Time for the last post of 2025, as the year is almost over. I’ll look back at key developments and notable products launched in 2025, share some CNX Software website traffic statistics, and look ahead to 2026. Year 2025 in Review After 22 product releases in 2024, Raspberry Pi calmed down a little bit in 2025, and the highlights of the year included the Raspberry Pi 500+ mechanical keyboard, the 5-inch variant of the Raspberry Pi Touch Display 2, and a Raspberry Pi 5 1GB RAM. What didn’t quite stop were the accessories from third parties for Raspberry Pi SBC and Raspberry Pi Pico boards. The most exciting Arm SoC release of 2025 was probably the 12-core CIX P1 Armv9 SoC found in Radxa Orion O6 SBC, MINISFORUM MS-R1 Arm mini PC, and Orange Pi 6 Plus board, but while performance was fine, it was overhyped in 2024, and software […]
Linux 6.18 LTS release – Main changes, Arm, RISC-V, and MIPS architectures
Linus Torvalds has just announced the release of Linux 6.18 on the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML), which will likely become the next LTS kernel [update: it’s now official]: So I’ll have to admit that I’d have been happier with slightly less bugfixing noise in this last week of the release, but while there’s a few more fixes than I would hope for, there was nothing that made me feel like this needs more time to cook. So 6.18 is tagged and pushed out. Most of the last-minute fixes are minor fixes to drivers, with some random noise elsewhere (bluetooth, ceph, afs..). Nothing strikes me as standing out, but hey, there’s a shortlog appended if you want to see the details. And this obviously means that the merge window will open tomorrow, and I already have three dozen pull requests pending. Thanks. And as I already mentioned a couple of […]
$149 Allwinner A733 development board offers HDMI Input, eDP, Android 15 support
While browsing AliExpress, I came across an Allwinner A733 development board (A733MAIBORADBV1) priced at $149, which piqued my interest as the price tag was much higher than other A733 boards, such as the $35+ Orange Pi 4 Pro or Radxa Cubie A7Z/A7A. It turns out that this board not only supports up to 16GB of RAM, and Android 15. It also includes features like HDMI input and output, MIPI-CSI/DSI, eDP, capacitive touch, and M.2 expansion, making it a development platform for tablets, laptops, and AI prototypes rather than low-cost maker projects. A733MAIBORADBV1 board specifications: SoC – Allwinner A733 CPU Dual-core Arm Cortex-A76 @ up to 2.00 GHz Hexa-core Arm Cortex-A55 @ up to 1.79 GHz Single-core RISC-V E902 real-time core GPU – Imagination Technologies BXM-4-64 MC1 GPU VPU 8Kp24 H.265/VP9/AVS2 decoding 4Kp30 H.265/H.264 encoding AI accelerator – Optional, up to 3 TOPS NPU System Memory – 2GB, 4GB, 8GB, or 16GB […]
Raspberry Pi-like Allwinner A527/T527 industrial SBC features dual camera support and AI acceleration
EBYTE has recently released an Allwinner A527/T527-based Raspberry Pi-like industrial SBC with dual camera and AI features, with a design very similar to the Walnut Pi 2B, and to a lesser extent, the Orange Pi 4A. It is designed for embedded, IoT, and smart commercial applications. The board supports up to 4GB LPDDR4 RAM, 32GB eMMC storage, and MicroSD card expansion. Display options include HDMI 2.0 and a 4-lane MIPI DSI interface enabling dual 4K output, while two 4-lane MIPI CSI connectors allow simultaneous camera inputs. Connectivity options include Gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi 4, Bluetooth 4.2, and a PCIe 2.1 x1 slot for high-speed expansion. It also features four USB 2.0 ports, a Type-C power interface, and a 40-pin Raspberry Pi-compatible GPIO header. EBYTE Allwinner A527/T527 SBC specifications: SoC – Allwinner T527 (industrial) / Allwinner A527 (commercial) CPU Octa-core Arm Cortex-A55 processor with four cores @ 1.80 GHz (T527) or 2.0 […]
Linux 6.17 release – Main changes, Arm, RISC-V, and MIPS architectures
Linux 6.17 has just been released on LKML: No huge surprises this past week, so here we are, with kernel 6.17 pushed out and ready to go. Below is the shortlog for just the last week – not the full 6.17 release – as usual. It’s not exciting, which is all good. I think the biggest patch in there is some locking fixes for some bluetooth races that could cause use-after-free situations. Whee – that’s about as exciting as it gets. Other than that, there’ the usual driver fixlets (GPU and networking dominate as usual, but “dominate” is still pretty small), there’s some minor random other driver updates, some filesystem noise, and core kernel and mm. And some selftest updates. This obviously means that the merge window for 6.18 will open tomorrow, and I already have four dozen pull requests pending. Thanks to the proactive people – you know who […]
Pi Zero-sized Radxa Cubie A7Z SBC features Allwinner A733 Cortex-A76/A55 SoC, up to 16GB RAM, WiFi 6
Radxa Cubie A7Z is the little brother of the Cubie A7A SBC, still based on a powerful Allwinner A733 octa-core Arm Cortex-A76/A55 SoC, but offered in a more compact form factor inspired by the Raspberry Pi Zero. The compact single board computer also comes with up to 16GB RAM, a microSD card slot, optional UFS flash, micro HDMI and USB-C DisplayPort video output, a WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.x wireless module, a 4-lane MIPI CSI camera connector, a PCIe Gen3 FPC connector (at first for Pi Zero-sized board), and a 40-pin GPIO header. Radxa Cubie A7Z specifications: SoC – Allwinner A733 (A733MX‑HN3) CPU Dual-core Arm Cortex-A76 @ up to 2.00 GHz Hexa-core Arm Cortex-A55 @ up to 1.79 GHz Single-core RISC-V E902 real-time core GPU – Imagination Technologies BXM-4-64 MC1 GPU with support for OpenGL ES 3.2, Vulkan 1.3, OpenCL 3.0 VPU 8Kp24 H.265/VP9/AVS2 decoding 4Kp30 H.265/H.264 encoding AI accelerator […]
Radxa Cubie A7A is a powerful SBC based on Allwinner A733 Cortex-A76/A55 AI SoC with up to 16GB RAM
Radxa Cubie A7A is a single board computer (SBC) powered by an Allwinner A733 octa-core Cortex-A76/A55 SoC with a 3 TOPS AI accelerator and up to 16GB LPDDR5 memory. Radxa came back to the Allwinner SoC family after the silicon vendor committed to improving open-source support, starting with the Radxa Cubie A5E SBC powered by an Allwinner A527/T527 SoC. But this was only the start, and we were promised a more powerful Allwinner A733 SBC before moving to the Allwinner A838 down the road. The Allwinner A733 board is now available. Meet the Radxa Cubie A7A. Radxa Cubie A7A specifications: SoC – Allwinner A733 CPU Dual-core Arm Cortex-A76 @ up to 2.00 GHz Hexa-core Arm Cortex-A55 @ up to 1.79 GHz Single-core RISC-V E902 real-time core GPU – Imagination Technologies BXM-4-64 MC1 GPU VPU 8Kp24 H.265/VP9/AVS2 decoding 4Kp30 H.265/H.264 encoding AI accelerator – Optional, up to 3 TOPS NPU System […]
Linux 6.16 Release – Main changes, Arm, RISC-V, and MIPS architectures
Linus Torvalds has just announced the release of Linux 6.16 on LKML: It’s Sunday afternoon, and the release cycle has come to an end. Last week was nice and calm, and there were no big show-stopper surprises to keep us from the regular schedule, so I’ve tagged and pushed out 6.16 as planned. It’s worth noting that the upcoming merge window for 6.17 is going to be slightly chaotic for me: I have multiple family events this August (a wedding and a big birthday), and with said family being spread not only across the US, but in Finland too, I’m spending about half the month traveling. That means that I will try very hard to get most of the merge window done the first week before my travels start, and I already ended upgiving a heads-up on that to the people who tend to send me the most pull requests. […]


