Category: Linux

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 39 Comments on Orange Pi Development Boards Are Raspberry Pi “Clones” based on Allwinner A20 and A31s

Orange Pi Development Boards Are Raspberry Pi “Clones” based on Allwinner A20 and A31s

After Raspberry Pi, Waxberry Pi, and Banana Pi boards, here come another fruit-named board with Orange Pi. There are actually three models, with Orange Pi and Orange Pi mini based on Allwinner A20, and Orange Pi Plus powered by a quad core Allwinner A31s processor. I’ve drawn a comparison table with the specifications for the three models. Please note that Orange Pi Plus full specifications have not been released yet, so I don’t have all details. Orange Pi Mini Orange Pi Orange Pi Plus SoC Allwinner A20 dual core Cortex A7 processor up to 1GHz with Mali-400 MP2 GPU Allwinner A31s quad core Cortex A7 processor with PowerVR SGX544MP2 GPU System Memory 1 GB DDR3 Storage 2x micro SD slot + SATA NAND Flash + micro SD slot + SATA TBD Video Output HDMI, AV, and DSI I/F HDMI, AV, VGA, and DSI I/F HDMI, AV, and DSI I/F Audio I/O HDMI, […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments on CubieTruck Metal Case Kit Getting Started Guide and Review

CubieTruck Metal Case Kit Getting Started Guide and Review

I’ve received CubieTruck Metal Case kit just over a month ago, but just like for Ubuntu on ODROID-XU3 Lite, the board could not get HDMI EDID info from my Panasonic TV, which led to a crash at boot time. CubieTech has now fixed the issue, so I’ve finally been able to complete the review with Cubieez (Cubie Easy) distribution, pre-installed on the board, and based on Debian 7.6. You can get the full hardware specs on my previous post, but the kits is comprised of four parts: CubieTruck development based on Allwinner A20 dual core processor, a rugged metallic enclosure, a 128GB SSD, and a 5,300 mAh battery acting as a UPS. I’ll start by showing how to setup the board, test SATA and Gigabit Ethernet performance,  check if the battery acts as expected, try to use the board as a desktop replacement with LibreOffice, Chromium, and so on, and […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments on Giada F110D and Asus E210 Fanless mini PCs Feature Intel Bay Trail Celeron N2807 Processor

Giada F110D and Asus E210 Fanless mini PCs Feature Intel Bay Trail Celeron N2807 Processor

We’ve seen many small computer based on Intel Atom Bay Trail-T (Tablet) Z3735F/G processor lately including MINIX NEO Z64 and MeegoPad T01, which should ship by the end of the month (it keeps getting postponed). But Intel also makes Bay Trail-M (Mobile) processor for laptops, including Celeron N2807 dual core processor found in ECS Liva. Two new products based on N2807 processor has recently surfaced: Giada F110D and Asus E210. According to CPU Boss (see Google cache if link has problem), Z3735F has slightly greater multi-core performance than N2807, but the latter has better single thread performance based on Passmark. One key advantage of the Celeron processors over the Atom ones is that they support up to 4GB RAM instead of 1 or 2 GB for the Bay Trail-T processor. Giada F110D also has one version with a more powerful Intel Bay Trail-D (Desktop) Celeron J1900 quad core processor. Giada […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on Linaro 14.12 Release with Linux 3.18 and Android 5.0

Linaro 14.12 Release with Linux 3.18 and Android 5.0

Linaro usually releases images and source code on the last Thursday of the month, but since most people will have long holidays for Chritsmas and New Year, the last working Thrusday of this month was yesterday (18th). Linaro 14.12 release includes Linux kernel 3.18 (baseline), Linux 3.10.62 & 3.14.26 (LSK, same versions as last month), and Android 5.0.1 Lollipop. Here are the highlights of this release: Linux Linaro 3.18-2014.12 Based on v3.18 release GATOR topic: version 5.20 updated topic from Qualcomm LT (includes IFC6410 board support) updated integration-linaro-vexpress64 topic by ARM LT (FVP Base and Foundation models, and Juno support) updated LLVM topic (uses the community llvmlinux-latest branch) included ILP32 patch set v3  rebased on 3.18. Boot tested with aarch64 userland. Work is in progress to test with aarch64-ilp32 userland. config fragments updated – SELinux related config options enabled in linaro-base.conf, device tree runtime self tests enabled in distribution.conf Linaro […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 63 Comments on OpenELEC For Amlogic Media Players – MXIII, Tronsmart Vega S89, TV110 and CX-S806 (S812)

OpenELEC For Amlogic Media Players – MXIII, Tronsmart Vega S89, TV110 and CX-S806 (S812)

XBMC / Kodi is now working pretty well on Android devices, and even automatic frame rate switching is available on some Android platforms such as MINIX NEO X6. But if you want a pure XBMC experience, you may consider XBMC/Kodi Linux distributions such as OpenELEC also providing support for some USB DVB tuner dongles and PVR function, both of which are currently unavailable in Kodi for Android. We’ve also seen OpenELEC released for M8 TV Box, but  Kerber, a Russian developer (or at least a Russian speaking developer) has also released OpenELEC 4.97.x for MXIII (Amlogic S802), Tronsmart Vega S89 (Amlogic S802), TV110 (Amlogic S805) , and CX-S806 (Amlogic S812) media players. The forum post is dated on August 2014, but it has been updated on December 12 with more up-to-date images: OpenELEC-Amlogic.MX3.arm-4.97.2.zip for MXIII (1GB) OpenELEC-Amlogic.S82.arm-4.97.2.zip for Tronsmart Vega S89 (2GB) OpenELEC-Amlogic.TV110.arm-4.97.2.zip for TV110 OpenELEC-Amlogic.S806.arm-4.97.2.zip for CX-S806 (Amlogic S812 […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments on U-Boot and Linux Source Code for ODROID-C1 Board Has Been Released

U-Boot and Linux Source Code for ODROID-C1 Board Has Been Released

Hardkernel ODROID-C1 board, a more powerful $35 alternative to the Raspberry Pi, garnered a lot of attention when it was announced last week. At the time source code was not available, but as scheduled, U-boot and Linux source code is now available, and the full Android SDL should be released on February 2015. Instructions to get the code, and build both Linux and U-boot are available on ODROID-C1 Wiki, and I’ve just given a try to Linux instructions myself to see if I would encounter any issues in Ubuntu 14.04. Download Linaro GCC 4.7 toolchain from Linaro or Odroid website. Install the toolchain. They install it on /opt/toolchain, but instead I’ve installed in ~/opt/toochain, so I don’t need superuser permissions: mkdir -p ~/opt/toolchains tar xvf gcc-linaro-arm-linux-gnueabihf-4.7-2013.04-20130415_linux.tar.bz2 -C ~/opt/toolchains/ Add the following lines to ~/.bashrc export ARCH=arm export CROSS_COMPILE=arm-linux-gnueabihf- export PATH=~/opt/toolchains/gcc-linaro-arm-linux-gnueabihf-4.7-2013.04-20130415_linux/bin:$PATH To apply change, log out and log in, or run: […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments on UyeSee SoundMate WM201 Wi-Fi Music Streamer Features Actions Semi AM8253 SoC

UyeSee SoundMate WM201 Wi-Fi Music Streamer Features Actions Semi AM8253 SoC

EZCast dongles are wireless display dongle supporting Miracast, DLNA, Airplay, and EZCast protocol, and are all based on Actions Semiconductor AM8251 MIPS processor. The company has now designed AM8253 SoC specially for audio applications using these standards, and found in upcoming products such as UyeSee WM201 Wi-Fi music streamer. UyeSee WM201 specifications and features: SoC – Actions Semi AM8253 32-bit RISC processor @ 600 MHz with built-in 24-bit 96 KHz DAC System Memory – 64 MB DDR3 Storage –  128MB for firmware, and micro SD card for audio files Connectivity – 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi (150 Max). WPA, WPA2, and WPA2 Mixed security Audio Ports – 3.5mm audio jack, optical S/PDIF Wireless Audio Standard – Airplay, DLNA, Qplay and Ezcast Audio Format – MP3, AAC, WAV, FLAC, APE, OGG, WMA, DTS, AC3 (Dolby Digital), ra, AIF, AIFF, M4A(ALAC), MKA, MIDI,, TTA USB – 1x USB host port, 1x micro USB port […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 18 Comments on ODROID-XU3 Lite Board Ubuntu Review – Setup, Usability, and Performance

ODROID-XU3 Lite Board Ubuntu Review – Setup, Usability, and Performance

After testing ODROID-XU3 Lite with Android 4.4, and finding a workaround to some HDMI issues, I could finally try out Ubuntu, or rather Lubuntu with LXDE instead of Unity, in Hardkernel low cost octa-core development board. I’ll start this review by explaining how to install and setup Lubuntu on the board, followed by running various program to test the system usability as a desktop computer with LibreOffice, Chromium, XBMC, and 3D graphics, and finally run some performance tests with Phoronix Test Suit, build the Linux kernel natively, and transcode a video with avconf. Setting Up Ubuntu on ODROID-XU3 Lite All firmware images for ODROID development boards, can be found on odroid.in website, and if you want Ubuntu 14.04 image, go to ubuntu_14.04lts folder, to select the latest firmware file for your board. The latest image for ODROID-XU3 (Lite) is currently ubuntu-14.04.1lts-lubuntu-odroid-xu3-20141105.img.xz, it’s the same for micro SD card or eMMC […]