ug802 News - CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

May 23, 2014May 23, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

Android 4.4 Kitkat Beta Firmware for Ugoos UG802 mini PC (Rockchip RK3066)

When you purchase a Chinese Android gadget, or most Android gadgets for that matter, you expect to have a few firmware updates within a year or so at best. But to my surprise, Ugoos has released an Android 4.4 Kitkat (Beta) firmware for their UG802 mini PC / TV stick that started selling in summer 2012 with Android 4.0. That means your “old” device(s) could get a performance boost, as well as some neat new features, thanks to Android Kitkat. The firmware is beta however, so be aware that there may still be a few bugs. The firmware file (Allminipc_ug802_RT8188_4.4_720p.img) is packaged together with RKBatchTool and the Windows drivers in Allminipc_ug802_RT8188_4.4_720p.rar. You can follow RK3188 firmware update instructions, skipping the downloads since everything you need is included, to perform the upgrade. If you’d rather use Linux, you might be able use upgrade_tool, enter recovery mode, and run:

sudo ./upgrade_tool lf
sudo ./upgrade_tool uf Allminipc_ug802_RT8188_4.4_720p.img

1 2	sudo ./upgrade_tool lf sudo ./upgrade_tool uf Allminipc_ug802_RT8188_4.4_720p.img

One of […]

May 2, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Picuntu Home://io Edition Brings GPU Acceleration to RK3066 based Mini PCs

Earlier this year, Picuntu (RC2), an Ubuntu-based distribution, was released for RK3066 powered HDMI dongles such as MK808, UG802, etc… More work has been going on since them, and Justin Gross (JustinTime4Tea) announced the release of Picuntu Home://io edition on SlateDroid. This distribution is based on Pictuntu RC3, supports GPU hardware acceleration, and lots of packages including Quake 3. GPU acceleration has been available since February thanks to olegk0, but I think it may be the first time it’s packaged into an installation image. Justin added a lot of goodies in this image including: Gaming – PCSX_rearmed Playstation Emulator and ioquake3 (with free demo files, replace with your own original Quake3 CD files) both supporting PS3 controller. Other games include GLTron, Solitaire, B.A.L.L.Z and a few more. Web Browsers – Midori, Firefox, and Chromium with support for Flash Graphics Tools – GIMP, Scribus, Inkscape, ImageMagick, etc… Email & Messaging Clients […]

March 27, 2013May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 15 Comments

Mini PCs (MK802+, UG802, GK802 & iStick A200) Linux Performance Comparison

Ian MORRISON (linuxium) has tested Linux with several mini PCs powered by different processors. The main point of his tests was to evaluate the performance difference between running Ubuntu 12.04 natively, or in a chroot in Android using tools such as Complete Linux Installer. I previously tried Linux on Android in ODROID-X, and found the applications start time when running from an low-end SD card pretty dismal, and the graphics performance poor. Ian had a different approach, and decided to use a subset of Phoronix Suite benchmarks to compare different hardware / software combination and posted the results in “mini PCs” G+ community. There’s a lot of data, and analyzing the results is not really straightforward without spending some time looking at the data. In this post, I’ll explain how the tests have been conducted, explain the results and try to draw a conclusion. Mini PCs and other Hardware Under […]

January 20, 2013January 20, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

PicUntu – Rockchip RK3066 Linux Distribution for mini PCs (UG802, MK808, …)

Many people are using RK3066 mini PCs because they currently offer the best performance to cost ratio, but until now they were mainly limited to Android Jelly Bean, although there was some preliminary port of Ubuntu available for the devices. Now, this preliminary port has become a specific Linux distribution for Rockchip RK3066 PCs-on-a-stick called PicUntu, which is based on Ubuntu 12.10, and can optionally support Xfce or Gnome desktop environments. This distribution is known to work on UG802 and MK808, but should also work on some other RK3066 mini PCs such as iMito MX1. The latest version is Picuntu 0.9 RC 2.2, and features such as WiFi, Ethernet, HDMI audio, USB webcam are known to work, What you won’t get, however, is hardware video decoding and GPU support since Rockchip does not provide the relevant binary files for Linux, but this does not seem to stop the developers from […]

November 12, 2012November 12, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

Preliminary Version of Ubuntu Running on UG802 mini PC (Rockchip RK3066)

Last week, I wrote a post entitled “Rockchip RK3066/RK30xx Processors Documentation, Source Code and Tools“, where I explained that the kernel source code for RK3066 was released and somebody (AndrewDB) had started working on a port of Ubuntu for the platform. It appears he has been pretty busy, as there has been some progress in the meantime… AndrewDB managed to run Ubuntu on UG802 HDMI Stick. Wifi is starting to work, although there are still some minor issues to resolve. He plans to have a dual-boot Android/Linux ROM available in several weeks for RK3066 based devices such as the UG802 and MK808. Eventually, AndrewDB also intends to release a dual boot ROM Android Jelly Bean + Ubuntu for RK3066 tablets. That’s all the information I have for now. This is still work in progress (See TODO List) and no binary has been released yet. Via: SlateDroid Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)Jean-Luc started […]

November 3, 2012November 3, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 24 Comments

Rockchip RK3066 UG802 mini PC is Now Available for Just $46.50

Earlier today, a reader left a comment about a mini PC based on RK2908 sold for $40 including shipping on Ebay. No bad! But since I hadn’t checked mini PCs on Aliexpress for a few months, I decided to have a look for cheap devices. The cheapest sold by a company with decent feedback is the IP872 ($34 including shipping), but it’s based on an ARM11 chip (Infotmic IMAPX 200) and runs Android 2.3, so I don’t find it that interesting. There are also some AllWinner A10 mini PCs that cost just above $40 including shipping, but then I found one company selling UG802 for $46.50 including shipping via China Post. It’s quite shocking that the price halved within 3 months, and this makes single core mini PC that less attractive, unless you want to run Linux (Ubuntu, Debian…) which is not yet supported by RK3066. The device sold by […]

October 17, 2012October 20, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 30 Comments

$89 Hiapad Hi802 Android mini PC Based on Freescale i.MX6 Quad Processor

The first (single core) mini PCs showed up in May, the dual core mini PCs in August, and the first quad core mini PCs should be available in November starting with Hiapad Hi-802 HDMI TV Stick powered by Freescale i.MX6 Quad Cortex A9 processor with 1GB RAM. The specs of the device are not available publicly, but based on diverse sources (including charbax video below), it should be as follows: SoC – Freescale i.MX6Q Quad Core Cortex A9 Processor with Vivante GC2000 GPU System Memory – 1GB RAM Storage – 16? GB NAND Flash Memory + microSD card slot Video Output – HDMI Connectivity – Built-in Wifi 802.11 b/g/n and Bluetooth USB – USB Host + USB OTG A picture of the PCB (one side only) has been uploaded by Hiapad. There are 6 through holes at the top left of the PCB which might be some debug ports (TBC […]

September 14, 2012September 11, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 27 Comments

UG802 Android mini PC Unboxing and Review

Leo, a reader of this blog who seems to be indirectly involved in togetho.ru, has written a review for UG802 dual core mini PC in Russian. He has allowed me to post the review in English, and I wrote condensed review in English which you can read below. UGoos UG802 is sent in the following package that clearly shows it’s based on Rockchip RK3066 processor. Now let’s see what’s inside the package. There’s the UG802 TV stick, a female to male HDMI cable (which appears to be too short as usual) and a USB cable to power the device. UG802 is not the smallest mini-PC around as you can see from the picture on the right where it is compared to a flash drive, but it weights just 31g, has a lot of ventilation holes, and features an HDMI male connector, a microSD card slot, microUSB and USB ports. Leo […]