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Yocto Project Quick Start Guide for Ubuntu

Yocto is an embedded Linux build system used to create a Linux distribution for a specific application/board combination. I’ll describe 2 methods to get started: Building and running  a qemu image for x86 from scratch Using pre-built binaries to run the x86 image in qemu This is a shorter version of the longish Yocto Project’s Quick Start Guide. The official guide is more complete (explains all details) and give instructions for several distributions, whereas this guide simply lists each step and is focused on Ubuntu. So you could use this guide to start the build, and during the build (which will last a while), read the official guide to actually understand how it all works.   Prerequisites First, you need to use bash instead of dash in Ubuntu:

and select “No” to use bash. Then install the required packages with apt-get:

Building and running a qemu image for […]

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Pengutronix uCLinux 3.2 for Energy Micro EFM32 Cortex-M3 Gecko MCUs

Energy Micro and Pengutronix announced that they will be demonstrating µClinux for Cortex-M3 on the EFM32 Gecko range (Leopard and Giant) of MCU during  Embedded World Conference 2012 on 28 February – 1 March 2011 in Nuremberg, Germany. Pengutronix’s port of µClinux features the Linux 3.2 kernel, providing the cost and time-to-market benefits of Linux operating system, while maintaining low current consumption of just 1.6mA when in idle mode. The company explains that using µClinux reduces design cycles and accelerates time-to-market by giving the designer access to ready-made system functions such as IP connectivity, file systems, and multi-tasking. Users can also employ the broad range of free software and drivers available as open source, within a robust, portable open source framework. The teaser video (below) shows that the demo platform (Giant Gecko Development Kit?) uses 4 MB of RAM (755 KB used after boot-up) and the MCU delivers 9.07 Bogomips. […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM
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Raspberry Pi Releases BCM2835 Datasheet for ARM Peripherals

If you have been following Raspberry Pi project, you may have noticed the dearth of documentation related to Broadcom processors. For BCM2835 (The processor used in Raspberry Pi board), Broadcom only has one laconic webpage. But the Raspberry Pi’s “super-team” has managed to get a (partial) datasheet for the SoC showing the details of BCM2835 ARM peripherals which is all that we may need. This would only be useful for people playing around with the Linux (and u-boot) drivers. The document includes details about the processor’s memory map as shown below. It also contains details (registers, implementation details, etc..) about the following ARM peripherals: Timers Interrupt controller GPIO USB PCM / I2S DMA controller I2C master I2C / SPI slave SPI0, SPI1, SPI2 PWM UART0, UART1 You can download BCM2835 datasheet to get the complete documentation. The Raspberry Pi foundation also announced that the boards will be ready on February […]

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Archos 80/101 G9 Firmware Version 3.2.80 Released

Archos has just released a new firmware for Archos 80 G9 / 101 G9 and A70B. Here’s the ChangeLog: Version 3.2.80 – February 3rd, 2012 Video: improve audio/video synchronization on HDMI Video: improve playback of some FLV files File manager: add ability to copy files larger than 4GB Keyboard: better Arabic virtual keyboard layout Internationalization: translations improvements for Arabic and Hebrew Flash on A70B: fix flash video not displayed on some web sites Video on A70B: improve 720p playback support on LCD and TV out Hard drive based products: avoid suspend/resume issues happening sometimes The update should be done automatically OTA, but alternatively the firmware can be downloaded at http://update.archos.com/9/gen9/gen9_3.2.80/firmware_archos_it4.aos

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EMAC SOM-3517M: System-on-Module based on TI AM3517

Emac announced the SoM-3517M, a System-on-Module (SoM) based on TI AM3517 Cortex-A8 processor clocked at 600 MHz. This SOM has an Ethernet PHY included along with 4 serial ports. It supports up to 512MB of external DDR2 SDRAM, 1GB of NAND Flash, 2GB of eMMC Flash. Here are SOM-3517M specifications: CPU:  TI ARM Cortex-A8 600 MHZ Fanless processor System Memory: Up to 512 MB of DDR2 SDRAM (default: 256 MB) Storage: Up to 1 GB of NAND Flash (default: 256 MB) UP to 4 GB of eMMC Flash (default: 2 GB) LCD Interface – 16-bit DSTN/TFT Graphics: 2D/3D Accelerated Video w/ Resistive Touch Connectivity: 10/100 BaseT Ethernet I/O interfaces: 4 Serial Ports 2 Full Speed USB 1.1/2.0 Host ports 1 Full Speed USB OTG port 2 I2C and 2 SPI ports I2S Audio port High-End CAN Controller CAN 2.0B Controller Timer/Counters and Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) ports 1 Channel, 12-bit […]

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Penandfree PT- Pen Transforms Your Laptop into A Tablet

Penandfree has unveiled the PT-pen  (Presentation pen) at the 2012 ISE exhibition. The company claims this pen can transform ordinary laptops or netbooks  into touch-screen tablets, replacing the need for both a mouse and keyboard. PT-Pen can be used for capturing handwritten notes,  digital signatures and all sorts of creative sketches. MINT Interactive software is included with the PT-pen and provides access to a full color pallet, a variety of line thicknesses, a virtual keyboard and a handwriting recognition mode. Penandfree explains that PT-pen allows navigation in web browsers and can be used with office software such as Microsoft Excel and Powerpoint as it conforms with Microsoft tablet and standard HID specifications. Mint Interactive Software can be download for Windows XP/Visata/&, MacOS and Linux. For Android Tablet and/or iPad users, Penandfree unveiled the “Legato Smart-Pen”. The PT-pen digitally “inks” a laptop’s LCD using ultrasonic technology.  A magnetized receiver sits at […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs and SoMs in 2025
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Raspberry Pi Codecs and Graphics/Video APIs

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has announced which codecs and API would be supported in the Raspberry Pi. The Raspberry Pi board will support the following Graphics and Video API via a set of closed source libraries that give access to the GPU acceleration features: OpenGL ES 2.0 –  OpenGL is a 3D Graphics API defined by the Khronos Group. OpenVG – OpenVG is a 2D vector drawing API also defined by the Khronos Group. EGL – EGL is the interface between Khronos rendering APIs such as OpenGL ES or OpenVG and the underlying native platform window system. OpenMAX IL – OpenMAX supplies a set of API’s that provides abstractions for routines used during audio, video, and still images processing. OpenMAX defines 3 layers, Raspberry Pi library will provide an interface to the IL layer, which provides an interface between media framework such as Gstreamer and a set of multimedia components. […]

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Debugging Embedded Linux with GDBserver and Insight (gdb GUI)

Although it it sometimes possible to debug applications using GDB (The GNU Debugger) on the target boards, there is often not enough memory available to run GDB on embedded systems running Linux. To work around this issue, you can use gdbserver to perform remote debugging. Installing and running gdbserver on the target board First of all you need to install gdbserver on the target board. Assuming you use a Debian based distribution:

If you distribution, does not have binary repository, you can download gdb source code and cross-compile gdbserver. Once gdbserver is installed, (cross-)compile your application in debug mode and start gdbserver as follows:

Where target_ip and target_port are respectively the IP address of the board and the chosen TCP port, and prog_dbg, the program under test compile in debug mode (CFLAGS=-g). Remote Debugging with GDB If you are familiar with gdb and prefer to use the command […]

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