Category: Operating Systems

Operating Systems used in Embedded Devices

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 68 Comments on Raspberry Pi 4 vs ODROID-C4 Features Comparison

Raspberry Pi 4 vs ODROID-C4 Features Comparison

ODROID-C4 vs Raspberry Pi 4

Yesterday, Hardkernel launched ODROID-C4 Amlogic S905X3 SBC as an update to ODROID-C2 SBC launched in 2016. We’ve seen the board can compete with Raspberry Pi 4 4GB board thanks to benchmarks released by Hardkernel, but since those boards are so versatile, meaning they can be used in a variety of applications, it’s impossible to benchmark all use cases. One way to find out which board might be right for your application without going through benchmarks is to look at a list of features for each, and that’s exactly what we’ve done in this post. Let’s get straight to the Raspberry Pi 4 (4GB RAM) vs ODROID-C4 comparison table. Features/Specs Raspberry Pi 4B (4GB) ODROID-C4 Release date 24th June 2019 23rd April 2020 SoC Broadcom BCM2711 quad-core Cortex-A72 @ 1.5 GHz (overclockable to 2.0+ GHz) with NEON, FPU Amlogic S905X3 quad-core Cortex-A55 processor @ 2.0 GHz with NEON, FPU, Armv8 Crypto […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on Panfrost Gets First 3D Renders on Bifrost GPU (Mali-G31) including Basic Texture Support

Panfrost Gets First 3D Renders on Bifrost GPU (Mali-G31) including Basic Texture Support

Collabora has been working on Panfrost open-source Arm Mali GPU driver for over a year. The drive aims to support both Midgard and Bifrost families. But so far, the company had mostly focused on Midgard (Mali-T6xx/T7xx) GPUs with for example experimental OpenGL ES 3.0 support announced last February. Collabora engineers, such as Alyssa Rosenzweig, have now started to work on Bifrost support, and some good progress has been made since they managed to have Panfrost render the first 3D graphics with basic texture support using a platform with an Arm Mali-G31 GPU. Alyssa notes that while Midgard and Bifrost have a similar command stream requiring a few changes, the Bifrost instruction set is completely different and required building a new compiler from scratch. This leads to changes to the Intermediate Representation (IR), 16-bit data support, a different register allocation mechanism due to adapt to irregular vector architectures, and the latter […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Released – What’s New?

Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Released – What’s New?

Ubuntu 20.04 Release

Ubuntu 18.04 “Bionic Beaver”  was released nearly exactly two years ago, and that means it’s time for another LTS (Long Term Support) release with Canonical officially releasing Ubuntu 20.04 “Focal Fossa” today. There are a few changes to the graphical user interface, Amazon Icon is now gone, a recent Linux 5.4 kernel is used by default with Wireguard VPN backport, and snap becomes a first citizen in Ubuntu 20.04. This is also the first LTS version of Ubuntu that does not provide 32-bit x86 images. Ubuntu 20.04 ISO files will soon be found on Ubuntu website, and if you already a machine with Ubuntu 18.04 or 19.10, you should be able to upgrade with the following commands:

It’s possible the release has not been pushed to your mirror, so you may need to wait for a little while, or use the command to install the development release :

[…]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 107 Comments on $50 ODROID-C4 Raspberry Pi 4 Competitor Combines Amlogic S905X3 SoC with 4GB RAM

$50 ODROID-C4 Raspberry Pi 4 Competitor Combines Amlogic S905X3 SoC with 4GB RAM

ODROID-C4

Hardkernel has just launched an update to its ODROID-C2 board, with ODROID-C4 SBC equipped with a 2.0 GHz Amlogic S905X3 quad-core Cortex-A55 processor combined with up to 4GB RAM, four USB 3.0 ports, Gigabit Ethernet, HDMI 2.0 video output, and the usual 40-pin I/O header. That makes it a worthy competitor to Raspberry Pi 4 with 4GB RAM, especially since it supports Ubuntu 20.04, CoreELEC, Android 9, and LineageOS operating systems, and comes with a proper heatsink for cooling for just $50 plus shipping. ODROID-C4 specifications: SoC – Amlogic S905X3 quad-core Cortex-A55 processor @ 2.0GHz with Arm Mali-G31MP2 GPU supporting OpenGL ES 3.2, Vulkan 1.0 and OpenCL 2.0 System Memory – 4GB DDR4 Storage 1x eMMC connector (8/16/32/64GB modules available) 1x Micro SD slot with support for DS/HS mode up to UHS-I SDR104 Video & Output – HDMI 2.0 port up to 4K@60Hz with HDR, CEC, EDID Audio – Digital […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on Qt for MCUs 1.1 Adds Support for more STM32 and NXP i.MX RT Boards, FreeRTOS

Qt for MCUs 1.1 Adds Support for more STM32 and NXP i.MX RT Boards, FreeRTOS

Qt for MCUs 1.1 Installer

The first stable version of Qt for MCUs was released in August 2019 in order to bring Qt graphical toolkit to microcontrollers such as STMicro STM32F7,  Renesas RH850, or NXP i.MX RT1050.   Qt for MCUs would run bare metal on supported boards, and software engineers would develop graphical interface using QML and C++. Qt for MCUs 1.1 has just been released with the addition of more STM32 and i.MX RT boards, support for FreeRTOS real-time operating system, and more. Qt for MCUs 1.1 highlights: Five new supported boards:  NXP i.MX RT 1064 EVK, STM32 H750B-DK, STM32 F469i-disco, STM32 L4R9i-disco, and STM32 L4R9i-eval Asset management Optional PNG compressions for assets to lower storage footprint Option to read data directly from flash memory for lower RAM consumption, or copy to RAM for better performance, at the cost of higher RAM consumption. FreeRTOS support (technology preview) to run background tasks without blocking the […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments on Is MIPS Dead? Lawsuit, Bankruptcy, Maintainers Leaving and More…

Is MIPS Dead? Lawsuit, Bankruptcy, Maintainers Leaving and More…

MIPS Dead

When in 2018, Blu posted a guest post entitled “Baikal T1 MIPS Processor – The Last of the Mohicans?” I thought maybe it was too pessimistic with regard to the future of MIPS architecture. At the time, MIPS belonged to Imagination Technologies, but soon the company had its own financial problems and had to sell MIPS assets to Wave Computing. The latter eventually announced the launch of MIPS Open Initiative early last year,  so there was some hope as interest might pick up to compete against RISC-V and Arm again. But in recent months, MIPS related news has not been so good. First, Wave Computing decided to end MIPS Open Initiative in November 2019, then Paul Burton and Ralf Baechle removed themselves from the Linux kernel MIPS maintainer list in February 2020, as their work with MIPS ended leaving Thomas Bogendoerfer as the only maintainer. But this month, things turned […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments on AAEON Compact Fanless Embedded Box PC Features NVIDIA Jetson Xavier-NX or Nano SoM

AAEON Compact Fanless Embedded Box PC Features NVIDIA Jetson Xavier-NX or Nano SoM

AAEON Jetson Xavier-NX Embedded Box PC

NVIDIA Jetson Xavier-NX module was officially launched about a week ago, and at the time we noted several carrier boards and mini PCs were launched or announced from companies like D3 Engineering, Diamond Systems, and Connect Tech. We should expect many new Jetson Xavier-NX embedded mini PC announcements over the next few weeks and months, and AAEON has now announced two new similar compact fanless embedded box PCs namely Boxer-8221AI and BOXER-8251AI with the same designed but powered by respectively Jetson Nano and Jetson Xavier-NX modules. Both models should share the same specifications except for the module: SoM Boxer-8221AI – NVIDIA Jetson Nano with quad-core Arm Cortex-A57 processor @ 1.43 GHz, 128-core Maxwell GPU, 4GB LPDDR4,  16GB eMMC flash Boxer-8251AI – NVIDIA Jetson Xavier-NX with 6-core NVIDIA Carmel ARM v8.2 64-bit CPU, a 384-core NVIDIA Volta GPU with 48 Tensor Cores, 2x NVDLA deep learning accelerators (up to 21 TOPS […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments on Sipeed MaixCube is a Fully Integrated AI Development Platform Powered by Kendryte K210 RISC-V SoC

Sipeed MaixCube is a Fully Integrated AI Development Platform Powered by Kendryte K210 RISC-V SoC

MaixCube All-in-one K210 Development Platform

Sipeed has made several boards and kits based on Kendryte K210 RISC-V processor for low-power AI workloads such as face detection or object recognition including Maixduino board and Grove AI HAT that ship with camera and display. The company has now come up with MaixCube all-in-one development platform that houses Sipeed M1 module, a display, a camera, and a battery into a plastic case that’s somewhat similar to MStack M5StickV but with a larger display, and variations in the form factor and features. Sipeed MaixCube specifications: SoC – Kendryte K210 dual-core 64-bit RISC-V processor @ 400 MHz (overclockable to 600 MHz) with FPU, 8MB SRAM, KPU AI accelerator, APU audio processor, and FFT accelerator Storage – 128 Mbit flash, MicroSD card slot Display – 1.3″ TFT screen with 240×240 resolution Camera – OV7740 sensor (VGA camera) Audio – Built-in microphone, external speakers support; ES8374 audio codec USB – 1x USB […]