CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

February 4, 2022 by Ian W MORRISON (Linuxium) - 5 Comments

Beelink GTi11 modding – PCIe Gen 4.0 M.2 slot, tweaking power limits, and eGPU

Previously I reviewed Beelink’s new GTi11 Intel Tiger Lake mini PC running Windows 11 and Ubuntu 20.04, so in this final part of the review, I’ll cover in more detail some of the features only briefly highlighted before. Specifically, I’m going to look at the PCIe Gen 4.0 M.2 slot, dabble in ‘overclocking’ and explore eGPU options. Hardware Recap The GTi11 is a 168 x 120 x 39mm (6.61 x 4.72 x 1.54 inches) actively cooled mini PC and the review model has an i5-1135G7 Intel Tiger Lake quad-core 8-thread 2.50 GHz Core processor boosting to 4.20 GHz with Intel’s Xe Graphics. The review model also included a 500GB M.2 2280 NVMe PCIe Gen 3.0 SSD drive with Windows 10 Pro installed, two sticks of 8GB DDR4 3200 MHz memory, a soldered WiFi 6 (or 802.11ax) Intel AX201 chip, and dual 2.5Gb Ethernet ports. Interestingly there are another two key […]

February 3, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Foldable, portable laser cutter & engraver comes with built-in fume filtration (Crowdfunding)

Optic foldable portable laser cutter & engraver

If you’d wish you could easily carry your laser engraver or cutter around, conveniently store it after use due to the limited space in your office, or/and dreamt of a built-in fume filtration system into your machine, Rendyr’s Optic may be what you are looking for. It is a foldable, portable laser cutter & engraver that still provides a large 18-inch x 12.2-inch work area (around 457 x 310mm), and also includes a built-in fume filtration system with replaceable multi-stage filter cartridges. Optic key features and specifications: Laser Dual-diode laser module with active cooling 15W output power (20W under test) Manual focus adjustment with 3-stage precision height gauge Focal Length: fixed, 0.78” (20mm) Beam Size: 10-100 microns Filtration system with easily exchangeable filters Optional exhaust module to replace the filter and using a shop vacuum to vent outside Work area Foldable 457 x 310mm cutting mat with an alignment grid […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM

February 3, 2022February 3, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

More Allwinner F1C200s ARM9 boards: MangoPi R3 and CherryPi-F1C200S

I wrote about the Widora TINY200 board based on Allwinner F1C200s ARM9 processor with 64MB built-in RAM, up to 512MB NAND flash, LCD and camera interfaces in April 2020. I was just informed more similar Allwinner F1C200s boards had recently shown up with Widora MangoPi R3 that’s basically the same as TINY200, and CherryPi-F1C200S with similar dimensions and features, but a different ports arrangement. Let’s have a look at both. MangoPi R3 MangoPi R3 specifications are the same as the ones for Tiny200 board, but they selected the 128MB NAND flash storage option, and changed the USB-TTL chip: SoC – Allwinner F1C200s ARM926EJS processor @ 420 MHz (overclockable to 700 MHz) with 64MB DDR RAM Storage – 128MB NAND flash and MicroSD card slot Display I/F – 40-pin RGB565 display interface and 6-wire touch interface Camera I/F – 24-pin DVP camera interface compatible with OV2640, GC0328, etc. Audio – Onboard […]

February 3, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 16 Comments

Raspberry Pi OS 64-bit officially released

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has now officially released Raspberry Pi OS 64-bit about two years after the first beta version was released. Despite some potential performance benefits from using 64-bit code instead of 32-bit, the Raspberry Pi Foundation has resisted moving too quickly to a 64-bit OS because if it would create two separate worlds for their earlier 32-bit boards like Raspberry Pi 2 or Raspberry Pi Zero, and the newer 64-bit boards starting with Raspberry Pi 3 onwards and may confuse users besides the extra workloads. Some of the main reasons to finally release a 64-bit version include improved software compatibility with many closed-source applications only available for arm64, and some open-source ones not fully optimized for the armhf port, some performance benefits, and the ability for a process to make use of the full 8GB RAM, removing the 3GB limit when using LPAE (Large Physical Address Extension) on […]

February 2, 2022March 7, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Golioth IoT development platform offers Zephyr SDK, support for nRF9160, ESP32, and over 100 other platforms

There are already plenty of IoT development platforms, but here’s another one with Golioth that relies on a Zephyr SDK, “first-tier” support for Nordic Semiconductor nRF9160 (cellular) and Espressif Systems ESP32-C3 (WiFi), as well as a QEMU-based simulator for easy testing. The use of an open-source Zephyr SDK even enables them to support over 100+ hardware components, and the company, also called Golioth, says their platform scales from one device for evaluation to one million devices during deployment, thanks notably to a free Dev Tier account to get started at no cost. Some of the other highlights of Golioth include: “Secure by Default” communication over efficient protocols like CoAP and soon MQTT Access to Device Services like Software updates that include secure boot and firmware management Real-time NoSQL database (LightDB) that can be useful for creating Digital Twins and synchronization Time-series database (LightDB Stream) for storing and querying sensor data […]

February 2, 2022February 7, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 14 Comments

Tiny Core Linux 13.0 released for older or lower-end x86 hardware

Tiny Core Linux 13.0 has just been released for 32-bit and 64-bit x86 systems with a recent Linux 5.15.10 kernel, and various upgrades to the packages. Tiny Core Linux is a lightweight (~22MB ISO) Linux distribution with an FLTK (Fast Light Toolkit)/FLWM (Fast Light Windows Manager) desktop and based on the Core Project that integrates a recent Linux kernel, vmlinuz, and a root filesystem with low footprint libraries such as busybox. It’s mostly interesting for older or low-end hardware that may be slow and/or unusable with more common Linux distributions like Ubuntu or Debian. Tiny Core Linux 13.0 main changes: kernel updated to 5.15.10 glibc updated to 2.34 gcc updated to 11.2.0 binutils updated to 2.37 e2fsprogs base libs/apps updated to 1.46.4 util-linux base libs/apps updated to 2.37.2 busybox updated to 1.34.1 50-udev-default.rules: add media permissions select: require that “break” used in awk scripts filetool.sh: prevent gratuitous change to .filetool.lst’s […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs and SoMs in 2025

February 2, 2022February 2, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 16 Comments

Craob X – An ultrathin, portless laptop with a wireless charger & dock

They’ve already taken out our audio jacks, and many laptops don’t come with an Ethernet port, but the Craob X portless laptop goes even further by completely removing all ports, and relies on a magnetic wireless charger that sticks to the laptop lid, and offers some USB and audio ports, you know just in case you actually need to connect wired peripherals… The main advantage is that you’d get an ultra-thin 7mm thick laptop that only weighs around 860 grams. As long as you mostly rely on wireless keyboards, mice, headphones, or storage devices that may be a working solution, and if you need to charge the battery simply place the wireless charger on the back of the display. Craob X portless laptop preliminary specifications: SoC – Up to Intel Core i7-1280P Alder Lake processor with Iris Xe graphics (28W TDP) System Memory – Up to 32GB LPDDR5 RAM Storage […]

February 1, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

JetHome JetHub D1 is a Linux automation controller based on Amlogic A113X SoC

I discovered JetHome Jethub D1 and Jethub H1 Linux automation controller based on respectively Amlogic A113X and S905X SoCs in Linux 5.16 changelog, as both platforms got upstreamed to mainline Linux. I had never heard of JetHome, a Russian company based in St. Petersburg, nor their products before. Both Jethub D1 & H1 will run either an Armbian-built Ubuntu operating system or Home Assistant Operating System (formerly HassOS), and support Home Assistant (Z2M), Home Assistant (ZHA), and ZIgbee2MQTT. Jethub H1 looks like a TV box with a Zigbee module, while Jethub D1 is a DIN Rail automation controller with plenty of I/Os. Let’s focus on the latter. JetHub D1 specifications: SoC – Amlogic A113x quad-core Cortex A53 processor @ up to 1.5 GHz System Memory / Storage configurations 512MB RAM and 8 GB flash 1GB RAM and 16 GB eMMC flash Connectivity 10/100M Ethernet RJ45 port Dual-band WiFi 5 and […]