Linux 4.10 Release – Main Changes, ARM & MIPS Architectures

Linus Torvalds has just released Linux 4.10: So there it is, the final 4.10 release. It’s been quiet since rc8, but we did end up fixing several small issues, so the extra week was all good. On the whole, 4.10 didn’t end up as small as it initially looked. After the huge release that was 4.9, I expected things to be pretty quiet, but it ended up very much a fairly average release by modern kernel standards. So we have about 13,000 commits (not counting merges – that would be another 1200+ commits if you count those). The work is all over, obviously – the shortlog below is just the changes in the last week, since rc8. Go out and verify that it’s all good, and I’ll obviously start pulling stuff for 4.11 on Monday. Linus Linux 4.9 added Greybus staging support, improved security thanks to virtually mapped kernel stacks, […]

Low Cost Development Boards Linux Benchmarks – Raspberry Pi vs Banana Pi vs Orange Pi vs ODROID

LoveRPi, a distributor and reseller of electronic boards and accessories, has run benchmarks from the Phoronix Suite on several low cost development boards: $46* Banana Pi M2  based on Allwinner A31s quad core Cortex A7 processor @ 1.0 GHz with Armbian (Ubuntu 14.04) $74* Banana Pi M3 based on Allwinner A83T octa core Cortex A7 processor @ 1.80 GHz with Debian 8.3 $32 ODROID-C1+ based on Amlogic S805 quad core Cortex A5 processor @ 1.5 GHz with Ubuntu 14.04 $40 ODROID-C2 based on Amlogic S905 quad core Cortex A53 processor @ 2.0 GHz with Ubuntu 16.04 $74 ODROID-XU4 based on Samsung Exynos 5422 quad core ARM Cortex-A15 @ 2.0GHz quad core ARM Cortex-A7 @ 1.4GHz with Ubuntu 15.10 $10 Orange Pi One based Allwinner H3 Cortex A7 processor @ 1.2 GHz with Armbiam (Debian 8.3) $15 Orange Pi PC based on Allwinner H3 Cortex A7 processor @ 1.3 GHz with […]

Linux 4.5 Released – Main Changes, ARM and MIPS Architectures

Linus Torvalds released Linux Kernel 4.5 on Sunday: So this is later on a Sunday than my usual schedule, because I just couldn’t make up my mind whether I should do another rc8 or not, and kept just waffling about it. In the end, I obviously decided not to,but it could have gone either way. We did have one nasty regression that got fixed yesterday, and the networking pull early in the week was larger than I would have wished for. But the block  layer should be all good now, and David went through all his networking commits an extra time just to make me feel comfy about it, so in the end I didn’t see any point to making the release cycle any longer than usual. And on the whole, everything here is pretty small. The diffstat looks a bit larger for an xfs fix, because that fix has […]

$25 ODROID-C0 Development Board Targets IoT, Wearables, Robots and Drones

Hardkernel started to mention ODROID-C0 board last November, a cost-down and smaller version of ODROID-C1+ board powered by Amlogic S805 quad core Cortex A5 processor with 1GB RAM, dropping Ethernet, and a few USB port, but gaining a  Li-po battery management unit. The company has now officially launched the board, which can be purchased for $25 on Hardkernel website or via distributors such as Ameridroid. ODROID-C0 specifications: SoC- Amlogic S805 quad core ARM Cortex-A5 @ 1.5GHz with ARM Mali-450MP GPU System Memory – 1GB DDR3 @  792Mhz Storage – eMMC Module Socket, micro SD card slot up to 128GB Video Output – HDMI Audio Output – HDMI, I2S USB – 2x unpopulated USB2.0 ports Expansion Headers Unpopulated 40-pin header with GPIO, UART, SPI, I2C, and ADC signals Unpopulated 7-pin header for I2S Debugging – Unpopulated serial debug header Misc – On-board RTC function with battery connector, unpopulated IR receiver Power […]

DietPi is Lightweight, Easy to Use Debian Based Distribution for Raspberry Pi, ODROID, and Orange Pi Boards

Raspberry Pi, Hardkernel ODROID, and Orange Pi are some of the most popular and cost effective development boards on the market today, and one British developer, going under Fourdee nickname, has released a lightweight distribution called DietPi working for all Rasbperry Pi boards, ODROID-C1(+), ODROID-XU3/XU4, and Orange Pi PC, with Orange Pi 2 and Orange Pi Plus support coming soon, as well as a VMWare virtual machine also available for evaluation. The compressed downloads are about 80 to 100MB depending on the target, the image that can be dump with dd or Win32DiskImager requires a 1GB or greater micro SD card as the image itself is about 500MB large, Internet access (Ethernet or Wifi), and optionally a USB Drive to allow installation on a USB drive for better performance, which of course does not apply if you have an eMMC module with your ODROID board. The image also contains some […]

ODROID-C0 Board is an Upcoming Alternative to Raspberry Pi Zero

When Raspberry Pi Zero launched at the end of November, it looked somewhat familiar to Hardkernel ODROID-W board that eventually had to be phased out as Broadcom would not sell Broadcom BCM2835 to the Korean company. In an interesting turn of events, Hardkernel has now shown the first prototype of ODROID-C0 (ODROID-C Zero), a tiny board based on Amlogic S805 found in ODROID-C1+. The name of the board may seem to be derived from Raspberry Pi Zero, but it’s not quite the case as Hardkernel first revealed their plans for ODROID-C0 back in November, a week before R-Pi Zero board was unveiled. ODROID-C0 will have similar specifications to ODROID-C1+ minus Ethernet, and the USB ports in order to reduce the PCB size: SoC – Amlogic S805 quad core Cortex-A5 processor with a Mali-450MP2 GPU System Memory – 1GB DDR3 Storage – eMMC module socket, and micro SD slot Video & […]

Hardkernel ODROID-C1 is a $35 Development Board Powered by Amlogic S805 Quad Core Processor

Amlogic S805 is a quad core Cortex A5 processor which has found it way into low cost devices such as MK808B Plus TV Stick which can be purchased for as low as $30, or full-sized TV box such as MXQ S85 or MINIX NEO X6. All this low cost devices are nice, but the full source code is not available in your want to adapt them to your need. Luckily, Amlogic releases both an Android SDK, and a buildroot for Linux with GPU and Video Processing Unit (VPU) support, so Hardkernel decided to go ahead, designed a board, and has just launched ODROID-C1 quad core development board for just $35, or the exact price of a Raspberry Pi Model B+, but with much greater specs. ODROID-C1 specifications: SoC- Amlogic S805 quad core Cortex-A5 processor with a Mali-450MP2 GPU (2x fragment cores + 2x vertex shader cores) System Memory – 1GB […]

ODROID-XU3 Lite Development Board – Android Setup and Benchmarks

It’s been nearly ten days since I make ODROID-XU3 Lite unboxing, and my plans to first test Linux on the board were thwarted due a problem with HDMI. Luckily, after several attempts I managed to boot the board with Android. So today, I’ll show how to install or update Android on the board, and run a few benchmarks. But since there’s always a silver lining, I’ll start buy writing a bit about the HDMI issue, as I learned a few things on the way. HDMI Output Tribulations ODROID-XU3 Lite looks like a nice and powerful kit, and it may be one of the most cost effective ARM board on the market since it comes to performance to price ratio, so I was excited to try it, but as you know if you’ve read my unboxing post I did not work quite as planned, as all I got was a black […]

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