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 […]
NanoPi R6S RK3588S mini PC & router review – Part 2: Ubuntu 22.04
NanoPi R6S is both a mini PC and a router based on Rockchip RK3588S processor. I received some samples in November and started the NanoPi R6S review with OpenWrt/FriendlyWrt quickly testing the 2.5GbE interfaces and routing with iperf3, and it worked pretty well. But using a system with an octa-core Cortex-A76/A55 processor and 8GB RAM as an OpenWrt router only feels like a waste of resources, so I wanted to install a more versatile operating system – Ubuntu 22.04 – for further testing. My struggles installing Ubuntu 22.04 on NanoPi R6S FriendlyELEC provides various images on the Wiki either booting from an SD card, installing from a MicroSD to the eMMC flash (aka eFlasher imagers), or flashing through USB with Windows tools. I like the eFlasher images since the OS runs from the internal eMMC flash and no special tools are needed. I had just used the FriendlyWrt eFlasher image, […]
MeLE PCG02 Pro Review – A Fanless Intel Celeron J4125 / N5105 mini PC with an ultra-compact form factor
MeLE has launched a new ‘stick’ mini PC called the PCG02 Pro. It comes in two models featuring either a mobile Gemini Lake Refresh or a Jasper Lake processor. Both models appear physically similar however the memory, WiFi, Bluetooth, and USB ports differ plus only the lower-powered model includes an M.2 NVMe or SATA slot. MeLE kindly sent both models for review and I’ve looked at the performance running both Windows and Ubuntu. MeLE PCG02 Pro hardware overview The MeLE PCG02 Pro physically consists of a 146 x 61 x 20mm (5.75 x 2.40 x 0.79 inches) rectangular plastic case that ‘wraps’ around a plastic inner frame. The outside of the case has a knurled or cross-hatched pattern (engineered to provide high thermal conductivity) and the inner frame has the WiFi antennas glued to it. As passively cooled mini PCs, the first model known as the PCG02 Pro J4125 uses […]
Beelink SEi12 Alder Lake mini PC review with Windows 11, Ubuntu 22.04
Beelink have launched their first Intel Alder Lake mini PC calling it the SEi12. Featuring a mobile 12th gen Core-i5-1235U processor it is also their first mini PC to incorporate a PCIe4 NVMe slot. Beelink kindly sent one for review and I’ve looked at the performance running both Windows 11 and Ubuntu 22.04. Beelink SEI12 hardware overview The Beelink SEi12 physically consists of a 126 x 113 x 42mm (4.96 x 4.45 x 1.65 inches) square metal case with a new and innovative waterproof fabric-covered top. As an actively cooled mini PC, it uses Intel’s Alder Lake Core i5-1235U processor which has a thread count of 12 with 2 ‘performance’ cores boosting to 4.40 GHz and 8 ‘efficient’ cores boosting to 3.30 GHz and includes Intel’s Iris Xe Graphics. The front panel has an illuminated power button, a 3.5mm headphone jack, a data-only Type-C USB 3.1 port, dual USB 3.1 […]
UP 4000 x86 SBC review with Ubuntu 22.04
The UP 4000 is a credit-card / Raspberry Pi-sized single board computer based on an Intel Apollo Lake processor. AAEON sent me the model with an Intel Atom x7-E3950 quad-core processor, 4GB RAM, and a 64GB eMMC flash, and in the first part of the review, I installed Ubuntu 22.04 since the board would initially only boot to the UEFI shell out of the box. I’ve now spent more time with the board, and in this article, I will report my experience with the UP 4000 SBC running Ubuntu 22.04 checking out features, performance, video playback, power consumption, and so on. Ubuntu 22.04 System info Let’s check out some information after I’ve upgraded the system to the latest packages:
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jaufranc@UP-4000-CNX:~$ lsb_release -a No LSB modules are available. Distributor ID: Ubuntu Description: Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS Release: 22.04 Codename: jammy jaufranc@UP-4000-CNX:~$ uname -a Linux UP-4000-CNX 5.15.0-48-generic #54-Ubuntu SMP Fri Aug 26 13:26:29 UTC 2022 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux jaufranc@UP-4000-CNX:~$ inxi -Fc0 System: Host: UP-4000-CNX Kernel: 5.15.0-48-generic x86_64 bits: 64 Console: pty pts/1 Distro: Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish) Machine: Type: Desktop Mobo: AAEON model: UP-APL03 v: V1.0 serial: <superuser required> UEFI: American Megatrends v: UPAPBM11 date: 07/01/2022 CPU: Info: quad core model: Intel Atom E3950 bits: 64 type: MCP cache: L2: 2 MiB Speed (MHz): avg: 1099 min/max: 800/2000 cores: 1: 1109 2: 1009 3: 1114 4: 1165 Graphics: Device-1: Intel Celeron N3350/Pentium N4200/Atom E3900 Series Integrated Graphics driver: i915 v: kernel Display: server: X.org v: 1.21.1.3 with: Xwayland v: 22.1.1 driver: X: loaded: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa gpu: i915 tty: 80x24 resolution: 1280x800 Message: GL data unavailable in console. Try -G --display Audio: Device-1: Intel Celeron N3350/Pentium N4200/Atom E3900 Series Audio Cluster driver: snd_hda_intel Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.15.0-48-generic running: yes Sound Server-2: PulseAudio v: 15.99.1 running: yes Sound Server-3: PipeWire v: 0.3.48 running: yes Network: Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet driver: r8169 IF: enp2s0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: 00:07:32:a2:cd:17 Drives: Local Storage: total: 58.24 GiB used: 12.69 GiB (21.8%) ID-1: /dev/mmcblk0 vendor: SanDisk model: DA4064 size: 58.24 GiB Partition: ID-1: / size: 56.53 GiB used: 12.68 GiB (22.4%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/mmcblk0p2 ID-2: /boot/efi size: 511 MiB used: 5.2 MiB (1.0%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/mmcblk0p1 Swap: ID-1: swap-1 type: file size: 3.96 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) file: /swapfile Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 6280.4 C mobo: N/A Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 6553500 Info: Processes: 215 Uptime: 2h 20m Memory: 3.68 GiB used: 1.09 GiB (29.5%) Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Shell: Bash inxi: 3.3.13 |
Everything looks good with an Intel Atom E3950 processor detection together with 3.68GB RAM and a 56.53GB rootfs EXT-4 partition. UP 4000 features testing There may also be some issues […]
Khadas Edge2 review with Android 12
We’ve already reviewed Khadas Edge2 Pro with Ubuntu 22.04, and I’ve now had time to test the ultra-thin Rockchip RK3588S SBC with Android 12, so I’ll report my experience checking out the features, running some benchmarks, playing videos and games, etc… Flashing Android 12 to Khadas Edge2 board Our board was running Ubuntu 22.04, so in order to enter OOWOW firmware system, I had to keep pressing the function key (middle), then shortly press the reset button, before releasing the function key and entering the OOWOW interface. We can see the Android 11 image from the list we saw last month is gone for good, and a new Android 12 image dated September 20, 2022 is available. I selected that one, and OOWOW downloaded the files and flashed it to the board. Within five minutes, Android 12 was up and running on the board. As somebody who had spent several […]
Beelink SEi11 Pro Review – An Intel Core i5-11320H mini PC tested with Windows 11, Ubuntu 22.04
The latest mini PC marketed in the ‘Pro’ range from Beelink is the SEi11 Pro and features one of last year’s Intel H-series processors typically used in gaming laptops. Beelink kindly sent one for review and I’ve looked at performance running both Windows 11 and Ubuntu 22.04. Beelink SEi11 Pro hardware overview The Beelink SEi11 Pro physically consists of a 126 x 113 x 40mm (4.96 x 4.45 x 1.57 inches) square metal case. As an actively cooled mini PC, it uses Intel’s ‘10 nm SuperFin’ Tiger Lake processor and the review model included an i5-11320H which is a quad-core 8-thread 3.20 GHz Core processor (at 35W TDP) boosting to 4.50 GHz with Intel’s Iris Xe Graphics. The front panel has an illuminated power button, a 3.5mm headphone jack, a data-only Type-C USB 3.1 port, dual USB 3.1 ports and a reset pin-hole ‘CLR CMOS’. The rear panel includes a […]
Beelink U59 Pro review – A Jasper Lake mini PC with faster GPU performance
Beelink’s newly launched U59 Pro addresses the weak graphical performance offered by the original Beelink U59, which we also noticed in the Beelink MINI S, and was a direct result of the iGPU limitations. By simply upgrading the CPU from a ‘desktop’ to ‘mobile’ Celeron processor the iGPU received a fifty percent boost in execution units. Beelink kindly sent one for review and I’ve looked at performance running both Windows and Ubuntu. Beelink U59 Pro Hardware Overview The Beelink U59 Pro physically consists of a 124 x 113 x 42mm (4.88 x 4.45 x 1.65 inches) square plastic case. As before it is an actively cooled mini PC but now uses Intel’s 10 nm Jasper Lake N5105 processor which is the same quad-core 4-thread 2.00 GHz Celeron processor boosting to 2.90 GHz but with improved Intel’s UHD Graphics as the ‘Graphics Burst Frequency’ increases from 750 MHz to 800 MHz […]