Author: Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments on MW-100-NAS Intel N100 motherboard features six SATA ports, two M.2 PCIe sockets, 2.5GbE and 10GbE interfaces

MW-100-NAS Intel N100 motherboard features six SATA ports, two M.2 PCIe sockets, 2.5GbE and 10GbE interfaces

MW-100-NAS motherboard

The MW-100-NAS mini-ITX motherboard is powered by an Intel Processor N100 Alder Lake-N CPU and seems especially suited for NAS (networked-attached storage) applications with six SATA connectors, two M.2 Key-M sockets for NVMe drivers, one 10GbE port, and two 2.5GbE RJ45 jacks. The motherboard supports up to 32GB DDR5 memory, features HDMI and DisplayPort video output ports, a COM port header, and plenty of external and internal USB interfaces. It takes power from a standard ATX connector. NW-N100-NAS motherboard specifications: SoC – Intel Processor N100 quad-core Alder Lake-N processor @ up to 3.4 GHz (Turbo) with 6MB cache, 24EU Intel HD graphics @ up to 750 MHz; TDP: 6W System Memory – Up to 32GB DDR5-4800 via SO-DIMM socket Storage 2x M.2 sockets for NVMe SSDs onboard 6x SATA connectors MicroSD card slot Video Output – 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort  Networking 2x 2.5GbE RJ45 ports via Intel i226-V controllers 1x […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments on Panthor open-source driver achieves OpenGL ES 3.1 conformance with Arm Mali-G610 GPU (RK3588 SoC)

Panthor open-source driver achieves OpenGL ES 3.1 conformance with Arm Mali-G610 GPU (RK3588 SoC)

Panthor OpenGL ES 3.1 conformance Mali G610

Collabora has just announced that the Panthor open-source GPU kernel driver for third-generation Arm Valhall GPUs (Arm Mali-G310, Mali-G510, Mali-G610, and Mali-G710) has now achieved OpenGL ES 3.1 conformance with the Arm Mali-G610 GPU found in the Rockchip RK3588 SoC. Just a few days ago, Linux 6.10 was released with “support for Mali CSF-based GPUs found on recent Arm SoCs from Rockchip or Mediatek”, as expected from the earlier article entitled “Panthor open-source driver for Arm Mali-G310, Mali-G510, Mali-G610, and Mali-G710 GPUs to be part of Linux 6.10” published last March. But this did not say anything about the level of support for the Valhall GPU since it’s common for new hardware to be added with minimal support, and OpenGL ES 3.1 compliance means it’s ready for business… Collabora’s announcement explains this was tested on a Radxa Rock 5B single board computer: The conformance tests ran on a Rock5b board […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on StackyFi ESP32-S3 board features camera connector, 40-pin GPIO header for Raspberry Pi HAT (Crowdfunding)

StackyFi ESP32-S3 board features camera connector, 40-pin GPIO header for Raspberry Pi HAT (Crowdfunding)

StackyFi ESP32-S3 Raspberry Pi Zero board

SB Components’ StackyFi is an ESP32-S3 WiFi and Bluetooth IoT board with a 40-pin GPIO header compatible with most Raspberry Pi HAT expansion boards and a camera connector for image capture to a microSD card or machine learning applications. The Raspberry Pi Zero-sized board also comes with two USB Type-C ports, one “native” and the other for serial debugging, an IMU sensor, an RGB LED, and Boot and Reset buttons. The board can be powered through one of the USB-C ports or a LiPo battery. It partially builds upon the earlier StackPi board with a Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller. StackyFi specifications: Wireless module – ESP32-S3-WROOM-1 MCU – ESP32-S3 dual-core Tensilica LX7 up to 240 MHz with 512KB SRAM Memory – TBD PSRAM Storage – TBD flash Wireless – WiFi 4 and Bluetooth LE 5 PCB antenna Storage – MicroSD card Camera I/F – FPC connector that works with OV2640 camera […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments on Cervoz unveils tiny M.2 2230 2.5GbE PCIe expansion card

Cervoz unveils tiny M.2 2230 2.5GbE PCIe expansion card

Cervoz M.2 2230 2.5GbE PCIe expansion card

Cervoz MEC-LAN-2631i is a tiny, industrial-grade M.2 2230 (A+E key) PCIe Ethernet expansion card adding 2.5GbE networking to any system with a spare M.2 socket with a PCIe x1 interface. The card could be useful in case you want to add an extra 2.5GbE port, or for a system that lacks wired networking. It’s based on the Intel I226-IT 2.5Gbps Ethernet controller and can operate in the -40°C to 85°C temperature range as an industrial-grade module. Cervoz MEC-LAN-2631i specifications: Host interface – M.2 edge connector with PCIe 2.1 x1 up to 5.0/2.5GT/s Network – 10/100/1000/2500Mbps isolated interface based on an Intel I226-IT controller with an RJ45 port on a separate module Power Consumption – 350mA @ 3.3V Safety – Surge protection up to 2kV Dimensions – 30 x 22 mm; M.2 2230 (A+E key) form factor Temperature Range – Operating: -40°C to 85°C; storage: -40°C to 125°C Mounting – Cervoz’s […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on AAEON AQ7-ADN – A Qseven 2.1 system-on-module with Intel Alder Lake-N CPU, four PCIe Gen 3 x1 interfaces

AAEON AQ7-ADN – A Qseven 2.1 system-on-module with Intel Alder Lake-N CPU, four PCIe Gen 3 x1 interfaces

AAEON AQ7-ADN Alder Lake-N Qseven system-on-module

AAEON AQ7-ADN is a Qseven 2.1-compliant system-on-module based on Atom Processors x7425E, Intel Processor N, or Intel Core i3-N305 Alder Lake-N processor equipped with up to 8GB LPDDR5x and 64GB of eMMC flash storage. AAEON has already introduced Alder Lake-N COM Express and SMARC modules with the COM-ADNC6 and uCOM-ADN respectively, and the AQ7-ADN adds another system-on-module standard to its list of Alder Lake N-Series modules with a Qseven 2.1 SoM that offers four PCIe Gen x1 interfaces and a SATA storage interface. AAEON AQ7-ADN specifications: Alder Lake N-series SoC (one or the other) Intel Atom x7425E quad-core processor up to 3.4 GHz with 6MB cache, 24EU Intel UHD Graphics @ 1.00 GHz; TDP: 12W Intel Processor N50 dual-core processor up to 3.4 GHz with 6MB cache, 16EU Intel UHD Graphics @ 750 MHz; TDP: 6W Intel Processor N97 quad-core processor up to 3.6 GHz with 6MB cache, 24EU Intel […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments on SparkFun RTK EVK offers GNSS with centimeter accuracy, WiFi, Bluetooth, 4G LTE Cat 1, and Ethernet connectivity

SparkFun RTK EVK offers GNSS with centimeter accuracy, WiFi, Bluetooth, 4G LTE Cat 1, and Ethernet connectivity

Sparkfun RTK EVK

SparkFun RTK EVK is a fully-enclosed GNSS platform designed for fixed or mobile high-precision positioning and navigation applications with centimeter accuracy thanks to RTK (real-time kinematic) technology implemented with modules from u-blox. About two months ago, Sparkfun introduced the RTK Torch waterproof GNSS surveyor with Unicore UM980 GNSS module with RTK support, ESP32 for WiFi/Bluetooth, and an STM32WLE5C LoRa SoC. The  SparkFun RTK EVK (evaluation kit) may drop LoRa connectivity, but it’s a more versatile platform with WiFi, Bluetooth, Ethernet, and LTE Cat 1 cellular connectivity, besides support for L1 + L2 RTK GNSS with L-Band correction. Sparkfun RTK EVK specifications: GNSS Receiver – u-blox ZED-F9P Concurrent reception of GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, and BeiDou Receives both L1C/A and L2C bands 184-channel u-blox F9 engine Time to First Fix: 25s (cold), 2s (hot) Max Navigation Rate: 20Hz / 25Hz depending on mode Horizontal Position Accuracy: 2.5m without RTK; 0.010m with RTK […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments on Rockchip RKLLM toolkit released for NPU-accelerated large language models on RK3588, RK3588S, RK3576 SoCs

Rockchip RKLLM toolkit released for NPU-accelerated large language models on RK3588, RK3588S, RK3576 SoCs

Rockchip RK3588 RKLLM

Rockchip RKLLM toolkit (also known as rknn-llm) is a software stack used to deploy generative AI models to Rockchip RK3588, RK3588S, or RK3576 SoC using the built-in NPU with 6 TOPS of AI performance. We previously tested LLM’s on Rockchip RK3588 SBC using the Mali G610 GPU, and expected NPU support to come soon. A post on X by Orange Pi notified us that the RKLLM software stack had been released and worked on Orange Pi 5 family of single board computers and the Orange Pi CM5 system-on-module. The Orange Pi 5 Pro‘s user manual provides instructions on page 433 of the 616-page document, but Radxa has similar instructions on their wiki explaining how to use RKLLM and deploy LLM to Rockchip RK3588(S) boards. The stable version of the RKNN-LLM was released in May 2024 and currently supports the following models: TinyLLAMA 1.1B Qwen 1.8B Qwen2 0.5B Phi-2 2.7B Phi-3 […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on Linux 6.10 Release – Notable changes, Arm, RISC-V, and MIPS architectures

Linux 6.10 Release – Notable changes, Arm, RISC-V, and MIPS architectures

Linux 6.10 Release Changelog

Linux Torvalds has announced the release of Linux 6.10 on LKML: So the final week was perhaps not quote as quiet as the preceding ones, which I don’t love – but it also wasn’t noisy enough to warrant an extra rc. And much of the noise this last week was bcachefs again (with netfs a close second), so it was all pretty compartmentalized. In fact, about a third of the patch for the last week was filesystem-related (there were also some btrfs latency fixes and other noise), which is unusual, but none of it looks particularly scary. Another third was drivers, and the rest is “random”. Anyway, this obviously means that the merge window for 6.11 opens up tomorrow. Let’s see how that goes, with much of Europe probably making ready for summer vacation. And the shortlog below is – as always – just the last week, not some kind […]

UP 7000 x86 SBC