opensuse

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 13 Comments on Applied Micro XC-1 Server Development Board (Mustang) is Now Available to Developers for $895

Applied Micro XC-1 Server Development Board (Mustang) is Now Available to Developers for $895

64-bit ARM server boards such as Applied Micro XC-1 Mustang and AMD Opteron A1100 development kit have been available since the beginning of the year, but only to selected companies, and at a price of several thousand dollars per board. Applied Micro is now offering their X-Gene based XC-1 development board to individual developers for $895, or about ~40% discount to the $1495 company now have to pay for the board. It may also be available from distributors (part number: EV-883208-X1-PRB-1). XC-1 board (codenamed Mustang) technical specifications: SoC – Applied Micro X-GeneAPM883208-X1 8-core ARM 64-bit @ 1.6 GHz System Memory – 2x DDR3 UDIMM memory slots up fitted with 2x 4GB sticks (8 GB), upgradable to 16GB Storage – 1x 128Mbit SPI NOR Flash for booting, 1x SATA 3 ports, SD card slot, 1024Kb and 256Kb I2C EEPROM Connectivity – 2x Gigagit port (SGMII), 10 GbE SFP+ cage, 1x Gigabit […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on Lemaker.org is Giving Away Banana Pi Development Boards to Developers and Fans

Lemaker.org is Giving Away Banana Pi Development Boards to Developers and Fans

Banana Pi is a development board powered by AllWinner A20 dual core SoC with 1GB RAM, and with expansion headers and a form factor very similar to the Raspberry Pi. It can run Debian, Lubuntu, Android 4.2, Arch Linux ARM, Scratch OS, and OpenSuse, but Lemarker.org community would like more educational materials such as open source software or hardware projects, tutorials, etc.., so they’ve launched a program to give away boards to developers and people who can help writing and maintaining documentation. There are three categories of projects: STEAM – “Science, Technology, Engineering, Art & Mathematics” educational, open source projects running on the the Banana Pi Hardware or Software Project –  Open source projects based on Banana Pi which could be helpful to the community, including open source hardware peripherals projects; Banana Pi Fans – You don’t need to be as technical as for the two others categories, but you […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments on Cavium ThunderX Server SoC Features up to 48 ARM 64-bit Cores

Cavium ThunderX Server SoC Features up to 48 ARM 64-bit Cores

ARM SBSA specification for server supports up to 268,435,456 CPU cores for the second level of standardization on one or a combination of SoCs. We’re not quite up there just yet, but Cavium ThunderX is an ARM server SoC with up to 48 cores on a single chip, which is the highest number of cores I’ve ever heard of in an ARM SoC. The company created their own custom processor cores using an ARMv8 architecture license, designing an SoC complies with ARM’s Server Base System Architecture (SBSA) standard with the following key features: ARM based SoC that scales up from 8 to 48 cores with up to 2.5 GHz core frequency with 78K I-Cache, 32K D-Cache, and 16MB L2 cache. Fully cache coherent across dual sockets using Cavium Coherent Processor Interconnect (CCPI) Integrated I/O capacity with 100s of Gigabits of I/O bandwidth 4x DDR3/4 72-bit memory controllers supporting up to 1TB RAM […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 24 Comments on How-to Install and “Hack” Linux on T428 or MK802 IV mini PCs

How-to Install and “Hack” Linux on T428 or MK802 IV mini PCs

PicUntu 4.5 installer is probably the easiest method to install Ubuntu on a Rockchip RK3188 based mini PC, but if you want a little more flexibility I’ll provide another method to install Linux on T428, MK802 IV or compatible devices, as well as links to go further: dual boot Android / Linux, create your own official distro, status of Mali-400 GPU support in RK3188… The method below is not new, as it was posted by Linuxium (Ian Morrison) in Freaktab in September, but this is the first time I’ve taken the time and managed to run Linux on Rockchip RK3188, and I’ll provide some more detailed steps. Prerequisites Even though in some cases it’s possible to install Rockchip firmware from Linux, AFAIK the tools available in Linux lack supports for the parameter and loader files, so ironically, you’ll need a Windows XP/7/8 machine to install Linux in your mini PC. […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments on Atmel Introduces SAMA5D3 Cortex A5 Embedded MPUs and Evaluation Kits

Atmel Introduces SAMA5D3 Cortex A5 Embedded MPUs and Evaluation Kits

Atmel has recently announced the Atmel SAMA5D3 series, a family of high performance, low-power microprocessor units (MPUs) based on ARM Cortex-A5 core. The SAMA5D3 series is designed for embedded applications in the industrial space, including factory and building automation, smart grid, medical and handheld terminals, as well as consumer applications such as smart watches, outdoor GPS, and DECT phones. SAMA5D3 family has the following characteristics: ARM Cortex-A5 core up to 536MHz (850DMIPS). Floating point unit (FPU) with up to 3 times the performance of Cortex A8 FPU. 166MHz bus speed delivering up to 1328MB/s bandwidth. Power consumption: <200mW in active mode at 536MHz with all peripherals activated 0.5mW in low-power mode with SRAM, registers retention and <0.5ms wake-up time ~1.2µA in backup mode with RTC running Connectivity: Dual Ethernet and dual CAN ports (Only one model has both) Gigabit Ethernet MAC with IEEE1588 and 10/100 MAC Two CAN controllers 3x […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on openSUSE 12.2 for ARM is Now Available for Beagleboard, Pandaboard, Efixa MX and More

openSUSE 12.2 for ARM is Now Available for Beagleboard, Pandaboard, Efixa MX and More

The first stable release of openSUSE for ARM has just been announced. openSUSE 12.2 for ARM is officially available for the Beagleboard, Beagleboard xM, Pandaboard, Pandaboard ES, Versatile Express (QEMU) and the rootfs can be mounted with chroot, but “best effort’ ports have been made for Calxeda Highbank server, i.MX53 Loco development board, CuBox computer, Origen Board and Efika MX smart top. Work is also apparently being done on a Raspberry Pi port which should be available for the next release. openSUSE developers explains that almost all of openSUSE builds runs on these platforms (about 5000 packages). Visit “OpenSUSE on your ARM board” for download links and instructions for a specific ARM board. More details are available on the wiki page. openSUSE has limited resources for ARM development, so If you’d like to help with development (e.g. fixing builds), visit ARM distribution howto page to find out how to get […]