slot Video & Audio  Output – HDMI 2.0a up to 4K @ 60 Hz Connectivity – Fast Ethernet port, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0 (Ampak AP6212) with IPEX connector USB – 2x USB 2.0 host ports with 500mA fuses, 1x USB type C port for power and USB devices (no video) Expansion header – 40-pin Raspberry Pi compatible header with USB, […]

Khadas VIM4 SBC