Category: Operating Systems

Operating Systems used in Embedded Devices

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 229 Comments on Giveaway Week – Nagrace HPH NT-V6 Android TV Box

Giveaway Week – Nagrace HPH NT-V6 Android TV Box

That’s the beginning of the new giveaway week that will take place between on March 9 – 15, with one device given away every day. I’ll start with a bang with Nagrace HPH-NTV6, an Android TV box powered by Rockchip RK3288 SoC with 4GB RAM and 32GB Flash. In my initial HPH NT-V6 review, I found the device to have very good performance, but at the time XBMC support was rather weak on RK3288, and the device had serious Ethernet issues. Since then XBMC / Kodi / SPMC has greatly improves, and the company recently released a new firmware that fixes the critical Ethernet performance bug, so in 2015 it has become a much better device. There’s also a Ubuntu / Android dual boot image. You can check out HPH NT-V6 unboxing post for more pictures. To enter the draw simply leave a comment below. Other rules are as follows: […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments on Rocketbook Takes Your Written Notes to the Cloud, Erases in Your Microwave Oven (Crowdfunding)

Rocketbook Takes Your Written Notes to the Cloud, Erases in Your Microwave Oven (Crowdfunding)

Maybe I’m old style, but I still prefer taking notes with pen and paper rather than typing on a computer. That means I need to buy some notebooks (the ones made of paper) from time to time, and once they are full I store them away. But now you can combine the good old written notes with the cloud thanks to RocketBook, a standard looking notebook combined with a mobile app that will scan your notes and send them to various cloud services, and more amazingly it’s re-usable since you can erase by putting in 30 seconds your microwave. I was perplexed at first, as it looked like a scam to me. But finally, I’m pretty sure it’s not since it’s using existing technology, namely Pilot Frixion pens. They looks like standard ball-point pens, but they use a “thermo-sensitive gel ink formula” that can be erased with friction, and they […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 15 Comments on Sigrok and Pulseview in Ubuntu 14.04 with UNI-T UT61E Digital Multimeter

Sigrok and Pulseview in Ubuntu 14.04 with UNI-T UT61E Digital Multimeter

A couple of months ago, I received a new digital multimeter UNI-T UT61E that can send data to a computer via a serial cable, and allows you draw some nice charts. I’ve already done that in Windows 7 with the provided tools, and reported on the power consumption of some Chinese Android TV boxes. However, since I use Ubuntu 14.04 as my main operating system, Linux based tools would be more convenient, and open source sigrok-cli command line client and its graphical interface pulseview are supposed to support UT61E DMM, so I had to give it a try. A Quick Look at UNI-T UT61 Digital Multimeter Before going into Sigrok, I’ll quickly show what the multimeter received from DealExtreme . It took longer than expected to ship because of of  included 9V battery, and at the first shipping attempt it was returned to DX, but after 8 weeks or so, […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments on How to Build a Single Kernel Module (Driver) in Ubuntu

How to Build a Single Kernel Module (Driver) in Ubuntu

When I bought UNI-T UT61E digital multimeter,  I planned to to use the open source tool Sigrok to capture voltage, current or resistance data with my Ubuntu 14.04 machine. Unfortunately, it was just not working for me and I kept getting some “Invalid function byte” error messages, so I asked on Sigrok mailing list, and since it worked for others, I was in big troubles. It turned out the RS-232 to USB dongle I used:

was most likely to culprit, so I decided to buy another random USB to serial dongle on eBay, and after a few weeks I received it only to find out it had the exact same VID:PID, so I was out of luck. Finally, I gave up on Sigrok on Linux, and tested the power consumption of some Rockchip RK3288 & Amlogic S802 devices in a Windows 7 virtual machine running in my Ubuntu 14.04 […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments on Compulab Utilite2 Android / Ubuntu mini PC is Now Up for Sale for $192 and Up

Compulab Utilite2 Android / Ubuntu mini PC is Now Up for Sale for $192 and Up

Compulab Utilite2 is a new family of mini PCs powered vt Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 quad core Krait 300 processor, with 2GB RAM, 4GB eMMC and optional mSATA storage that runs Android 4.4 or Ubuntu Linaro, with CM-QS600 SoM found in the device being officially supported by Linaro. Utilite2 Standard 4G and Standard 4G + 32SSD (or just SSD for short) are now listed on UK based TinyGreenPC for respectively £158.00 ($241) and £181.00 ($276), but the two models can also be bought direct on Compulab website for $192 and $229 with a 4 weeks lead time. Utilite2 specifications: SoC – Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 APQ8064 quad-core Krait 300 @ 1.7GHz with Adreno 320 GPU compliant with OpenGL ES 1.1 / 2.0 / 3.0 and OpenCL System Memory – 2GB DDR3-1066 Storage – 4GB eMMC, mSATA socket (mini-PCie form-factor, populated with 32 GB SSD on SSD model), and micro-SD slot up to […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments on iConsole Micro Intel Atom TV Stick To Run Android 5.0 based Console OS

iConsole Micro Intel Atom TV Stick To Run Android 5.0 based Console OS

Console Inc., previously Mobile Media Ventures, Inc.,  is the company developing Console OS operating system based on Android 4.4 / 5.0 for Intel platforms that includes customizations for a better desktop experience, and you can already try the preview version of Console OS Standard for free on some Intel hardware, with another paid version to become available at the time of the stable release. The company has now announced iConsole Micro a Console OS HDMI TV Stick based on a quad core Intel Atom processor that looks very much like MeegoPad T01, but it’s said to be based on Intel Compute Stick technology. iConsole Micro specifications have not been fully released, but here’s what we know so far: SoC – Unnamed Intel Atom 64-bit quad core processor System Memory – 2 GB RAM Storage – 32 GB eMMC + micro SD slot up to 128GB (160GB in total) Video & […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments on Xilinx Introduces Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC with Cortex A53 & R5 Cores, Ultrascale FPGA

Xilinx Introduces Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC with Cortex A53 & R5 Cores, Ultrascale FPGA

Xilinx Zynq-7000 dual core Cortex A9 + FPGA SoC family was announced in 2012, and provides a wide range of SoC with features and price range, and led to low cost ARM + FPGA such as ZedBoard, and more recently Parallela and MYiR Z-Turn boards. The company unveiled its successor with Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC providing five times more performance per watt, with four ARM Cortex A53 cores, two ARM Cortex R5 real-time MCU cores, a Mali-400MP GPU, an UltraScale FPGA fabric manufactured with 16nm FinFET+ process. There are two main sub-families in Zynq Ultrascale+ MPSoC for “smarter control & vision”, and “smarter network”. Both share the same processing systems (CPU, GPU, MCU, Peripherals, Security), but the networking family has beefier FPGAs,  and lacks the H.264/H.265 video processing unit found in the control & vision version: Processing Systems Processor – Quad ARM Cortex A53 MPCore up to 1.3GHz Real-time Processor – […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments on Mixtile LOFT-Q Allwinner A31 Board with SATA Can Now be Purchased for $90

Mixtile LOFT-Q Allwinner A31 Board with SATA Can Now be Purchased for $90

Mixtile LOFT-Q and LOFT Kit were unveiled nearly a year ago, the first being a development board based on Allwinner A31 processor with 2GB RAM, 16GB RAM,  SATA connector, Gigabit Ethernet, etc.., while the second is a kit with an enclosure and power supply. The kit does not appear to be available yet, but the board has recently been listed on SeeedStudio for $90. Mixtile LOFT-Q specifications: SoC – Allwinner A31 quad core ARM Cortex-A7 processor with PowerVR SGX544 MP2 GPU System Memory – 2GB DDR3 Storage – 8GB eMMC, SATA III connector for 2.5″ drives, and SD card Slot Video Output – HDMI 1.4 up to 1080p60 Video Decoding – H.264 4Kx2K video decoding, multi-format FHD video decoding, including Mpeg1/2, Mpeg4 SP/ASP GMC, H.263, H.264,etc Audio I/O – HDMI, 1 S/PDIF, high definition microphone Camera I/F Integrated Parallel & MIPI I/F sensor Integrated powerful ISP, supporting Raw Data CMOS […]