Linux 6.5 release – Notable changes, Arm, RISC-V and MIPS architectures

Linux 6.5 release

Linus Torvalds has just announced the release of Linux 6.5 on the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML): So nothing particularly odd or scary happened this last week, so there is no excuse to delay the 6.5 release. I still have this nagging feeling that a lot of people are on vacation and that things have been quiet partly due to that. But this release has been going smoothly, so that’s probably just me being paranoid. The biggest patches this last week were literally just to our selftests. The shortlog below is obviously not the 6.5 release log, it’s purely just the last week since rc7. Anyway, this obviously means that the merge window for 6.6 starts tomorrow. I already have ~20 pull requests pending and ready to go, but before we start the next merge frenzy, please give this final release one last round of testing, ok? Linus The earlier […]

ArmSoM-p2 pro is a compact Rockchip RK3308B-S SBC for headless applications

ArmSoM-p2pro SBC

ArmSoM-p2 pro is a compact Rockchip RK3308B-S SBC made by a company called ArmSoM and designed for headless applications with Ethernet, WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0, a USB port, a headphone jack, as well as two GPIO headers for expansion. The board also comes with 512MB RAM, 8GB eMMC flash and a microSD card slot for storage, extra audio interfaces through the GPIO header, and optional PoE support, all that in a compact 60×52.2mm form factor. ArmSoM-p2 pro specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3308B-S quad-core Arm Cortex-A35 processor @ up to 1.3 GHz with built-in VAD (Voice Activity Detector) System Memory – 512 MB DDR3 SDRAM Storage – 8GB eMMC flash, microSD card slot Audio 3.5mm headphone jack Audio Output – 2x Line out and 1xSPDIF out on 40-pin GPIO header Audio Input – 8x MIC and 1xPDM/I2S on 40-pin GPIO header Connectivity 10/100M Ethernet RJ45 port with optional 802.3af PoE […]

UniHiker review – A Linux-based STEM education platform with IoT and AI support, Micro:bit edge connector

UniHiker Review

DFRobot’s UniHiker is a STEM educational platform that was originally launched in China, but now UniHiker is now available worldwide through the DFRobot shop. The company has sent us a UniHiker sample for review, so let’s unpack the kit and learn how to use the UniHiker platform. The main component of the kit is the Linux-powered UniHiker board which features a 2.8-inch resistive touchscreen display and a BBC Micro:bit edge connector, so we can use expansion boards for the Micro:bit board. Let’s start unboxing it together. UniHiker unboxing DFRobot sent us the UniHiker platform by DHL. The package is a familiar-looking DFRobot box in orange color and comes with a plastic box to safely store the UniHiker board and accessories after use. The plastic box contains another plastic box with the board, some 3-pin and 4-pin cables for Gravity ports, and a USB Type-C cable. The UniHiker is like a […]

Orange Pi 800 Keyboard PC gets 128GB flash storage

Orange Pi 800 Keyboard PC 128GB eMMC flash

The Orange Pi 800 keyboard PC, launched as an alternative to the Raspberry Pi 400 last year with a Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core Cortex-A72/A53 processor and 4GB RAM, has gotten an upgrade to 128GB of eMMC flash instead of just 64GB. The keyboard PC still comes with HDMI 2.0 and VGA video outputs, built-in speakers and microphone, Gigabit Ethernet and WiFi 5 connectivity, a few USB ports, and a 78-key QWERTY keyboard, plus a 26-GPIO connector accessible without opening the device.     Orange Pi 800 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core big.LITTLE processor with 2x Arm Cortex-A72 cores up to 1.8GHz, 4x Arm Cortex-A53 cores up to 1.4GHz, and an Arm Mali-T860MP4 GPU System Memory – 4GB LPDDR4 Storage – 128GB eMMC flash, microSD card slot Video Output HDMI 2.0 port up to 4Kp60 VGA port up to Full HD resolution Audio 3.5mm audio (headphone+mic) jack Integrated speaker(s) and microphone […]

Linux 6.3 release – Notable changes, Arm, RISC-V and MIPS architectures

Linux 6.3 release

Linux Torvalds has just announced the release of Linux 6.3 on the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML): It’s been a calm release this time around, and the last week was really no different. So here we are, right on schedule, with the 6.3 release out and ready for your enjoyment. That doesn’t mean that something nasty couldn’t have been lurking all these weeks, of course, but let’s just take things at face value and hope it all means that everything is fine, and it really was a nice controlled release cycle. It happens. This also obviously means the merge window for 6.4 will open tomorrow. I already have two dozen pull requests waiting for me to start doing my pulls, and I appreciate it. I expect I’ll have even more when I wake up tomorrow. But in the meantime, let’s enjoy (and test) the 6.3 release. As always, the shortlog […]

Banana BPI-P2 Pro headless SBC features RK3308 CPU, PoE Ethernet, WiFi 5, audio jack

Banana Pi BPI-P2 Pro

Banana Pi BPI-P2 Pro is Rockchip RK3308 quad-core Cortex-A35 SBC for headless applications with a PoE-capable Ethernet port, WiFi 5, a USB port, an audio jack, and two GPIO headers for expansion. You may think the Banana Pi guys have gone crazy by calling such entry-level level SBC “Pro”, but that’s because the company previously released the BPI-P2 Zero and BPI-P2 Maker single board computers based on Allwinner H2+ quad-core Cortex-A7 processor, so the BPI-P2 Pro is indeed an improvement albeit with some caveats. Banana Pi BPI-P2 Pro specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3308 quad-core Arm Cortex-A35 processor @ up to 1.3 GHz with built-in VAD (Voice Activity Detector) System Memory – 2GB LPDDR2 SDRAM [Update: According to Rockchip RK3308 specifications, the maximum memory capacity is 512MB, so Banana Pi may have meant 2 Gbit instead, meaning 256MB of RAM]. Storage – 8GB eMMC flash, microSD card slot Video Output – […]

LibreELEC 11 released with Kodi 20, brings back Amlogic platforms

LibreELEC 11

LibreELEC 11 lightweight media center Linux distribution based on Kodi 20 “Nexus” has just been released with various improvements on x86 and Arm platforms. Kodi 20 was released and available for download in January with AV1 hardware video decoding in Android and x86 (VAAPI) platforms with AV1-capable GPU or VPU, FFMPEG 4.4, Pipewire support in Linux, and a few others. LibreELEC 11 enables you to have a dedicated, and fast booting, HTPC based on a mini PC, a Raspberry Pi SBC, or an Arm-based TV box with all features from the latest Kodi release. LibreELEC 11 supports Raspberry Pi 2 to 4 SBCs, 64-bit x86 hardware, various Allwinner, Rockchip, and Amlogic SBCs and TV boxes with x86, Raspberry Pi, and Rockchip hardware considered more stable and feature complete. LibreELEC 10.0 did away with Amlogic TV boxes and single board computers because of driver issues, but LibreELEC 11.0 brings Amlogic back […]

Armbian 23.02 out with Linux 6.1, DietPi 8.14 adds experimental RISC-V support

Armbian 23.02

Two of the most popular projects providing images for Arm and RISC-V single board computers have released new updates with Armbian 23.02 adding Linux 6.1-based Debian and Ubuntu images, and DietPi 8.14 adding experimental RISC-V support for the StarFive VisionFive 2 SBC and new Arm boards. Armbian 23.02 Quoll Linux 6.1 is the latest LTS kernel, so Armbian is now providing Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy and Debian 11 Bullseye images based on Linux 6.1.y for boards that support it, as well as the first development images based on Debian 12 Bookworm and Ubuntu 23.04 Lunar. I could not find any new boards added in the changelog, but the release brings several improvements and bug fixes to some of the already supported SBCs including the Raspberry Pi 3, Orange Pi R1 Plus LTS, ROCK Pi S, ROCK Pi 4,  NanoPi R2S, NanoPi NEO3, and Banana Pi BPI-M2 Pro. The announcement also highlights […]

Exit mobile version