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August 28, 2023August 28, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

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

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 […]

July 5, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Amlogic C302X, C305X, and C308X Arm SoCs target Smart IP cameras

Amlogic C302X and C305X are dual-core Arm Cortex-A35 processors, while the C308X is a dual-core Cortex-A55 processor with all SoCs designed for Smart IP cameras with the integration of an AI accelerator up to 4 TOPS, and 1080p30 H.264/H.265 video encoding. I was first informed about Amlogic C302/C305/C308 SoCs for Smart cameras as far back as June 2019, or about four years ago, but there wasn’t enough information to write anything about those at the time. But I’m now seeing more details about the camera SoCs, now named C302X, C305X, and C308X, so it’s a good time to have a closer look. Amlogic C302X Amlogic does not have a product page for this model, so I need to rely on a recent commit in the Linux Kernel mainline list to extra some information. The Amlogic S302X is a dual-core Cortex-A35 processor found in the Amlogic AW409 development board (likely internal […]

March 7, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 13 Comments

LibreELEC 11 released with Kodi 20, brings back Amlogic platforms

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 […]

February 28, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 31 Comments

Amlogic S928X specifications – A penta-core Arm Cortex-A76/A55 SoC with Mali-G57 GPU, 3.2 TOPS NPU

Amlogic S928X Cortex-A76/A55 will soon power some 8K TV boxes running Android TV from SDMC and others, and we now have detailed specifications as a “Quick Reference Manual” dropped in my inbox last night. While like most Amlogic processors, the S928X is designed for TV boxes, the penta-core SoC may end up in affordable yet powerful single board computers with features such as HDMI 2.1a, Gigabit Ethernet, PCIe 2.0 or USB 3.0. Amlogic S928X specifications: CPU sub-system 1x Arm Cortex-A76 core and 4x Arm Cortex-A55 cores in big.LITTLE configuration NEON and Crypto extensions Private L2 cache and unified system L3 cache Build-in RISC-V core for system control processing GPUs Arm Mali-G57 MC2 3D GPU with support for OpenGL ES 3.2, Vulkan 1.2, and OpenCL 2.0 2.5D graphics processor for scaling, alpha, rotation, and color space conversion operations VPU Amlogic Video Engine (AVE) with dedicated hardware decoders and encoders Decoding AV1 […]

February 20, 2023February 20, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

Linux 6.2 release – Main changes, Arm, RISC-V, and MIPS architectures

Linux 6.2 has just been released with Linus Torvalds making the announcement on LKML as usual: So here we are, right on (the extended) schedule, with 6.2 out. Nothing unexpected happened last week, with just a random selection of small fixes spread all over, with nothing really standing out. The shortlog is tiny and appended below, you can scroll through it if you’re bored. Wed have a couple of small things that Thorsten was tracking on the regression side, but I wasn’t going to apply any last-minute patches that weren’t actively pushed by maintainers, so they will have to show up for stable. Nothing seemed even remotely worth trying to delay things for. And this obviously means that the 6.3 merge window will open tomorrow, and I already have 30+ pull requests queued up, which I really appreciate. I like how people have started to take the whole “ready for […]

December 31, 2022December 31, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 21 Comments

Year 2022 in review – Top 10 posts and statistics

It’s the last day of the year and the time to look at some of the highlights of 2022, some traffic statistics from CNX Software website, and speculate on what 2023 may bring us. The semiconductors shortage continued in 2022, but things are looking brighter in 2023 with the full reopening of the world mixed with forecasts of difficult economic times that should keep the demand/supply equation in check. On the Arm processor front the biggest news of the year, at least in this corner of the Internet, was the launch of the Rockchip RK3588 octa-core Cortex-A76/A55 processor together with interesting single board computers that we’ll discuss below. Announced last year, the Amlogic A311D2 octa-core Cortex-A73/A53 was finally made available in a few SBC’s, and we finally got some news about the Amlogic S928X Cortex-A76/A55 SoC showcased in 8K TV boxes, but we have yet to see it in action. […]

December 13, 2022February 20, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Linux 6.1 LTS release – Main changes, Arm, RISC-V and MIPS architectures

Linus Torvalds announced the release of Linux 6.1, likely to be an LTS kernel, last Sunday: So here we are, a week late, but last week was nice and slow, and I’m much happier about the state of 6.1 than I was a couple of weeks ago when things didn’t seem to be slowing down. Of course, that means that now we have the merge window from hell, just before the holidays, with me having some pre-holiday travel coming up too. So while delaying things for a week was the right thing to do, it does make the timing for the 6.2 merge window awkward. That said, I’m happy to report that people seem to have taken that to heart, and I already have two dozen pull requests pending for tomorrow in my inbox. And hopefully I’ll get another batch overnight, so that I can try to really get as […]

September 12, 2022January 5, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 19 Comments

8K TV box powered by Amlogic S928X Cortex-A76/A55 processor showcased at IBC 2022

Amlogic S928X multi-core Cortex-A76/A55 8K media processor, which may have been initially known as S908X, is being showcased at ICB2022 in Amsterdam in the “SEI 8K Box” developed by SEI Robotics. Amlogic S908X/S928X was first discovered in a roadmap in 2019 and was expected to launch by the end of 2020 at the time. But after a long wait of nearly three years, the Amlogic S928X processor is finally showing in SEI 8K box with an HDMI 2.1a 8K video interface, supports for HDR and advanced audio codecs like Dolby Atmos and DTS, and support for Smart Home functions through an IoT module with WiFi 6E, Zigbee and more. SEI 8K box preliminary specifications: SoC – Amlogic S928X multi-core Cortex-A76/A55 processor, next-gen GPU (likely Mali-G610?); 12nm process System Memory – 64-bit DDR Storage – eMMC flash Video Output HDMI 2.1a up to 8Kp60 (7680 x 4320 resolution) with HDR10+/HLS, Dolby […]