64-core RISC-V motherboard and workstation enable native RISC-V development (Crowdfunding)

64-core RISC-V motherboard

There’s now a microATX motherboard and workstation for native RISC-V development based on the SOPHON SG2042 64-core RISC-V C920 processor with up to 128GB DDR4 memory, various SATA and M.2 NVMe interfaces for storage, three PCIe x16 slot for expansion and more. I remember a few years ago, there was a lot of talk about making a workstation for native Arm development instead of relying on x86 machines, cross-compilation, and emulation. So we got hardware like the HoneyComb LX2K, Ampere eMAG, and more recently the ADLINK Ampere Altra Dev Kit to achieve this goal. The RISC-V ecosystem is now getting something similar thanks to the Milk-V Pioneer microATX motherboard and the Pioneer Box that provides a complete 64-core RISC-V workstation with DIMM memory, SATA and NVMe storage, a graphics card, 10GbE networking, a 350W power supply, and more. Pioneer board specifications: SoC – Sophgo SOPHON SG2042 64-core RISC-V processor (T-Head […]

Debian 12 “Bookworm” released with Linux 6.1

Debian 12 Bookworm

Debian 12 “Bookworm” operating system has been released with an update to Linux 6.1 LTS and a new non-free-firmware repository making it possible to separate non-free firmware from the other non-free packages. This follows the Debian 11 “Bullseye” release in August 2021, and the version of Debian will serve as the base for other Linux operating systems such as Ubuntu and derivates, Raspberry Pi OS, and so on. Debian 12 can be downloaded on a choice of desktop environments, namely Gnome 43, KDE Plasma 5.27, LXDE 11, LXQt 1.2.0, MATE 1.26, and Xfce 4.18. Bookworm includes a total of 64,419 packages many of which have been updated the to latest version. Nine architectures are supported by Debian 12 “Bookworm”: 32-bit PC (i386) and 64-bit PC (amd64) 64-bit ARM (arm64) ARM EABI (armel) ARMv7 (EABI hard-float ABI, armhf) little-endian MIPS (mipsel) 64-bit little-endian MIPS (mips64el) 64-bit little-endian PowerPC (ppc64el) IBM System […]

Orange Pi 800 Keyboard PC gets 128GB flash storage

Orange Pi 800 Keyboard PC 128GB eMMC flash

The Orange Pi 800 keyboard PC, launched as an alternative to the Raspberry Pi 400 last year with a Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core Cortex-A72/A53 processor and 4GB RAM, has gotten an upgrade to 128GB of eMMC flash instead of just 64GB. The keyboard PC still comes with HDMI 2.0 and VGA video outputs, built-in speakers and microphone, Gigabit Ethernet and WiFi 5 connectivity, a few USB ports, and a 78-key QWERTY keyboard, plus a 26-GPIO connector accessible without opening the device.     Orange Pi 800 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core big.LITTLE processor with 2x Arm Cortex-A72 cores up to 1.8GHz, 4x Arm Cortex-A53 cores up to 1.4GHz, and an Arm Mali-T860MP4 GPU System Memory – 4GB LPDDR4 Storage – 128GB eMMC flash, microSD card slot Video Output HDMI 2.0 port up to 4Kp60 VGA port up to Full HD resolution Audio 3.5mm audio (headphone+mic) jack Integrated speaker(s) and microphone […]

Using BTT Pad 7 touchscreen display with Raspberry Pi CM4

BTT Pad 7 Raspberry Pi OS

The BTT Pad 7, or BIGTREETECH Pad 7 in full, is a 7-inch touchscreen display that ships with the CB1 Allwinner H616 system-on-module compatible with Raspberry Pi CM4. The display is mostly designed for 3D printers with its SPI and CAN Bus interfaces, but it can also be used as a standard tablet PC. So today, I’ll switch the CB1 with a Raspberry Pi CM4 Lite module and report my experience doing the conversion and using it as a Raspberry Pi CM4 tablet PC running Raspberry Pi OS, and test it with a 3D printer with Klipper in another post later on. Installing a Raspberry Pi CM4 (Lite) module in the BTT Pad 7 We’ll need the Pad 7, a Raspberry Pi CM4, and a few tools. The first step is to remove the red heatsink by loosening four screws with a 2.0mm hex key, as well as the cover […]

Beelink EQ12 Review – An Intel Processor N100 mini PC tested with Windows 11, TrueNAS, pfSense, Ubuntu, and more

Beelink EQ12 Review

Beelink’s new EQ series of mini PCs form their base product range and feature low-powered Jasper Lake and Alder Lake-N processors with relatively basic port and memory/storage configurations. Perhaps more importantly, they are also the cheapest mini PCs they offer. Having recently announced the EQ12 mini PC featuring an Intel Processor N100 ‘Alder Lake-N’ CPU with up to 16GB RAM, Beelink have now sent one for review. Whilst I’ll cover the basic Windows operation and performance, I’ll also explore how this new mini PC performs when used as an integrated router and NAS. Beelink EQ12 specifications Beelink list the EQ12 specifications as: It is worth noting that the Processor N100 processor only supports a single memory channel and that according to Intel’s specification for the processor, the maximum memory supported is only 16 GB. Intel’s specification for the number of graphical execution units (EUs) also states 24 however software such […]

EDATEC ED-IPC2010 – A compact DIN Rail mountable industrial computer based on Raspberry Pi CM4

DIN Rail Raspberry Pi CM4 industrial computer

EDATEC has launched yet another Raspberry Pi CM4-powered industrial computer with the ED-IPC2010 offering a more compact design than the company’s CM4 Industrial and CM4 Sensing models, and an aluminum alloy enclosure that can easily be mounted to a DIN Rail. Most of the specifications of the new ED-IPC2010 are pretty common with a choice of Raspberry Pi Compute Modules 4 with up to 8GB RAM, 32GB flash, and optional WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0, as well as a full-size HDMI video output, a Gigabit Ethernet port, and a few USB ports. What’s a little different is one FPC connector on the mainboard with both HDMI and USB for touchscreen displays. ED-IPC2010 specifications: SoM – Raspberry Pi CM4 SoC – Broadcom BCM2711 quad-core Cortex-A72 processor @ 1.5GHz with VideoCore VI GPU System Memory –  1GB, 2GB, 4GB, or 8GB RAM Storage – 8GB, 16GB, or 32GB eMMC flash Wireless – […]

Orange Pi 5 Plus SBC switches to Rockchip RK3588 SoC, brings dual HDMI 2.1, dual 2.5GbE, M.2 PCIe sockets

Orange Pi 5 Plus

Orange Pi 5 Plus is the first Rockchip RK3588 SBC from the company and succeeds the cheaper Rockchip RK3588S-based Orange Pi 5 and Orange Pi 5B single board computers that had a more limited number of high-end interfaces. Switching to the I/O rich RK3588 processor allowed Orange Pi to add two 2.5GbE networking interfaces, support for NVMe SSD storage up to 2,000 MB/s, up to four display interfaces with two HDMI 2.1 ports, MIPI DSI and USB-C with DisplayPort Alt. mode, as well as an extra M.2 socket for optional WiFi 6 and Bluetooth connectivity. Orange Pi 5 Plus specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3588 CPU – Octa-core processor with 4x Cortex-A76 cores @ up to 2.4 GHz, 4x Cortex-A55 cores @ up to 1.8 GHz Arm Mali-G610 MP4 GPU with support for OpenGL ES1.1/2.0/3.2, OpenCL 2.2, and Vulkan 1.2 6 TOPS AI accelerator with support for INT4/INT8/INT16/FP16 mixed operation VPU […]

NanoPC-T6 Arm Linux SBC offers dual 2.5GbE, HDMI 2.1 outputs, HDMI 2.0 input, 2x M.2 sockets, and more

NanoPC-T6

FriendlyELEC NanoPC-T6 is a feature-rich Rockchip RK3588 SBC with up to 16GB LPDDR4X RAM, 256GB eMMC flash, two HDMI 2.1 output ports, one HDMI 2.0 input port, dual 2.5GbE, two M.2 PCIe socket for storage or wireless, a mini PCIe socket and microSIM slot for 4G LTE connectivity, and more. The new NanoPC-T6 single board computer offered many more interfaces than the recent NanoPi R6S or R6C board based on the Rockchip RK3588S with fewer I/Os. As such, it would be suitable for a wider range of applications and FriendlyELEC says it is well suited to enterprise consumers who want to develop mini machine vision systems, and embedded systems hobbyists who want to explore and implement all sorts of prototypes. NanoPC-T6 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3588 CPU – Octa-core processor with 4x Cortex-A76 cores @ up to 2.4 GHz, 4x Cortex-A55 cores @ 1.8 GHz GPU – Arm Mali-G610 MP4 […]