Windows 11 can run on Arm SystemReady ES platforms like Raspberry Pi 4, Solidrun SBC’s, etc…

Windows 11 ACPI ARM64-based PC

While Windows 11 may have some problems running some x86 machines, I previously saw Windows 11 Arm on Raspberry Pi 4 with instructions telling you to download the images from UUP Dump and flash the ISO with Windows on Raspberry Pi Imager. At the time, I did not look into details, and it seemed was some hack involved, but I’ve just been told Windows 11 could also run without modification on some SolidRun’s single board computers, namely MacchiatoBin and CN913x CEx7 evaluation board. Marcin Wojtas explains Windows 11 Pro (version 22000.168) could be installed unmodified on an Arm computer based on MacchiatoBin mini-ITX board equipped with an NVIDIA Geforce GT630 GPU (using EFI Frame Buffer), a SATA SSD, connected through Ethernet (via USB2ETH), plus a mouse and keyboard. So what’s the trick, and what do Raspberry Pi 4 and a board like MacchiatoBin have in common? Answer: Arm SystemReady ES […]

Linux 5.11 Release – Main Changes, Arm, MIPS & RISC-V Architectures

Linux 5.11 release

Linus Torvalds has released Linux 5.11 just in time for… “Valentine’s Day”: Nothing unexpected or particularly scary happened this week, so here we are – with 5.11 tagged and pushed out. In fact, it’s a smaller-than-average set of commits from rc7 to final, which makes me happy. And I already have several pull requests lined up for tomorrow, so we’re all set for the merge window to start. But in the meantime – and yes, I know it’s Valentine’s Day here in the US – maybe give this release a good testing before you go back and play with development kernels. All right? Because I’m sure your SO will understand. Linus Last time around, Linux 5.10 was an LTS release that added EXT-4 performance enhancements, improved post-Spectre performance, as well as the enablement of BCM2711 (Raspberry Pi 4) display pipeline, among other many changes. Some of the notable changes in […]

Linux 5.8 Release – Main Changes, Arm, MIPS, and RISC-V Architectures

Linux 5.8 Release

Linus Torvalds has just released Linux 5.8: So I considered making an rc8 all the way to the last minute, but decided it’s not just worth waiting another week when there aren’t  any big looming worries around. Because despite the merge window having been very large, there really hasn’t been anything scary going on in the release candidates. Yeah, we had some annoying noise with header file dependencies this week, but that’s not a new annoyance, and it’s also not the kind of subtle bug that keeps me up at night worrying about it. It did reinforce how nice it would be if we had some kind of tooling support to break nasty header file dependencies automatically, but if wishes were horses.. Maybe some day we’ll have some kind of SAT-solver for symbol dependencies that can handle all our different architectures and configurations, but right now it’s just a manual […]

Brume-W Pocket-Sized Wireless Gateway Runs OpenWrt or Ubuntu (Crowdfunding)

Brume-W Pocket-Sized Router

GL.iNet Brume-W (GL-MV1000W) is a “pocket-sized wireless gateway for edge computing” that supports high-speed VPN up to 280Mbps with WireGuard, AdGuard ad-blocking software (AdGuard), and Tor. The device features three Gigabit Ethernet ports and built-in 2.4 GHz WiFi 4 connectivity, but it also supports Alfa AWUS036AC and AWUS036ACS USB WiFf USB dongles for users wanting dual-band WiFi 5 (AC) networking. The router ships with OpenWrt pre-installed, but also supports Ubuntu. Brume-W specifications: SoC – Marvell ARMADA 88F3720 (aka ARMADA 3720) dual-core Cortex-A53 processor @ 1.0 GHz with packet processor/network accelerator System Memory – 1GB DDR4 Storage – 16MB NOR flash and 8GB eMMC flash, MicroSD card slot up to 256GB Connectivity 3x Gigabit Ethernet ports (1x WAN + 2x LAN) Built-in 2.4 GHz 802.11b/g/n WiFi 4 up to 300 Mbps with external WiFi antennas Support for external 802.11ac WiFI 5 USB dongles USB – 1x USB host port, 1x USB-C […]

Using Google Coral mPCIe Card into a Compact Marvell Octeon TX Linux SBC

Google Coral mPCIe connected to Gateworks Newport GW5903 SBC

Google launched Coral mPCIe and M.2 cards at the very beginning of the year. The cards integrate the company’s 4 TOPS Edge TPU used for low power edge AI applications to bring the solutions to boards with mPCIe or M.2 sockets. Those are just hardware sockets that are optionally connected to USB, PCIe, I2C, etc… so you have to make sure the socket on your board exposes PCIe Gen2 x1. If you worry about compatibility, it’s good to get a board that’s known to work, and one of those is Gateworks Newport GW6903 SBC that offers two mPCIe sockets and features Marvell Octeon TX dual or quad-core Armv8 processor coupled with up to 4GB RAM. Besides the mini PCIe Coral card and Newport SBC, you’ll also need a Linux host and optionally a USB webcam for inference. The rest of the instructions are explained in the Wiki with the following […]

Linux 5.6 Release – Main Changes, Arm, MIPS & RISC-V Architectures

Linux 5.6 Changelog

Linus Torvalds has just announced the release of Linux 5.6 on the Linux Kernel Mailing List: So I’ll admit to vacillating between doing this 5.6 release and doing another -rc. This has a bit more changes than I’d like, but they are mostly from davem’s networking fixes pulls, and David feels comfy with them. And I looked over the diff, and none of it looks scary. It’s just slightly more than I’d have preferred at this stage – not doesn’t really seem worth delaying a release over. So about half the diff from the final week is network driver fixlets, and some minor core networking fixes. Another 20% is tooling – mostly bpf and netfilter selftests (but also some perf work). The rest is “misc” – mostly random drivers (gpio, rdma, input) and DTS files. With a smattering of fixes elsewhere (a couple of afs fixes, some vm fixes, etc). […]

Linux 5.5 Release – Main Changes, Arm, MIPS and RISC-V Architectures

Linux 5.5 Changelog

Linux 5.5 has just been released by Linus Torvalds: So this last week was pretty quiet, and while we had a late network update with some (mainly iwl wireless) network driver and netfilter module loading fixes, David didn’t think that warranted another -rc. And outside of that, it’s really been very quiet indeed – there’s a panfrost driver update too, but again it didn’t really seem to make sense to delay the final release by another week. Outside of those, it’s all really tiny, even if some of those tiny changes touched some core files. So despite the slight worry that the holidays might have affected the schedule, 5.5 ended up with the regular rc cadence and is out now. That means that the merge window for 5.6 will open tomorrow, and I already have a couple of pull requests pending. The timing for this next merge window isn’t optimal […]

ESPRESSOBin ULTRA Gateway Features 5 Gigabit Ethernet Ports, WiFi 5, Supports 4G LTE Cellular Connectivity

ESPRESSOBin ULTRA

Marvell ESPRESSOBin networking board launched in 2016 for as little as $39  with an Armada 3700LP (88F3720) dual-core Arm Cortex A53 processor, up to 1GB RAM, three Gigabit Ethernet ports, SATA, and a mPCIe slot for wireless connectivity. Globalscale Technologies is now back with ESPRESSOBin ULTRA with a similar base but more features, a metal enclosure, and a much higher price point. ESPRESSOBin ULTRA specifications: SoC – Marvell Armada 3720 dual-core Arm A53  processor clocked up to 1.2 GHz with packet accelerator System Memory – 1GB DDR4 (option up to 2GB) Storage – 8GB eMMC flash, 4Mbit SPI NOR flash, 1x M.2 2280 slot for SATA SSD Connectivity Switch – Marvell Topaz 6341 (88E6341) Networking Switch 1x GbE WAN with 30W POE 4x Gigabit Ethernet ports (LAN) 802.11ac Wi-Fi 5 2×2 MIMO module + Bluetooth 4.2 Optional 4G LTE cellular connectivity via mini PCIe and NanoSIM card slot USB – […]

EDATEC Raspberry Pi 5 fanless case