CNXSoft – Embedded Software Development

To date, the smallest mini PC I’ve even seen is probably CX-01 powered by Telechips TCC8925 Cortex A5 processor, but Smartvote, a Hong Kong based company, has designed an even smaller device based on Rockchip RK3066 called SmartCandy, a feat achieved by locating the Wi-Fi module and full USB ports in an external cable. SmartCandy specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3066 @ 1.6 GHz + Mali-400 MP4 GPU System Memory – 1GB Storage – 8GB NAND Flash + microSD slot USB – 1x USB OTG Video Output – HDMI 1.4a Dimensions – 68 x 29 x 12mm That’s it, no Wi-Fi, no full USB ports. Luckily, it’s sold with an external cable / box that you can connect to the microUSB port to add: Wi-Fi – 802.11 b/g/n USB – 1x or 3x USB port, depending on model Ethernet – With…

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Digia has recently announced Boot to Qt Technology Preview, a commercial offering that provides a solution for the creation of user interfaces on embedded systems. For the first version, they stripped out Android of Java, or other unnecessary parts (Zygote, SurfaceFlinger), added Qt/QML, and tested it on on ARM and x86 hardware. Boot to Qt includes the following main features: A light-weight UI stack for embedded Linux, based on the Qt Framework - Boot to Qt is built on an Android kernel/baselayer and offers an elegant means of developing beautiful and performant embedded devices. Ready-made images – We have images for several different devices which include the Boot to Qt software stack, making it possible to get up and running with minimal effort from day one. Full Qt Creator Integration – One-click deploy and run on hardware and a fully featured development environment….

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If you’ve ever compiled the Linux kernel, you’ll know make menuconfig is the command line used to unset/set options, disable/enable modules in order to match your hardware and requirements. I used to simply browse in the menu to find the option, and just remember the correct path. Sometimes I just looked at .config to locate the option I needed, and the possible path in make menuconfig. The first time you use a new option it can be time consuming. But I’ve just found there is a better way via Google+. “/” is actually available in make menuconfig, just like it is in vi/vim. If you want to enable NFS server in your kernel, press “/”, and search for NFSD. It will show the list of results with “NFSD” strings. NFS server support is right at the top, and the path…

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Do you remember MK812, a dual core mini PC with a built-in camera, and an external high-gain Wi-Fi antenna? Well, I’ve just noticed a similar device called Jesurun NX003II on DealExtreme, but instead of the dual core processor (RK3066) and 1GB RAM, it comes with Rockchip RK3188 quad core Cortex A9 processor, 2GB RAM, and yes, the camera and external antenna are still there. Jesurun NX003II Specifications: SoC -  Rockchip RK3188 Quad core Cortex A9 @ 1.6Ghz with Mali-400 MP4 GPU System Memory -  2GB DDRIII Storage – 8GB NAND Flash + microSD card (up to 32GB) Connectivity: Wi-Fi IEEE 802.11 b/g/n with external Antenna Bluetooth v2.1 Video Output – HDMI 1.4 (1080p, 3D support) Video Codecs – MPEG1/2/4, H.264, VC-1, Divx, Xvid, RM8/9/10, VP6 Audio Codecs – MP3, WM, WMA, WAV, OGG, AAC, MPEG Audio, PCM LPCM, M4A, AC3,…

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AMD has just announced three new Mobile Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) lineup, which better  performance and power efficiency. AMD’s APU brings the CPU and GPU on a single chip, and connects to an external chipset to handle peripherals. Here are the three new families of processors from lower to higher performance: 2013 AMD Elite Mobility APU (codenamed “Temash”) – 28nm, dual and quad-core x86 APU designed for touch small form-factor notebooks (i.e. netbooks),  tablets, and hybrids 13-inches and below; Performance between Intel Atom and Core i3. 3.9 to 8W TDP. The 2013 AMD Mainstream APU (codenamed “Kabini”) – Quad-core x86 SoC solution for entry-level and small-form factor touch notebooks; Performance equivalent to Intel Pentium and Core i3 depending on model. 9 to 25W TDP 2013 AMD Elite Performance APU (codenamed “Richland”) – For premium ultrathin notebooks. Equivalent to Intel Core…

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John Chiappetta, working for Seneca Centre for Development of Open Technology, has recently announced the release of Raspberry Pi Fedora Remix 18, which will be now known as Pidora 18. If you were there at the time of Raspberry Pi Fedora Remix 14 release, the first ever Linux distribution released for the Raspberry Pi, you may remember it had many issues, and the Raspberry Pi foundation decided to remove it from their Download page. This fourth release will hopefully fix many issues, and they’ll end up back on Raspberry Pi site. Based on the Changelog vs R-Pi Fedora Remix 17, Pidora 18 features look promising: Almost all of the Fedora 18 package set available via yum (thousands of packages were built from the official Fedora repository and made available online) Compiled specifically to take advantage of the hardware already built…

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If you’re mainly using your Android mini PC or STB to stream videos over the web or your local network, Wi-Fi performance is actually more important than CPU performance, and I’ve recently had quite a few issues with Wi-Fi with both T428 (RK3188 / Broadcom Wi-Fi module) and CS868 (AllWinner A31 / Realtek Wi-Fi module), which were only fixed after upgrading my router firmware. So I’ve decided to re-test most of the mini PCs I own with the upgraded router firmware, and the number are highly confusing, and I found out there’s probably be no easy to way to estimate the overall Wi-Fi performance of any device, and it’s most probably highly dependent on the router used, and its firmware version. My router is TP-LINK WR940N, a 300 Mbps Wireless N router with three antennas. Since I bought it, I…

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