Posted on

Linaro 12.04 Release with Kernel 3.4 and Android 4.0.4

Linaro has just released version 12.04 based on Linux Kernel 3.4-rc3 and Android 4.0.4_r1.1. This release already provides Ubuntu 12.04 LTS images for Pandaboard, Snowball, Origen and Versatile Express, and all community builds (nano, ALIP…) are based on Ubuntu Precise Pangolin as well. This should provide significant performance boosted compared to Ubuntu 11.10 thanks to hard-float support and other optimization (See Phoronix Benchmarks). A lot of work since to have gone into big.LITTLE implementation, HTML5 is now supported in Firefox, and it seems Linaro is still working on ARMv6 as they provided VP8 optimizations and improved the toolchain for this architecture. Here are the highlights of the release: Android Finished Snowball Multimedia enablement. Updated all builds to AOSP ICS 4.0.4_r1.1. Switched all builds to 4.7. Updated base toolchain components MPFR and GMP. Ported htop to Android. Ported stressapptest to Android for big.LITTLE Testing. Implemented and ran weekly big.LITTLE tests. Integrated […]

Posted on

Energy Micro Unveils 2 New Gecko Cortex M3 Starter Kits: EFM32LG-STK3600 and EFM32GG-STK3700

Energy Micro introduced two starter kits (STK) for complex battery-powered products such as portable health and fitness devices and smart accessories: EFM32LG-STK3600 – Based on the EFM32LG990F256 MCU (Cortex M3 ) with 256KB on-chip flash and 32KB RAM. EFM32GG-STK3700 – Based on the EFM32GG990F1024 MCU (Cortex M3 ) with 1MB on-chip Flash and 128KB RAM Both the Leopard Gecko and Giant Gecko MCU can directly control a TFT display and feature a USB driver that supports the Host, Device and On-the-Go (OTG) protocols. The new STKs are also equipped with light, metal and touch sensors which allow designers to work with the LESENSE Low Energy Sensor interface allowing passive sensing of 16 sensors without host CPU intervention. The hardware feature set is completed by a USB plug, 32MB on-board NAND Flash, LCD and a variety of LEDs and push-buttons. The two EFM32 starter kits includes debugging support with a  full […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM
Posted on

Syntro 0.5.0 Cross-platform C++ Framework for Distributed Sensor Networks

Pansenti has announced the first release of Syntro (version 0.5.0), a cross-platform framework for creating distributed sensor networks. Syntro is an open source C++ library and a set of applications based on Qt 4.7. The source code is released under the GPL license. Syntro has been developed on the following platforms: Linux Fedora 16 Ubuntu >= 10.10 Mac OS 10.7 Windows 7 Syntro can run on x86 targets as well as ARM based Pandabord, Beagleboard and Beaglebone development boards (Ubuntu only). Syntro is based on the following “SyntroCore” applications: SyntroExec – Start up and management of Syntro apps. SyntroControl – Message switching and multicast distribution. SyntroStore – Multicast stream capture. SyntroCFS – Cloud file storage. SyntroReplay – Multicast stream generation. SyntroLog – Network-wide logging. Some demo applications using one or more webcams and the OpenCV library are also available: SyntroCamera – Capture a stream from a video device (such as […]

Posted on

Locux: 15 USD Freescale i.MX233 System On Module

These days, low cost boards seem to pop-up a bit everywhere…  Featuring the same processor as Olimex OLinuXino, the Locux board will be powered by a Freescale i.MX233 with 64 MB and boot from a microSD card (no NAND on the board). This project is quite different from other low cost board projects, since it is a system on module (SoM) and will require a carrier board to access peripherals such as Ethernet, USB Host and video output, although  the developers managed to boot it with a simple breadboard. The developers also explain that this board stands apart as it does not feature any BGA parts and can be hand soldered, which could be an advantage when sourcing the boards and some hobbyist may also like to do the soldering themselves. The Raspberry Pi is still hard to get and the some other low cost boards such as the Beaglebone […]

Posted on

Raspberry Pi Schematics (Model B) are Available

Now that Raspberry Pi passed all certifications and a few boards are out in the wild, the Raspberry Pi foundation has released the schematics of model B, bringing the Raspberry Pi board closer to becoming an open hardware platform like Texas Instruments Beaglebone or Beagleboard. The Raspberry Pi schematics are available in PDF format, which is a good start and would also people to use the expansion headers (e.g. P1 provides access to GPIOs, SPI, I2C and UART interfaces) and create modules more easily. For the Raspberry Pi to come an open hardware platform, the schematics in .sbk format (so that they can be modified if needed),  Bill of materials,  Gerber files and PCB layout files (they laid out the board with Mentor Graphics Expedition) would have to be released, something which apparently they plan to do at a later stage. Once they do, it will be interesting to see […]

Posted on

Emcraft Open Sources uCLinux and U-boot for Cortex M3 and M4 MCUs

Emcraft Systems has open sourced its ports of U-Boot and uClinux for Cortex-M3 and Cortex-M4 which are available on github at https://github.com/EmcraftSystems. This release supports the following platforms: ST Micro STM32F2 NXP LPC17XX Actel  SmartFusion Freescale Kinetis You can check the source code as follows: uCLinux: git clone git://github.com/EmcraftSystems/linux-emcraft.git U-boot: git clone git://github.com/EmcraftSystems/u-boot.git The company has also designed systems on module (SoM) with enough memory to run Linux with Cortex M3/M4 micro-controllers: Freescale Kinetis K70 SOM Actec SmartFusion SOM ST Micro STM32 SOM You might find more details on building/using u-boot or uClinux on EmCraft documentation page (especially linux-cortexm-um-1.4.1.pdf) and you may want to check EmCraft website for details on available hardware and BSP for Cortex M3/M4 solutions.

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

Building Chromium OS for Raspberry Pi (ARMv6)

I had previously written the instructions to build an older version of Chromium (via Berkelium) for ARM using Beagleboard/Overo rootfs in order to use it with Xibo digital signage. Recently I’ve been contacted by hexxeh, who maintains Chromium OS vanilla builds for x86 and MacOS computer, as he intends to provide Chromium OS for the Raspberry Pi, and you should be able to get a SD card image once everything is working from the site above. Today, I’ll post the steps followed to build Chromium OS LKGR (“the latest revision to pass only unit tests”) optimized for  ARMv6 processor with soft-float support, which is the type of processor (Broadcom BCM2835) used in the Raspberry Pi. Please note that although it can build, it still does not run properly and a few more changes are needed. First, you’ll need a fast machine to build Chromium OS in a reasonable amount of […]

Posted on

Ubuntu on AllWinner A10 based Mele A1000 Set-top Box

I’ve recently received and reviewed the 70 USD Mele A1000 STB powered by AllWinner A10, but haven’t been able to hack it yet since I’ve have not received the USB to Serial cable necessary for debugging the board. However, somebody else (Tom Cubie) had time to hack the box and run Ubuntu from a SD card (while still keeping Android in the flash) as you can see below. This port does not seem to include hardware accelerated GUI just yet, but this is definitely a step in the right direction. Tom said he just followed the instructions at http://rhombus-tech.net/allwinner_a10/hacking_the_mele_a1000/ and http://rhombus-tech.net/a10_mmc_boot/ to have Ubuntu working, but those do not appear to be that clear at the moment.

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