Some Interesting Talks from FOSDEM 2020 Schedule

FOSDEM 2020 Schedule

We wrote about IoT devroom call for proposals for FOSDEM 2020 a little while ago, and as the free open-source developer meetup is getting closer, FOSDEM 2020 organizers released the schedule. So I’ll look at some of the talks in the relevant devrooms such as the Internet of Things, hardware enablement, Embedded, Mobile and Automotive, as well as RISC-V and others to compose my own little virtual schedule for the 2-day event. Saturday, February 1 10:30 – 10:50 – How lowRISC made its Ibex RISC-V CPU core faster – Using open source tools to improve an open-source core – by Greg Chadwick Ibex implements RISC-V 32-bit I/E MC M-Mode, U-Mode, and PMP. It uses an in-order 2 stage pipe and is best suited for area and power-sensitive rather than high-performance applications. However, there is scope for meaningful performance gains without major impact to power or area. This talk describes work […]

Banana Pi BPI-F2S Industrial SBC Launched for $58 with Linux 4.19 based Debian or Fedora OS

Banana Pi BPI-F2S

Last month we covered Banana Pi BPI-F2S single board computer (SBC) for industrial, IoT, and smart audio application that was powered by the intriguing SunPlus SP7021 “Plus1” processor featuring four Cortex-A7 cores, one ARM9 ARM9 real-time core, and one 8051 I/O controller core, as well as up to 512MB built-in DDR3 RAM. At the time, the board was not available, and we had limited information about software support, except the company would provide a Yocto-based Linux distribution. The good news is that you can now buy Banana Pi BPI-F2S industrial SBC on Aliexpress for $58 and Taobao for 390 RMB, and the company released source code and OS images for the board. Here’s a reminder of Banana Pi BPI-F2S specifications: SoC – Sunplus SP7021 “Plus1” with a quad-core Cortex-A7 processor @ 1.0 GHz, one Arm A926 microprocessor, an 8051 core to handle I/Os, and 128MB or 512MB DDR3 DRAM. Storage […]

UP Xtreme Edge (UPX-Edge) Embedded Computer is Built around UP Xtreme Whiskey Lake SBC

UPX Edge Embedded Computer

AAEON UP Xtreme SBC was launched last June with a choice of 15W Whiskey Lake processors, namely Intel Celeron 4305UE dual-core processor, Intel Core i3-8145UE dual-core 4-thread processor, Intel Core i5-8365UE / Core i7-8665UE quad-core 8-thread processors. The company has now launched a complete embedded computer built around UP Xtreme SBC named UP Xtreme Edge Computing System, or simply UPX-Edge for short, that’s a slight variation of the fanless chassis offered for the SBC during the Kickstarter campaign. UPX-Edge specifications: SoC (one or the other) Intel Celeron 4305UE dual-core processor @ up to 2.2 GHz with 2MB cache, Intel UHD 610 graphics Intel Core i3-8145UE dual-core 4-thread processor @ up to 2.1 GHz / 3.9 GHz (Turbo) with 4MB cache, Intel UHD 620 graphics Intel Core i5-8365UE quad-core 8-thread processor @ up to 1.6 GHz / 4.1 GHz (Turbo) with 6MB cache, Intel UHD 620 graphics Intel Core i7-8665UE quad-core […]

ProteusDevice Secure, Open-Source Linux Handheld Features Ethernet Connectivity

ProteusDevice XXLSEC Ltd., the developer of the Privecall-TX device, has developed a near-identical, slightly bigger ProteusDevice, which runs the Linux 5.4 based PriveOS. The ProteusDevice handheld device (“not a mobile phone”) is said to have very tight security and was developed with secure access in mind. Background and Linux Handheld Market The market is seeing more Linux handheld and phones such as the Purism Librem 5, the PinePhone “Braveheart”  both of which are already in mass production. There are also other computing options with the handheld Pocket Popcorn Computer, which is much like the PocketChip, but decidedly improved and faster in general, as well as the Solectrix SX Mobile Device Kit which is more of a business option, for smartphone, opensource development with no cellular connectivity, but Gigabit Ethernet and USB-to-UART ports. Some Features and Mystery Production The ProteusDevice is in good company, and has a solid start, but is […]

Onion Omega2 Dash Enables Touch-based UI’s, Features Omega2S WiFi Module (Crowdfunding)

e Omega2 Dash is a Wi-Fi-enabled Linux computer with a built-in touchscreen

Onion, the team behind the Omega2 series self-styled computing modules has launched the Omega2 Dash a self-contained Omega2S module with a touchscreen. Unlike some modules integrating with a display that mostly comes in the form of a HAT (in the case of Raspberry Pi), USB, HDMI, or some unique data lines. The Omega2 Dash is a stand-alone 3.2″ TFT touchscreen display running a Linux OS, comes with a Micro USB, and boots in less than a minute, thanks to the Omega2S module attached to the back of the display screen. The Omega2S is the latest in the series of computing modules from Onion after succeeding the Omega2+.  Targeted to the IoT industry in its 24x20x2.8mm form factor, the Omega2S was designed for mass production and people interested in integrating IoT solutions into their products. Integrating a display to the Omega2S will be tricky. It will require investing in a custom […]

Ubuntu 18.04 on Beelink Gemini J45 Mini PC (Fix and Review)

Windows Mini PC Benchmarks Comparison

When I recently reviewed the Beelink J45 (aka Beelink Gemini J), a mini PC that uses the slightly older Intel Apollo Lake Pentium J4205 processor, whilst Windows 10 Pro ran fine it was unsuitable for Ubuntu because after installation the system became unstable and problems were encountered when running anything that loaded the system. The main issue was that when connected via wired-ethernet performing a command like ‘sudo apt upgrade’ would cause the ethernet to drop after which only a reboot would restore the connection. At the time it, was unclear what the cause was however a solution to the issue was posted by ‘gambetta’ on the Beelink forum. Basically it consists of installing the r8168 module which is the Linux device driver released for RealTek RTL8168B/8111B, RTL8168C/8111C, RTL8168CP/8111CP, RTL8168D/8111D, RTL8168DP/8111DP and RTL8168E/8111E Gigabit Ethernet controllers with PCI-Express interface. To paraphrase the ‘README.Debian’ file, you use ‘r8168-dkms because the in-kernel […]

AndesCore 27-Series Linux RISC-V SoC Features a Vector Processing Unit

AndesCore 27-Series VPU Andes has developed a Linux capable RISC-V based SoC which runs on the first Vector Processing Unit (VPU) that is reported to be groundbreaking in its application ability, especially in the AI sector. The Andes 27 Series CPU has debuted in the RISC-V Summit in San Jose, to a great deal of talk in many quarters.   The AndesCore 27-Series RVV The company reports that the AndesCore 27 offers a user-configurable vector-processing unit that has a scalable data size, flexible microarchitecture implementations and subsystem memory decisions open to system-level optimization. The use of the RISC-V Vector (RVV) instruction extension allows the CPU cores to deliver higher performance and versatility. The TimeTable and Offerings Andes is saying delivery of its first Andes 27 RISC-V based  SoC will begin in Q1 2020.  Already the earliest licensees have seen the delivery of the betas.  Initial availability will center around a […]

A Look at Ubuntu on MINIX NEO G41V-4 and J50C-4 Mini PCs

Mini PC Comparison

MINIX Technology Limited recently released two new Gemini Lake mini PCs running Windows 10 Pro namely the MINIX NEO J50C-4 actively-cooled mini PC with an Intel Pentium Silver J5005 processor and the MINIX NEO G41V-4 fanless mini PC powered by an Intel Celeron N4100 processor. Whilst each mini PC comes with 64GB of eMMC with pre-installed Windows 10 Pro together with 4GB of RAM they also support the addition of an optional 2280 M.2 drive and the MINIX NEO J50C-4 allows optional memory upgrades. Prior to testing their performance under Ubuntu, I established a comparison baseline by updating Windows to version 1903 and then running my standard set of benchmarking tools first with the default configuration of each mini PC and then repeated having installed the official MINIX 2280 M.2 240GB drives for each device together with adding an extra 4GB RAM to the MINIX NEO J50C-4. The results can […]

EDATEC Raspberry Pi 5 fanless case