Linux News - Page 311 of 431 - CNX Software

July 30, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

$90 H7 Hummingbird Development Board Features Allwinner H8 Octa-core Processor

Allwinner announced Allwinner H8 octa-core Cortex A7 processor in Q4 2014, which targets game console and TV boxes,but since then I had not really heard about hardware based on this new SoC. Merrii Technology has now launched a development board powered by Allwinner H8, and confusingly called it H7 Hummingbird. H7 Hummingboard development board specifications: SoC – AllWinner H8 octa-core ARM Cortex-A7 processor @ up to 2.0GHz with PowerVR SGX544 GPU @ up to 700MHz System Memory – 1GB DDR3 Storage – 4GB eMMC flash + micro SD card slot or SD card slot (option) up to 32GB Video Output / Display I/F – HDMI up to 1080p, MIPI DSI connector, LCD connector for RGB/CPU/LVDS LCD including a 6-pin header for backlight. Capacitive touch panel header Audio – HDMI, headset/microphone jack, audio speaker connector, Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet (Despite the processor support Gigabit Ethernet), WiFi 802.11b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0 via […]

July 29, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

Nvidia SHIELD TV Benchmarks in Ubuntu Shows Core i3 Like Performance

Nvidia SHIELD Android TV was announced this March with Nvidia Tegra X1 octa-core Cortex A57 + A53 processor. So far, I had not seen any Ubuntu or other Linux distribution port, but Michael Mirabel of Phoronix got remote access to a Shield TV PRO – model with a 500GB hard drive – running Ubuntu 14.10. It’s not clear who provided access, either Nvidia or third parties, but somebody posted an Ubuntu 14.10 port on XDA Developers Forums recently so it might be that one. He obviously ran Phoronix Test Suite on the device, and compared to it some other ARM devices (Compule Utilite, Jetson TK1), MIPS Creator CI20, low power x86 devices (Compute Stick, Intel NUC with Celeron N2820), and an Intel Core i3-5010u NUC. The Tegra X1 platform easily beats all other low power platforms, and comes close to the Core i3 mini PC in most tests. In the […]

July 25, 2015June 18, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 28 Comments

NanoPi is a $16 WiFi and Bluetooth LE Linux Development Board

NanoPi is a new Linux development board powered by Samsung S3C2451 ARM9 processor with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth LE connectivity, connectors for a camera and an LCD display, as well as two expansion headers including a 40-pin “Raspberry Pi compatible” header. NanoPi specifications: Processor – Samsung S3C2451 ARM9 @ 400Mhz System Memory – 64M DDR2 Storage – micro SD slot Connectivity – AP6210 module for 802.11 b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0 USB – 1x USB 1.1 host port, 1x micro USB OTG port for power and data (serial or Ethernet) Display I/F – LCD Interface: 0.5mm pitch SMT FPC seat, support full-color LCD (RGB: 8-8-8) Camera I/F – DVP Camera Interface: 0.5mm pitch FPC connector, including ITU-R BT 601/656 8-bit, I2C and GPIOs Debugging – Serial Port Expansion Headers “GPIO1” – 40-pin header including UART, SPI, I2C, GPIO pins (Raspberry Pi compatible) “GPIO2” – 12-pin header including I2S, I2C, UART pins Power – […]

July 23, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Kodi 15 Isengard Release

After several months of development, including H.265 hardware decoding in Android, Kodi 15 “Isengard” has recently been released by the developers. It’s available for Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, and Android, and for the first time a stable release can directly be downloaded from Google Play store with so far over 400,000 active installs from the app store. Key features and improvements of Kodi 15 include: Android specific changes – 4K, refresh rate switching and H.265 for hardware that support it including several Amlogic platforms, and Nvidia Shield Android TV. Android 5.0 and greater is required. New chapter selector window – Allows users to visually browse and select chapters from mkv videos and other containers that support chapters Adaptive seeking (aka Skip Steps) – The more times a user presses a button to seek in a period of time, the larger the jump forward or backward will be. Audio and […]

July 22, 2015July 22, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 19 Comments

ODROID-C1+ Board is an Upcoming Upgrade to ODROID-C1 Board

ODROID-C1 board has been relatively popular thanks to its great hardware features and good software support for its $35 price tag. In mid-June however, ODROID-C1 got out of stock due to sudden large orders, and it was only scheduled to sale again in early August because of long leadtime for some components. It turns out ODROID-C1 may never sell again, simply because it will be replaced by ODROID-C1+ with various improvements. It’s still very much based on ODROID-C1 with Amlogic S805 processor, 1GB RAM, and an eMMC sockets, but Hardkernel made the following improvements: HDMI connector change to Type-A from Type-D (micro HDMI). Improved SD card compatibility CEC function whether the RTC backup battery is installed or not ODROID-C1+ can be powered from the USB OTG port as well as DC-Jack I2S signals exposed for external audio DAC All of which are welcomed modifications. The board size will remain the […]

July 16, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

Kodi 14.2 Linux Ported to Rockchip RK3288 with VPU Hardware Decoding

Rockchip RK3288 is one of the most popular platforms for TV boxes, and while most boxes are sold with Android OS, it can also run various Linux distributions with two main caveats: 2D/3D GPU acceleration, and hardware video decoding by the VPU. It appears the last two have been worked on, as yesterday, I got tipped that Kodi 14.2 Linux was running on Ugoos UT3 and Radxa Rock2 Square. Since both hardware platforms showcased a Kodi port at the about same time, it’s probably safe to assume they use the same implementation (despite slightly different build dates May 29 vs June 6), which has been developed by “Marc” (or is it MAC?) using the Android libraries and libhybris for video decoding, raw2 device driver for 2D HW accelerated blitting and converting frames, and ARM OpenGL library, driver and examples, among other software packages. So let’s check the demos starting with […]

July 14, 2015July 14, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 26 Comments

ODROID-XU4 Development Board is a Smaller and Cheaper Version of ODROID-XU3 Board

Many people are expecting Hardkernel to launch an Exynos 7 board, but this won’t be with ODROID-XU4, maybe with ODROID-XU5, as the latest development board from Hardkernel is a modified version of ODROID-XU3 with the same Exynos 5422 octa-core processor with four Cortex-A15 cores @ 2GHz and four Cortex-A7 cores. ODROID-XU4 board specifications (differences with ODROID-XU3 highlighted and sometimes crossed out in bold): SoC – Samsung Exynos 5422 quad core ARM Cortex-A15 @ 2.0GHz quad core ARM Cortex-A7 @ 1.4GHz with Mali-T628 MP6 GPU supporting OpenGL ES 3.0 / 2.0 / 1.1 and OpenCL 1.1 Full profile System Memory – 2GB LPDDR3 RAM PoP (750 MHz, 12GB/s memory bandwidth, 2x32bit bus) Storage – Micro SD slot (up to 64GB) + eMMC 5.0 module socket (16, 32, and 64GB modules available) Video Output – micro HDMI (Up to 1080p) and DisplayPort (up to 2160p) Audio Output – HDMI, 3.5mm headphone jack, […]

July 13, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 21 Comments

Linux Based Zsun WiFi Card Reader Has Been Hacked Too…

A little while ago, I purchased Zsun SD111 W-Fi USB flash drive, and after several tentatives, I finally found a way to access the device’s serial console. Since then the company announced another wireless storage device with Zsun Wi-Fi card reader, and Zoobab decided to try to hack it too. Since the device is pretty hard to open without damaging the enclosure, connecting the serial pin was not really an option, and the first exploit was to input shell commands in the web interface SSID field… For example, entering reboot there, would indeed reboot the device. However, this would still not allow full shell access, and finally after a broader port scan, it was found out that TCP port 11880 was open for telnet daemon. You can then access the shell as root with the same password as SD111: “zsun1188”. For some reasons, telnet can’t work with the device, and […]