FriendlyARM NanoPi NEO Board Benchmarks

We’ve already seen how to setup NanoPi NEO with Ubuntu Core, and while it’s mostly designed as an IoT node, for example to control relays over Ethernet or the Internet, I’ve still decided to see how it would perform under load by running Phoronix benchmarks, and then network and storage (micro SD card provided by FriendlyARM). It’s a small board, so we should expect it to heat a lot under load, especially it does not come with an heatsink by default. Also bear in mind that performance may dramatically change depending on the software implementation, and for the test, I’m using the company’s Ubuntu Core firmware. Before start the benchmark, I noticed that QTe-Demo was running in the background, probably because it was used on their other board with video output or LCD. but it’s taking some CPU usage, and is absolutely not needed here. To disable it, edit /etc/rc.local, […]

Google Research PRUDAQ is a 40MSPS ADC Data Acquisition (DAQ) Cape for BeagleBone Black & Green

Engineers at Google Research wanted to measure the strength of a carrier signals without having to use a bulky oscilloscope or DAQ (Data Acquisition) system,  so they looked into several makers boards to achieve this task, eventually decided to go with BeagleBone Black / Green, and created their own PRUDAQ cape capable of sampling 40 million samples per second, and open source it all. PRUDAQ cape specifications: Dual-channel simultaneously-sampled 10-bit ADC (Analog Devices AD9201) Up to 20MSPS per channel (40MSPS total) theoretical 0-2V input voltage range (DC coupled) 4:1 analog switches in front of each channel provide a total of 8 single-ended analog inputs. (See here for differential input) SMA jacks for direct access to the 2 ADC channels Flexible clock options: External input via SMA jack Internal on-board 10MHz oscillator Programmable clock from BeagleBone GPIO pins Powered via BeagleBone headers – no external power needed Fully exposed BeagleBone headers […]

Gateworks Ventana GW5530 SBC is Designed for Drones, Robots, and Digital Signage

Gateworks Ventana is a family of boards based on NXP i.MX6 processor designed for embedded applications, and often include one or more mini PCIe ports for expansion. Their latest single board computer – Ventana GW5530 –  is powered by an NXP i.MX 6Dual processor coupled with 512MB RAM, 256MB storage, a mini PCIe port, a micro SD / SIM card slot, micro HDMI output, and some I/Os. Ventana GW5530 specifications: SoC – NXP i.MX6 Dual Core ARM Cortex-A9 processor @ 800MHz with Vivante 2D and 3D GPUs System Memory – 512MB DDR3 (Up to 2GB as option) Storage – 256MB flash (Up to 2GB as option), micro SD/SIM card slot, serial configuration EEPROM Video & Audio Output – micro HDMI 1.4 port Connectivity – Optional u-blox EVA-M8M GPS Receiver with MMCX or u.FL Antenna Connector USB – 1x micro USB 2.0 OTG Port Sensors – 9-axis inertial module (accelerometer/gyro/magnetometer) Expansion […]

Getting Started with NanoPi NEO Development Board – Ubuntu Core Firmware

NanoPi NEO is an exciting ARM Linux board due to the power it packs into its small size, and its low price starting at $7.99. It’s made by FriendlyARM, and since I’ve read some people had never heard about the company before, I’d like to point out it has been providing development boards well before the Raspberry Pi board was launched, with products such mini2440 based on a Samsung ARM9 processor introduced around year 2010. Anyway, I asked the company if they were willing to send 2 samples for review, as I plan to remove the USB & Ethernet port on one of them. Instead I got a 4 boards and accessories, so I’m going to start reviewing the board by writing a quick start guide, showing how to setup it, and check out the Ubuntu core provided by the company. If you are a fan of armbian made Debian […]

Onion Omega2 is a $5 Linux WiFi IoT Board (Crowdfunding)

Onion Omega board was first introduced in 2015. The tiny OpenWrt Linux board featured an Atheros AR9331 processor with GPIO headers, and various baseboards and add-ons. The company has now launched a Kickstarter campaign for the second versions – Omega2 & Omega2 Plus – with a faster processor @ 580 MHz, compatible with docks and add-ons boards used for Omega, and a much lower price with $5 for the Omega2, and $9 for Omega2 Plus with more storage and memory. Omega2 & Omega2 Plus specifications: WiSoC – 580 MHz processor, possibly Mediatek MT7688 MIPS processor used in LinkIt Smart 7688 System Memory Omega2 – 64MB Omega2 Plus – 128MB Storage Omage2 – 16MB flash Omega 2 Plus – 32MB flash + micro SD slot Connectivity Built-in – 802.11 b/g/n WiFi with on-board and external antenna support Via add-on boards – Bluetooth 4.0 LE, GPS, and 2G/3G Expansion – 15x GPIO, […]

Setting a VoIP SIP user agent with Embedded Linux

This is a guest post by Leonardo Graboski Veiga, working for Toradex. Introduction This article’s main goals are: to cross-compile the PJSIP libraries and the PJSUA API reference implementation; deploy it to the target system; give an overview about the SIP protocol; and explore the reference implementation features, regarding audio only. For this purpose, a Computer on Module (CoM) from Toradex was chosen in the following configuration: Colibri iMX6DL* + Colibri Evaluation Board. The evaluation board and CoM are displayed in Figures 1 and 2, respectively.   VOIP or Voice over IP, is a term designed to refer to a set of methods and technologies targeted for the implementation of telephony services over the Internet. For the purpose of this article, the scope will be limited to the use of a reference implementation built upon the SIP communication handling protocol by means of the PJSIP libraries and PJSUA2 API. If […]

ArduCAM has designed a Tiny Coin-Sized Raspberry Pi Compatible Module

Now you can design your own custom hardware and leverage Raspberry Pi software, by integrating Raspberry Pi Compute module (and soon Raspberry Pi 3 Compute module) into your custom designed baseboard. But if you’d like something more compact, and even more compact than a Raspberry Pi Zero or RPi Compute module, ArduCAM has been developing a 24x24mm Raspberry Pi compatible system-on-module powered by Broadcom BCM2835 processor. ArduCAM has also designed a small adapter board “UC-343 Rev. A” for the module with the following specifications: SoC – Broadcom BCM2835 ARM11 Processor @ 700 MHz (or 1GHz?) with Videocore IV GPU System Memory – 256MB/512MB LPDDR2 Storage – micro SD card slot USB – 2x micro USB ports including one for power only Camera – 1x MIPI CSI connector supporting 5MP or 8MP Pi cameras (dual camera support) Expansion – AV output header 16-pin and 8-pin headers (unpopulated) with GPIOs, 2x I2C, […]

LibreELEC 7.0 Ported to Amlogic S905 TV Boxes & ODROID-C2 Board

Most TV boxes are now sold pre-loaded with Android, but there’s still a fair amount of people who only want to play videos in their box, or only run Kodi, so they may prefer a Linux experience. Some companies provide ready-to-use solution such as ARNU Box Mach 10 64-bit Pure Linux, but in some cases it’s also possible to side-load OpenELEC or LibreELEC, with the main advantage being that it is usually quite cheaper at the cost of being a bit more complicated. Thanks to a comment by Sabai, I discovered LibreELEC 7.0.0 had been (unofficially) ported to Amlogic S905 TV boxes, and tested one devices such as NEXBOX A95X (S905), WeTek Hub, Beelink S905 Mini MXIII, MXQ Pro 4K, and others. If you own an ODROID-C2 board, you can load another LibreELEC 7.0.0 image. If you are unsure whether your Android TV box is supported, you should first try […]