Posted on

How to Assign Brightness Keys in Ubuntu 16.04 and Greater

Yesterday, I installed Ubuntu 17.04 in CHUWI LapBook 14.1, and was surprised everything appeared to work properly. However, the laptop does not come with brightness up and down keys. So I looked for ways to assign other keys to adjust brightness on the laptop, and eventually found a solution on AskUbuntu, and tried the options for Ubuntu 16.04. First we need to install xdotool, a utility that simulate keyboard input and mouse activity:

Once it’s done, go to the Dash, start Keyboard settings app, select Shortcuts tab, and click on the + icon on the bottom of the window to bring up the “Custom Shortcut” window. Now fill the Name field with “Brightness Up”, and the Command field with:

Repeat the procedure with for the down key filling the Name field with “Brightness Down”, and the Command:

Now we should have our two brightness keys, and we […]

Posted on

Installing Ubuntu 17.04 on CHUWI LapBook 14.1 Apollo Lake Laptop

[Update: The instructions below do not work with the newly manufactured models because CHUWI completely changed the hardware The company also disabled the Linux option in the BIOS (See comments in this post) So you may need to use rEFInd boot manager or isorepin.sh script to install Linux (and some drivers may still not work out of the box) ] Since I’ve completed the review of CHUWI LapBook 14.1 with Windows 10 last week-end, I’ve decided to give it a try with a Linux distribution, and I chose to go with a daily build of Ubuntu 17.04 since we’ve seen Apollo Lake platforms need a recent Linux kernel. While Ubuntu 17.04 will be officially release in April 2017, likely with Linux 4.10, the current (alpha) build comes with Linux 4.9. I had already quickly booted Ubuntu 17.04 on the Laptop from a USB drive flashed using Rufus right after the […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM
Posted on

Oh Look… Espressif ESP32 Die-shot! That’s Pretty!

Espressif ESP32 was launched last year as a faster and upgraded version of ESP8266, with a dual core processor, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0 LE. Boards based on the processor are still priced much higher than the ones based on ESP8266 ( although we’re only talking about $20 here), and shops have trouble keeping stocks, so either there’s a huge demand, there’s some manufacturing bottleneck, or maybe Espressif wants to take it slow at the beginning in case some hard to find bugs are found in the Silicon. Nevertheless, the guys at Zeptobar got hold of some ESP32 modules, and took some pretty die-shots. The die size is 2960×2850 µm. The prettiest part is clearly the RF section zoomed in below. If you wonder how it compares to ESP8266 die-shot, Zeptobar has you covered.

Posted on

CHUWI LapBook 14.1 Apollo Lake Laptop Review – Part 2: Windows 10 Benchmarks, User Experience, and Battery Life

CHUWI LapBook 14.1 is the one of the first Apollo Lake laptop on the market. It features a 14.1″ IPS display, a Celeron N3450 quad core processor, 4GB RAM and 64 GB storage. The company has sent me a sample for review, and I had already check out the hardware in “CHUWI LapBook 14.1 Apollo Lake Laptop Review – Part 1: Unboxing & (Partial) Teardown“, so since then I’ve played with it including checking emails & news, writing a blog post on CNX Software, and watching some YouTube videos, as well as running benchmarks and estimating battery life, so I’ll report about my experience with the laptop in the second part of the review. CHUWI LapBook 14.1 System Information LapBook 14.1 runs an activated version of Windows 10 Home 64-bit on an Intel Celeron 3450 “Apollo Lake” quad core processor @ 1.1 GHz / 2.2 GHz with 4 GB RAM […]

Posted on

Embedded Linux Conference & OpenIoT Summit 2017 Schedule

The Embedded Linux Conference 2017 and the OpenIoT Summit 2017 will take place earlier than last year, on February  20 – 23, 2017 in Portland, Oregon, USA. This will be the 12th year for ELC, where kernel & system developers, userspace developers, and product vendors meet and collaborate. The schedule has been posted on the Linux Foundation website, and whether you’re going to attend or not, it’s always informative to check out the topics. So as usual, I’ll make a virtual schedule for all 5 days. Monday, February 20 For the first day, the selection is easy, as choices are limited, and the official first day it actually on Tuesday. You can either attend a full-day paid training sessions entitled “Building A Low Powered Smart Appliance Workshop“, and the only session that day: 14:30 – 15:20 – Over-the-air (OTA) Software Updates without Downtime or Service Disruption, by Alfred Bratterud, IncludeOS […]

Posted on

Kodi 17 “Krypton” Released, Kodi 18 “Leia” Development Started

Although not officially announced yet, Kodi developers have finally released Kodi 17 “Krypton” which you can download for Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Android, and iOS, as well as Raspberry Pi and some other development boards, and several Linux versions specific to TV box such as Nvidia Shield Android TV, Amazon Fire, or WeTek Hub. The most visible changes of the update are the new Estuary and Estouchy default skins, and people who have bought recent Amlogic based Android TV boxes may have already experienced them as several TV boxes shipped with Kodi 17 Beta versions. There’s a long list of changes, but some noticeable ones include: Lots of changes and updated to the Live TV and PVR (Personal Video Recorder) include PVR backend clients addons New Settings user interface Media library improvements with multiple sources support, more filtering & rating options, and better scanning & database performance Audio Engine […]

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

F&S Elektronik Introduces efus A53LS NXP QorIQ LS1012A System-on-Module for Communication & Networking Applications

NXP QorIQ LS1012A is a single core Cortex A53 communication processor that offers a 64-bit update to LS1021A dual core Cortex A7 processors found in gateways such as NXP LS1021A-IOTA IoT gateway reference design, and F&S Elektronik System has just launched efus A53LS system-on-module powered by the processor with up to 1GB RAM, up to 64SQPI NOR, access to the communication interfaces and peripherals from the processor via an efus compliant edge connector, and long term availability until 2030. efus A53LS COM specifications: Processor – NXP QorIQ Layerscape LS1012A  single core ARM Cortex-A53 @ up to 800MHz System Memory – 512MB DDR3 by default, supports up to 1GB DDR3 RAM Storage – Up to 64MB QSPI NOR flash on-module, I/Os for SATA and SD card on edge connector Connectivity – 2x Realtek RTL8211F(N) Gigabit Ethernet transceiver chips, optional wireless module with dual WiFi IEEE802.11b/g/n/ac and Bluetooth 4.0 LE efus edge […]

Posted on

Olimex Teres I A64 DIY Open Source Hardware Laptop Kit Design Complete, To Sell for 225 Euros

Olimex has been working on an open source hardware Olimex A64 laptop for a little over a year, and the company has now complete thed hardware design of their TERES I laptop, and are working on finalizing the software design before accepting orders for 225 Euros for TERES-A64-BLACK and TERES-A64-WHITE models. As explained in the instructions manual, Olimex laptop will not be sold assembled, but as a kit to let the users assemble the following parts themselves: TERES-006-Keyboard QWERTY keyboard TERES-023-Touch touchpad with TERES-022-Touch-Cover and TERES-010-Touch-Btns TERES-014-Screw-Set with 42 pieces of different kind of screws. TERES-PCB3-Touch PCB TERES-PCB2-IO PCB with headphone jack, micro SD slot, and a USB port TERES-PCB4-Btn PCB for the power button together with TERES-009-Pwr-Btn plastic and TERES-013-LED-pipe TERES-PCB1-A64 motherboard based on Allwinner A64 processor. TERES-PCB5-KEYBOARD keyboard control board Display parts: TERES-008-LCD-Back, TERES-016-Hinge-Set, TERES-007-LCD-Frame, and TERES-015-LCD 11.6″ LCD panel TERES-019-Camera & TERES-020-Camera-Lens for the webcam Speakers, battery,WiFi […]

Boardcon CM3588 Rockchip RK3588 System-on-Module designed for AI and IoT applications