Embedded Linux Conference Europe 2013 Schedule – Build Systems, Security, Device Tree, Debugging & Profiling Techniques, and More

Embedded Linux Conference Europe 2013 will conveniently start right after LinuxCon 2013, last 2 days (October 23-24), and take place at the same location: the Edinburgh International Conference Center, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. The Linux Foundation has published the schedule for the conference, so I’ll make my own virtual schedule with sessions that I find particularly interesting. Thursday – 24th of October 9:30 – 10:10 – Timeline For Embedded Linux by Chris Simmonds, Consultant, 2net Limited Today, Linux is woven into the fabric of our technology. Things such as printers, routers, TVs and phones all have their own “Inner Penguin”. Yet it was never originally intended to be used beyond desktop and server PCs. A lot of things had to happen before Linux could break out of the PC environment and make its way in the world as a jobbing jack-of-all-trades. Since the early beginnings of embedded Linux in the late 1990’s many people have contributed […]

Texas Instruments OMAP5432 EVM Benchmarked Against ODROID-U2, BeagleBone Black, GK802… and an Intel Core i7-2600K based PC

Texas instruments and SVTronics announced an OMAP5 evaluation board a couple of months ago. The board features OMAP5432 dual Cortex A15, dual Cortex M4 SoC, 2GB RAM, a 4GB eMMC module, USB 3.0, SATA and more. SVTronics sent a board to Linux.com, where they wrote a short review, followed by an article benchmarking the OMAP5 EVM against AllWinner A10, Freescale i.MX6, Exynos 4412 Prime, and TI Sitara platforms, namely Cubieboard, GK802, ODROID-U2, and BeagleBone Black, all running Linux. Ben Martin, the writer, also benchmarked the board against a Linux PC powered by an Intel Core i7-2600K processor (4 cores, 8 thread, clocked at 3.4GHz, with a turbo frequency up to 3.8GHz). The board used was an early version, clocked at 800MHz, and later in September, all boards will be clocked at 1.5Ghz, so for benchmarks that stress the CPU, you could expect almost double the performance. With that in mind, […]

Android 4.3 x86 Test Image Is Now Available For Tablets and Netbooks

Android-x86 project has been working on porting Android OS to Intel and AMD Desktop PC and Laptop, and just about a week after Android 4.3 has been released in AOSP, the project’s team has already managed to provide an Android 4.3 x86 test image for desktop and laptop, probably helped by the recent push by Intel to have Android device powered by x86 processor. The test build (20130725) is based on Android 4.3 release (Jelly Bean-MR2 branch), and they’ve modified parts of the code to make it work with x86, especially on x86 tablets and netbooks. What’s impressive is that most of features appear to work, and they’ve almost managed to add some additional features. The key features in this release are Upgrade to the latest kernel 3.10.2 to support more drivers. Upgrade Mesa OpenGL ES library to 9.2-devel branch to support hardware acceleration for AMD Radeon and Intel chipsets (not […]

ARM TechCon 2013 Schedule – ARM Servers, Internet of Things, Multicore, Hardware and Software Optimization and More

ARM Technology Conference (TechCon) 2013 will take place on October 29 – 31, 2013, in Santa Clara, and the detailed schedule for the event has just been made available. In the previous years, the conference was divided into  Chip Designs day (1 day), and the other 2 days were reserved for Software & System Design, but this year it does not appear to be the case. Whether you’ll be able to attend the event or not, it’s worth having a look at what will be discussed there in order to have a better understanding of what will be the key ARM developments in the near future in terms of hardware and software. There will be around 90 sessions categorized into 15 tracks: Accelerating Hardware Development – This track explores the resources, tools, and techniques that designers can employ to quickly bring hardware to market. Topics include multicore design, ARM IP, […]

Linaro 13.07 Release With Linux Kernel 3.10.1 and Android 4.2.2

Linaro 13.07 has been released with Linux Kernel 3.10.1 (both baseline and stable versions), and Android 4.2.2. It’s summer time, so activity seems to have slowdown a bit, yet improvements have done to LAVA with the first LAVA Multi-purpose Prove (LMP) setup, and Linaro has released build with Linux 3.10.1, Ubuntu Raring, OpenEmbedded (ARMv8), and Android. For the very first time, there’s even an Android 4.2.2 community build for HiSilicon K3V2 hardware (HiSilicon Hi4511 development platform). Here are the highlights of this release: LAVA LAVA Core VExpress A9 test images no longer use the master image’s boot loader Support added for interactive bootloader commands. Support for OpenID / Crowd added for LAVA. LAVA Master images updated on images.validation.linaro.org LAVA Multi-node – Multi-Node support has an initial implementation which can support communication between nodes under test via the use of a GroupDispatcher. LAVA Lab Capabilities – LMP (LAVA Multi-purpose Probe) prototypes […]

Google Releases Android 4.3 Jelly Bean, Unveils New Nexus 7 Tablet

Yesterday was a big day for Google with several important announcements, including the Chromecast HDMI TV dongle, an updated version of Nexus 7 tablet, and the release of Android 4.3, still codenamed Jelly Bean. In this post, I’ll start with the hardware, and move to explain what’s new with Android 4.3, and where you can download source and images for your device. New Nexus 7 The new Nexus 7 tablet will run Android 4.3 on the following hardware: SoC – Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 quad-core processor @ 1.5GHz with Adreno 320 GPU @ 400MHz System Memory – 2GB RAM Storage – 16GB to 32GB of storage Display – 7″ IPS display (1920 x 1200) Connectivity – Dual band 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi (2.4G/5G), Bluetooth 4.0, and NFC Camera – 5MP rear camera and 1.2MP front camera Video Output –  HDMI output (via SlimPort) Audio – Stereo speakers, 3.5mm headphone jack, microphone USB – […]

Linaro Connect Europe 2013 Sessions and Mini-Summit

Linaro Connect Europe 2013 (LCE13) is taking place in Dublin, Ireland on July 8 – 12, 2013. If you are not there, you can still follow the event remotely as the event schedule is available with tracks focused on Android, Builds and Baselines, Enterprise, Graphics and Multimedia, Linux Kernel, Network, Project Management Tools and Training, and the Testing and Validation mini-summit will also take place at the same time. There will be hacking and lab sessions each day (except on Friday) where you can expect to learn useful skills. I’ve selected 2 sessions per day that I think might be particularly interesting. Monday 10:00 – 10:45 – ARMv8 Status and Updates Current Status of v8 tree What’s merged? What’s features are next priorities? Platform Updates What members should know about adding new v8 platforms 12:00 – 13:00 – How to make Android more efficient for entry level products The main objective of […]

Linaro 13.06 Release With Linux Kernel 3.10 and Android 4.2.2

Linaro 13.06 has been released with Linux Kernel 3.10-rc6 and Android 4.2.2. Linux Linaro Stable (LSK) preview is based on kernel 3.9.6. There seems to have been a lot of activity for the LAVA and Builds and Integration teams, with LAVA support for new SoC such as Huawei K3V2 and Broadcom Capri from 2 companies which have recently joined Linaro as members, and well as continuous build for Linaro Stable Kernel. On the kernel side, more work has been done for multi-platform support (unified kernel), uprobes, eMMC power mamangement, and more. Here are the highlights of this release: LAVA LAVA Core As part of the effort to improve the developer experience with LAVA, the different client tools were consolidated into a single package, which simplifies the process of updating the tools and makes it easier for the team to provide new features for LAVA users. LAVA now supports KVM devices, […]