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Samsung Exynos 7 ARM Cortex A57 Processor Linux Code Submitted

Samsung has not announced any 64-bit processor yet, but according to a recent patchset Exynos 7 may be their first 64-bit ARM SoC, and it will be based on the faster Cortex A57 cores. A quick way to learn a little more is to check the device tree file (exynos7.dtsi). Here’s an interesting snippet:

As it stands, Exynos7 would be a single core Cortex A57 processor. This sounds unlikely that a company would launch a single core processor at this stage, so it’s probably early code that may not support all cores just yet.  We also know Samsung uses ESPRESSO board for development with Samsung Exynos 7 processor and 3 GB RAM. Thanks to David for the tips.

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Review of UyeSee G1H Rockchip RK3288 Android TV Box

UyeSee G1H is one of the first Android TV boxes powered by Rockchip RK3288 quad core Cortex A17 SoC. I’ve already listed specs, and shown a few pictures of the device and the board in my “UyeSee G1H Unboxing” post, so today I’ll write a full review, checking out the user interface, testing video playback capabilities, network and storage performance, play a few games, check hardware features are working as expected, and runs some benchmarks on the platform. First Boot, Settings and First Impressions There’s an infrared remote control with the device. I’ve inserted a CR2032 battery, and although it works great in the user interface, it becomes useless with Android apps, so instead I’ve opted to use Mele F10 Deluxe air mouse which brings mouse and keyboard support. Before powering up the device, I’ve connected an HDMI cable, the RF dongle for Mele F10 Deluxe, a USB hard drive, […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM
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AllWinner A80 Linux SDK Released

After Android 4.4 SDK for AllWinner A31 last week, another AllWinner software development kit has been seen in the wild, this time for the new AllWinner A80 octa-core processor. A80 SDK includes source code for the Linux Kernel and U-boot, as well as buildroot, and various AllWinner tools. I’ve also noticed AllWinner A80 datasheet is available, but with the strict minimum information (45 pages). Let’s get the code, and extract it:

Now we need to configure the build:

sun9i is the codename for AllWinner A80, not sure what w1p1 means. Dragonboard must be the internal Allwinner development board, but I just selected Linux, since the SDK does not come with Android, and finally I opted for optimus, which could stand for OptimusBoard. You may need to install extra dependencies in your build machine, for example (in Ubuntu 14.04):

Now let’s start buildroot which should retrieve the toolchain, […]

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$25 GL.iNet 6416A is an Hackable OpenWRT Router with Easy UART and GPIO Access

There are plenty of low cost routers supporting OpenWRT, but GL.iNet 6416A has several advantages compared to devices like TP-Link WR703N. Both are based on Atheros AR9931, but GL.iNet router has more memory and storage (64MB RAM + 16MB Flash vs 32MB RAM + 4MB Flash), two Ethernet ports instead of just one, and 6 GPIOs, the serial pins, and power signals (5V, 3.3V and GND) are all easily accessible via though holes or headers. Gl.iNet 6416A can be purchased for about $25 on DealExtreme or Amazon US, and it used to be listed on eBay, but is now out of stock. Gl/iNET 6416A specifications: Wi-Fi SoC – Atheros AR9331 MIPS processor @ 400 MHz System Memory – 64MB RAM Storage – 16MB Flash Connectivity – 2x 10/100 Mbit Ethernet ports, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-FI up to 150Mbps USB – 1x USB 2.0 port, 1x micro USB port for power Debugging […]

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Linux (Enlightenment and Lubuntu) in WeTek Play Amlogic TV Box

Last week I reviewed WeTek Play, a TV box with two DVB-S2 tuners, powered by Amlogic AML8726-MX dual core ARM Cortex A9 processor, and running Android 4.2, but the company also released several Linux based images including one with Enlightenment window manager, and another, temporary one, with Ubuntu core which allows you to install Lubuntu or Xubuntu with apt-get. There are also working on OpenELEC, but have not released the binary yet. Today, I’ll try the Enlightenment image because it also supports hardware video decoding via Gplay (gstreamer), and show how to install Lubuntu. The instructions below have been done in a computer running Ubuntu 14.04, but a Windows computer can also be used. Download Wetek-Linux.img.bz2 Connect a micro SD card to your computer, extract and flash Wetek-Linux.img: In Linux using a terminal window:

In Windows, extract the image, and use Win32DiskImager to copy the image to your micro SD […]

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How to Build and Run Android L 64-bit ARM in QEMU

[Nov, 2014 Update: The method below does not seem to work anymore, but a 64-bit ARM emulator “emulator64-arm64” has now landed in AOSP, and updated instructions are available here]. Most people can’t afford Juno Cortex A57/A53 development board, and mobile processors based on the latest 64-bit ARM cores are only expected by early 2015. But thanks to a small team at Linaro, you can now build and run Android L 64-bit ARM in the latest version of QEMU that supports Aarch64. Alex Bennée, an engineer working for Linaro, wrote a blog post in Linaro’s Core Dump blog explaining the Android emulator is actually based on QEMU,  the differences compared to mainline QEMU, the work they’ve done on Android L at Linaro, and most importantly, provided the basic steps showing how to build and try Android L 64-bit ARM (ARMv8) in QEMU. I’ve just done that, but unfortunately, albeit the builds […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs and SoMs in 2025
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Unboxing of UyeSee G1H Android TV Box Powered by Rockchip RK3288

So finally after month of waiting, and various delays, Rockchip RK3288 based Android TV box are finally coming to market. Shenzhen UyeSee Technology is the first company to send me a sample with their G1H Android TV Box, as well as their M2 wireless music streaming receiver, which will be the subject of another post. I’ll list the specifications and show some pictures of the media player and board today, and write a full review in a few days. UyeSee G1H Specifications These are the specifications provided by the company, reformatted in CNXSoft style :): SoC –  Rockchip RK3288 quad core ARM Cortex A17 processor @ 1.8GHz with ARM Mali-T764 quad-core 3D GPU with support for OpenGL ES 3.0, OpenCL 1.1, and DirectX11 System Memory – 1GB DDR3 (2GB Optional) Storage – 8GB eMMC Flash (16G/32G optional) + micro SD slot Video Output – HDMI 2.0 up to 4K @ […]

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Using an Android Mini PC as a Desktop PC (Blogging Version)

I use an x86 computer running Ubuntu 14.04 as desktop PC, spending most of my time working on this blog, which mostly involves reading and writing articles in web browsers (Firefox, Chrome), handling emails, communicating via Social networks, manipulating and editing pictures. But for reviews, I also need to take pictures and videos, tranfer these to my PC, and upload videos to YouTube. When I create tables, I normally type them in LibreOffice Calc, and copy/paste the results in WordPress editor. But this post side, I’ve put my noisy PC aside, and I’m writing from an Android 4.4 TV box, namely Probox2 EX, in order to evaluate how convenient, or not, Android may be for simple computing needs. First let’s indentify some applications used in desktop operating systems such as Windows and Linux (Ubuntu 14.04), and their equivalent in Android. I made the comparison table below in AndrOpen Office (AOO), […]

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