Linux 6.10 Release – Notable changes, Arm, RISC-V, and MIPS architectures

Linux 6.10 Release Changelog

Linux Torvalds has announced the release of Linux 6.10 on LKML: So the final week was perhaps not quote as quiet as the preceding ones, which I don’t love – but it also wasn’t noisy enough to warrant an extra rc. And much of the noise this last week was bcachefs again (with netfs a close second), so it was all pretty compartmentalized. In fact, about a third of the patch for the last week was filesystem-related (there were also some btrfs latency fixes and other noise), which is unusual, but none of it looks particularly scary. Another third was drivers, and the rest is “random”. Anyway, this obviously means that the merge window for 6.11 opens up tomorrow. Let’s see how that goes, with much of Europe probably making ready for summer vacation. And the shortlog below is – as always – just the last week, not some kind […]

GEEKOM Mini IT13 Core i7-13620H PC discounted by $100 for Prime Day (Sponsored)

GEEKOM Mini IT13 Intel Core i7-13620H Discounted mini PC

You can now get the GEEKOM Mini IT13 mini PC with a $100/£100 discount when using the coupon code CNX13 on GEEKOM US or GEEKOM UK bringing the price down to $499 and £499 respectively. The offer is valid on the model with an Intel Core i7-13620H 10-core/16-thread Raptor Lake processor, 32GB DDR4 RAM, and a 1TB NVMe SSD for storage. The mini PC can drive up to four 4K displays through HDMI and USB4 ports, supports 2.5GbE and WiFi 6E networking, and comes with six USB ports for expansion.   GEEKOM Mini IT13 specifications: SoC – Intel Core i7-13620H 13th Gen Raptor Lake processor with 10 cores, 16 threads up to 4.90 GHz with 24MB Cache, Iris Xe graphics; PBP: 45W System Memory – 32GB dual-channel DDR4-3200 via 2x SODIMM sockets Storage 1TB M.2 2280 PCIe Gen 4 x4 SSD M.2 2242 SATA SSD slot, expandable up to 1TB […]

Khadas Edge2 Arm mini PC

Khadas Mind Graphics NVIDIA RTX 4060 Ti GPU dock for the Mind mini PC is now available for $999

Khadas Mind Graphics Dock

The Khadas Mind Graphics is a dock for the Khadas Mind Raptor Lake mini PC that integrates an NVIDIA Geforce RTX 4060 Ti GPU and enables users to run high-end games, edit videos, design graphics, and experiment with AI while keeping the portability and small size of a mini PC. As we’ve seen in our reviews, mini PCs now match the performance of larger machines in almost all aspects with tools like PassMark Performance showing higher-end models’ CPU, memory bandwidth, and storage in the top 10% or 20% of systems. The exception is 3D graphics performance because integrated GPUs can’t match the performance of higher-end graphics cards. The Khadas Mind Graphics solves that by adding an NVIDIA Geforce RTX 40601 Ti GPU to the Khadas Mind mini PC through its Mind Link connector also bringing out other connectors such as 2.5GbE, USB, SD card, etc… Khadas Mind Graphics specifications: Graphics […]

Minino ESP32-C6 board is designed for IoT security and penetration testing

Minino the Kitty Shape IoT AnalysisTool

Minino security tool is a kitty-shaped ESP32-C6 powered cybersecurity device for analyzing 2.4GHz communications and probing IoT devices. It supports Bluetooth Low Energy, Wi-Fi 6, Zigbee, Thread, and Matter, and has a dedicated GNSS radio for receiving signals from various satellite constellations. Minino is compatible with CatSniffer analysis tools and Wireshark software, and can log packet captures on a microSD card. These features make this suitable for applications like assessing IoT device security, network analysis, and wireless protocol research. We have previously written about similar IoT security and pen testing tools like the ESP8266 and ATmega32U4-based Diabolic Drive, the ESP32 Marauder Pocket Unit v2, the ThingPulse Pendrive S3, and many others, feel free to check those out if you are interested in the topic. Minino security tool specifications Wireless Module – ESP32-C6-WROOM-1U SoC – ESP32-C6  CPU Single-core 32-bit RISC-V clocked up to 160 MHz Low-power RISC-V core @ up to […]

ODROID-H3/H4 x86 SBCs get M.2 PCIe Gen 3 x4 expansion cards with two or four M.2 sockets

ODROID-H4 M.2 4x1 card

ODROID-H3 and ODROID-H4 x86 single board computers have gotten two affordable M.2 expansion cards with the M.2 2×2 card adding two PCIe Gen 3 x2 slots and the M.2 4×1 adding four PCIe Gen 3 x1 slots (ODROID-H4 only) to the Intel SBCs. We’ve seen plenty of PCIe HAT+ boards for the Raspberry Pi 5 since the launch of the Arm SBC last year, but it’s limited by its PCIe Gen2/Gen3 x1 interfaces, and Hardkernel now provides two new M.2 cards leveraging the M.2 PCIe Gen3 x4 socket of the ODROID-H3/H4 family allowing users to add up to four M.2 PCIe modules for storage, wired or wireless connectivity, and/or AI acceleration. M.2 2×2 card  for ODROID-H3 and H4 series The M.2 2×2 card also named “M.2 – NVME” adds two M.2 Key-M PCIe sockets for 2280 size modules with each having a PCIe 3.0 x2 interface supporting up to 16GT/s. […]

GEEKOM AE7 Review – An AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS mini PC tested with Windows 11 and Ubuntu 24.04

GEEKOM AE7 mini PC review Windows 11

Today we’ll review the GEEKOM AE7 mini PC powered by an AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS octa-core processor with up to 32GB DDR5, a 1TB NVMe SSD, four 4K capable video outputs through HDMI and USB-C ports, 2.5GbE and WiFi 6E connectivity, and six USB ports for expansion. As its name implies the GEEKOM AE7 is an evolution of the earlier GEEKOM A7 with almost identical specifications that we reviewed with Windows 11 Pro and Ubuntu 22.04 earlier this year. So we won’t do our usual three-part review and instead focus on differences between the two Ryzen 9 7840HS mini PCs in terms of features, performance, and cooling ability in a shorter review that covers hardware, Windows 11 Pro, and Ubuntu 24.04 testing. GEEKOM AE7 specifications SoC – AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS 8-core/16-thread processor up to 4.0GHz with 16MB cache, AMD Radeon 780M Graphics; TDP: 35 to 54W System Memory – […]

Rockchip RK3568/RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs

Ugoos SK1 8K Android TV box with Dolby Vision comes with Amlogic S928X-K SoC, 8GB LPDDR4, 128GB eMMC flash

Ugoos SK1 8K TV Box Dolby Vision Atmos DTS HD

Ugoos SK1 8K Android TV box is based on the Amlogic S928X-K penta-core Cortex-A76/A55 SoC with 8GB LPDDR4, a 128GB eMMC flash, and support for Dolby Vision HDR. The SK1 model follows the Ugoos AM8 model introduced last year with the Amlogic S928X-J processor, 4GB LPDDR4, and 32GB eMMC flash. The new model provides additional licenses with the S928X-K SoC and more resources that should be suitable for more than just watching 8K videos, and some games and other apps could easily run on the device. Ugoos SK1 specifications: SoC – Amlogic S928X-K CPU – Penta-core processor with 1x Cortex-A76 core @ up to 2.0 GHz, 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 encoder AI […]

conga-SMX95 NXP i.MX 9596 SMARC 2.1 SoM supports M.2 1216 WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.3 modules

conga-SMX95 NXP i.MX9596 SoM M.2 1216 WiFi 6 module

We had already written about NXP i.MX 95 SMARC 2.1 system-on-modules from ADLINK, iWave Systems, Avnet, and Advantech, but congatec has now launched its own with the conga-SMX95 featuring the NXP i.MX 9596 hexa-core Arm Cortex-A55 AI processor and up to 16GB LPDDR5 memory. The conga-SMX95 also comes with up to 256GB flash, is available on both commercial and industrial temperature grade variants, and exposes most of the same interfaces as competing products. What might be different is that the conga-SMX95 is offered with an optional M.2 1216 WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.3 wireless module. We’ve seen M.2 1216 wireless modules before, and they don’t use any M.2 socket but are LGA packages that need to be soldered to the target board/module. conga-SMX95 specifications: SoC – NXP i.MX 9596 CPU Up to 6x Arm Cortex-A55 application cores clocked at 1.8 GHz (industrial) or 2.0 GHz (commercial) with 32K I-cache and […]

Khadas VIM4 SBC