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Linux 5.10 LTS release – Main changes, Arm, MIPS and RISC-V architectures

Linus Torvalds has just released Linux 5.10: Ok, here it is – 5.10 is tagged and pushed out. I pretty much always wish that the last week was even calmer than it was, and that’s true here too. There’s a fair amount of fixes in here, including a few last-minute reverts for things that didn’t get fixed, but nothing makes me go “we need another week”. Things look fairly normal. It’s mostly drivers – as it should be – with a smattering of fixes all over: networking, architectures, filesystems, tooling.. The shortlog is appended, and scanning it gives a good idea of what kind of things are there. Nothing that looks scary: most of the patches are very small, and the biggest one is fixing pin mapping definitions for a pincontrol driver. This also obviously means that the merge window for 5.11 will start tomorrow. I already have a couple […]

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TTGO T-Higrow is a WiFi & Bluetooth connected soil temperature & moisture sensor

LilyGO has made plenty of ESP32 “TTGO” boards with various features be it PoE, battery support, OLED display, cellular connectivity, and even a devkit in watch form factor. The latest product from the company specifically targets smart farming/gardening as TTGO T-Higrow embeds either DHT11 temperature and humidity sensor or BME280 temperature, humidity, and barometric sensor to report soil temperature and moisture over Bluetooth or WiFi. It can also come as a kit with a battery and a 3D printed enclosure. TTGO T-Higrow board specifications: SoC – Espressif Systems ESP32 dual-core LX6 processor @ up to 240 MHz with 520 LB SRAM, Wi-Fi & Bluetooth Storage – 4MB QSPI flash Wireless 2.4 GHz 802.11b/g/n WiFi 4 up to 150 Mbps Bluetooth 4.2 BR/EDR and BLE Sensors Option 1 – DHT11 temperature and humidity sensor Option 2 – BME280 temperature, humidity, and barometric sensor Expansion – 2x 12-pin through holes with UART, […]

Khadas Edge2 Arm mini PC
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PolarBerry is a Compact, Linux-capable RISC-V FPGA SBC and module (Crowdfunding)

SiFive may just have announced a mini-ITX motherboard for RISC-V PCs, but if you’d like a RISC-V Linux platform in a more compact form factor, Sundance PolarBerry may better fit your requirements, albeit the board will target different use cases. Powered by Microchip PolarFire RISC-V SoC FPGA, PolarBerry is both a single board computer with Gigabit Ethernet and 40-pin GPIO header, as well as a system-on-module thanks to three Samtec board-to-board connectors. PolarBerry specifications: SoC – Microsemi PolarFire FPGA MPFS250T-FCVG484 penta-core processor with 1x RV64IMAC monitor core, 4x RV64GC application cores, FPGA fabric with 254K x logic elements (4LUT + DFF), 784 x math blocks (18 x 18 MACC), and 16 x SERDES lanes at 12.5 Gbps; 12 W maximum power consumption System Memory –  4 GB of 32-bit wide DDR4 memory Storage – 4GB eMMC flash, 128 Mbit SPI Serial NOR flash for boot image Networking – Gigabit Ethernet […]

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TechNexion Unveils EDM and AXON SoM’s Powered by NXP i.MX8M Plus SoC

A few days ago we wrote about Variscite’s NXP i.MX 8M Plus-powered AI systems-on-modules and devkits, and now it’s TechNexion’s turn to introduce its own SoM’s for artificial intelligence applications. Just like variscite, the company has two variants with EDM-G-IMX8M-PLUS following the EDM standard with a 260-pin edge connector, and AXON-E-IMX8M-PLUS part of the AXON family with board-to-board connectors better suited to vibration-prone applications. Besides the form factor and different default storage  capacities, both SoM’s share the same specifications: SoC – NXP i.MX8M Plus quad-core Cortex-A53 processor @ up to 1.8 GHz with Cortex-M7 real-time core @ 400 MHz, Vivante GC520L 2D GPU, Vivante GC7000UL 3D GPU, 1080p60 hardware decoder (HEVC, H.264, VP9, and VP8) and encode (H.265/H.264), and 2.3 TOPS NPU System Memory – Up to 8 GB LPDDR4 Storage AXON-E-IMX8M-PLUS – 32 GB eMMC flash by default EDM-G-IMX8M-PLUS – 16 GB eMMC flash by default Networking Chips Qualcomm […]

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AMD Ryzen Embedded SBC Review with Ubuntu 20.04

Last June, we reviewed DFI GHF51 Ryzen Embedded R1606G SBC with Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC. We had to send back the board to Taiwan, as the company wanted to double-check some of the issues we reported, and we got the board to review it with Ubuntu 20.04. So I downloaded Ubuntu 20.04.1 ISO flashed it to a USB flash drive, and could install it on the eMMC flash drive without issue. I selected to keep Windows 10, so I have a dual-boot system on a 32GB eMMC flash. Yes, I do like a challenge! 🙂 DFI GHF51 Ubuntu 20.04 System Info We can check some of the information from the system in the terminal:

So I have a 7.9GB partition to play with Ubuntu 20.04.1, but I could do all tests without issues, although I had to remove Phoronix benchmark program and data after completing the benchmark. Features Testing […]

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RAK2287 Mini PCIe LoRaWAN Concentrator Module Supports up to 500 Nodes per km2

RAK Wireless launched its first Mini PCIe LoRaWAN concentrator module in 2018 with RAK833 mPCIe card featuring Semtech SX1301 LoRa baseband chip. It was soon followed by RAK2247 mPCIe with a very similar design but some tweaks to increase its maximum transmission power and range, and improve thermals and stability with the addition of a heatsink. The company has now introduced a new version with RAK2287 Mini PCie LoRaWAN concentrator module being mostly inspired by RAK2247 module but replacing Semtech SX1301 by Semtech SX1302 LoRa transceiver that’s suppose to reduce current consumption (and heat), lower the BoM cost, and able to handle a higher amount of traffic. The new mini PCIe card also adds u-blox ZOE-M8Q GPS system-in-package to provide GNSS functionality. RAK2287 key features and specifications: LoRa Connectivity Semtech SX1302 LoRa Transceiver with 2x SX1250 Tx/Rx front-end Tx power – up to 27dBm Rx sensitivity – down to -139dBm […]

Rockchip RK3568/RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs
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M.2 and Half-size mPCIe Cards Support Real-Time Ethernet and FieldBus Networks

Hilscher cifX M.2 and half-size mini PCIe cards powered by the company’s NETX 90 network-on-chip multi-protocol Cortex-M4 SoC bring real-time Ethernet and FieldBus to compatible systems. The tiny cards are designed for PC-based devices such as IPC’s, HMI’s and robots, and support various firmware for PROFINET IO-Device, EtherNet/IP Adapter, EtherCAT Slave, or OpenModbus/TCP. The company claims its cifX M.2 (A+E key) and half-size mini PCIe cards are the smallest multiprotocol PC cards on the automation market with a size of 22×30 mm and 30×26.8 mm respectively. The cards also support extended temperature from -20°C to 70°C and offer one hardware platform for all real-time Ethernet slave protocols. Besides PROFINET IO-Device, EtherNet/IP Adapter, EtherCAT Slave, and OpenModbus/TCP, Hilscher will provide support for CC-Link IE Field Basic and Ethernet POWERLINK Slave in new firmware available in Q4 2020, and OPC UA and MQTT functionalities are planned for future releases. The cards are […]

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ODYSSEY-X86J4105 Gemini Lake & Arduino SBC Review with Windows 10 Enterprise

I’ve recently received ODYSSEY-X86J4105 SBC with Re_Computer case, and we’ve had a look at the SBC hardware, installed some internal components like an M.2 SATA SSD, and play around Re_Computer case using Raspberry Pi 4, Beaglebone Green Wireless and Jetson Nano SBC, before assembling the Intel SBC into the enclosure. I’ve now taken the time to test the combo using the pre-installed Windows 10 Enterprise operating systems. ODYSSEY-X86J4105 is very much like any Intel Gemini Lake mini PC, but with the addition of Arduino and Raspberry Pi headers, so we’ll look at those as well. Connections and First Boot For the first boot, I connect USB mouse and keyboard, a HDMI cable to a 4K TV, an Ethernet cable, a USB 3.0 hard drive, and finally the power supply. I actually had a small problem during boot, but we’ll talk about it later as it’s really specific to my setup, […]

Khadas VIM4 SBC