Linux Category - Page 464 of 606 - CNX Software

October 20, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 20 Comments

Add GPIOs to Windows, Linux, Android Computers and Devices with FTDI USB Adapters / Breakout Boards

It’s possible to to add GPIOs to your computer, (openWRT) router, or Android tablet using some FTDI USB dongles that expose I/Os. On operating systems based on Linux, including Android, you can use the GPIO sysfs interface (/sys/class/gpio) to easily control GPIOs from the command line, and in some cases Rx, Tx, CTS, .. pins can also be used as GPIOs. Zoobab has tried it with various FTDI USB adapters, and Oneping OP-1010 breakout board based on PL2303 HDX chip, and the results are mixed, but it could worth a try. There are currently patchsets ([1] and [2]) awaiting acceptance to mainline kernel that will enable GPIO support for these USB devices, but in the meantime you need to patch the kernel yourself, and then enable the relevant options in the kernel config for example “USB_SERIAL_PL2303_GPIO” or “USB_SERIAL_FTDI_SIO_GPIO”. The first patch is for PL2303 chips, and the second for FT2xxx/FT4xxx […]

October 17, 2014May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 14 Comments

Updated Android 4.4 Beta and Ubuntu Images for pcDuino8 / A80 OptimusBoard Boards Released

pcDuino8 and A80 OptimusBoard are the only two Allwinner A80 development boards currently “somewhat” available, and albeit the PCB color is different, every else is basically identical, and pcDuino8 firmware should probably run on A80 OptimusBoard and vice versa. If you own any of these boards, you may interested in two images, one with Android 4.4 (beta), and one with Lubuntu, recently released by pcDuino / Linksprite. Android 4.4 (beta) 2014-10-08 – sun9iw1p1_android_optimus.img to be flashed with PhoenixCard (Windows) or Livesuit (Linux) Lubuntu 14.04? 2014-10-08 is comprised of two files: Kernel – pcduino8_kernel_livesuit_20141008.img to be flashed with PhoenixCard or Livesuit first. See instructions to use Livesuit with A80 OptimusBoard. Rootfs – pcduino8_ubuntu_20141008.rar. First extract the rar files to the root of an SD card or USB flash drive. There should be two files: pcduino8_ubuntu_20141008.img and update.sh. Now connect the mass storage device to pcDuino3 / A80 Optimusboard, and reboot the […]

October 16, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Lark Board Powered by Altera Cyclone V SX ARM Cortex A9 + FPGA SoC

Farnell/Element14 has quietly announced Lark Board from their subsidiary Embest Technology in September. The board is powered by an Altera Cyclone V ARM Cortex-A9 dual-core + FPGA processor with high speed transceivers, runs Debian 7.4, and targets medical instruments, video surveillance and industrial control applications. Lark board specifications: SoC – Altera Cyclone V SX (5CSXFC6D6F31I7N) with a dual core Cortex A9 processor (HPS – Hard Processor System) @ 800 MHz, FPGA fabric including up to 110K logic cells (LE), and high speed transceivers (2 PCIe hard IPs and 9 3Gbps transceivers) System Memory – 1GB DDR3 SDRAM for HPS, 1GB DDR3 SDRAM for FPGA Storage – 4GB eMMC Flash + micro SD card slot Audio/Video Interfaces – HDMI, VGA, and 24-bit LCD interface supporting 4-wire touch screen Data Transfer Interfaces: High-resolution serial digital interface (SDI) that supports SMD standard interface and provides a SDI TX and a SDI RX 12-bit […]

October 15, 2014November 25, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 26 Comments

MEEGO-T01 HDMI TV Stick Supports Android, Windows 8.1, and Ubuntu/Linux

ARM based HDMI TV dongles have been available for over two years, mostly running Android, but the community has managed to install Linux desktop operating systems such as Ubuntu or Debian on these tiny gadgets with some limitations. But now that Intel is making low power SoC for tablets, at least one company has decided to make an HDMI TV stick powered by Intel “Bay Trail-T” Z3735F/G quad core processor, which can run Android, Windows 8.1, and Linux based desktop operating systems such as Ubuntu. Meegopad MEEGO-T01 (aka APM-D01?) hardware specifications: SoC – Intel Atom Z3735F / Z3735G “Bay Trail” quad core processor @ 1.33 GHz (Bust freq: 1.83 GHz) with Intel HD graphics (2W TDP) System Memory 1 GB DDR3L-1333 for Z3735G (32-bit up to 5.3 GB/s) 2 GB DDR3L-1333 for Z3735F (64-bit up to 10.6 GB/s) Storage – 16 or 32 GB eMMC + micro SD slot Video […]

October 15, 2014October 15, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

ICube MVP SoCs Combine CPU and GPU into a Single Unified Processing Unit (UPU)

ICube is a fabless semiconductor company developing SoCs featuring a Unified Processing Unit (UPU) that takes care of the tasks usually handle by separate CPU and GPU on typical SoCs. The UPUs are based on MVP (Multi-thread Virtual Pipeline) instruction set architecture, and are themselves called MVP cores. The company has now two SoCs based on UPU MVP cores: IC3128 and IC3228. IC3128 is a single core / 4 thread SoC, and IC3228 is a dual MVP core / 8 threads SoC. Let’s have a look at IC3228 technical specifications: CPU function 4-way simultaneous multi-threading (SMT) in each core Symmetric-multi-processing (SMP), dual MVP cores 64KB I-cache, 64KB D-cache and 64KB local memory in each core, 256KB shared L2 cache Homogeneous parallel programs Support Pthread, OpenMP GPU function Data parallel, Task parallel, and/or Function parallel computing Multi-standard media processor Programmable unified shader Support OpenGL ES 2.0 70 million triangles / sec, […]

October 10, 2014November 23, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 15 Comments

ZSun Wireless USB Flash Drives Add up to 32GB to Your Mobile Device

Yesterday, I wrote about the Egg personal cloud storage device which allows you to easily store and share your files without having to rely on cloud services, and also includes a touchscreen display. But it might be possible to achieve the main selling point of that product, that is keeping your data private, while accessing it from anywhere, at a fraction of the cost, by using a Wireless USB flash drive instead. Some well known companies such as Kingston (rather expensive), and Sandisk (much more affordable) already offer such products, but I’ve been informed Zsun, a Chinese company, was also manufacturing such devices with up to 32 GB capacity. The company calls its wireless flash drive “Apple Disks” showing how much money you could save with their device, by showing the ridiculous price different between apple devices with difference storage capacity, but they can also work with Android devices, as […]

October 9, 2014May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Linux 3.17 Released

Linus Torvalds announced the release of Linux Kernel 3.17 on Sunday: So the past week was fairly calm, and so I have no qualms about releasing 3.17 on the normal schedule (as opposed to the optimistic “maybe I can release it one week early” schedule that was not to be). However, I now have travel coming up – something I hoped to avoid when I was hoping for releasing early. Which means that while 3.17 is out, I’m not going to be merging stuff very actively next week, and the week after that is LinuxCon EU… What that means is that depending on how you want to see it, the 3.18 merge window will either be three weeks, or alternatively just have a rather slow start. I don’t mind getting pull requests starting now (in fact, I have a couple already pending in my inbox), but I likely won’t start processing […]

October 8, 2014October 9, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Cortus Introduces APS23 and APS25 32-Bit Cores for Micro-controllers

ARM and MIPS are not the only games in town with it comes to 32-bit cores for micro-controllers. I’ve already written about Beyond Semiconductor, and mentioned Andes used in some Wi-Fi SoC, and today I’ve come across another IP company called Cortus. which just introduced APS23 and APS25 cores based on their latest Cortus V2 instruction set. which offers a smaller code footprint compared to there V1 ISA. APS23 can achieve 1.44 Coremarks/MHz, 2.83 DMIPS/MHz, and can run up to 200 MHz when manufactured with 90nm process, whereas APS25 is a bit more powerful with 2.09 Coremarks/MHz, 2.36 DMIPS/MHz, and can run up to 344 MHz. Minimal power consumption is 11.6 and 19.3 uW/Mhz for APS23 and APS25 respectively. Key features of both cores include: APS23 APS25 Excellent Code Density 3 stage pipeline 5-7 Stage Pipeline Sequential Multiplier High Performance Integer Multiply Optional Parallel Multiplier (Gives 2.62 Coremakes/MHz) Integer Divider Full Peripheral Set Dual […]