pine64 News - CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

March 16, 2025March 16, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Updated PineTab-V RISC-V tablet ships with Debian 12-based Linux image

Pine64 has launched an updated version of the PineTab-V RISC-V tablet with the same StarFive JH7110 SoC, 8GB RAM, and 128GB eMMC flash, but a few small hardware changes, and a Debian-based Linux image maintained by StarFive themselves. The PineTab-V is not exactly a new RISC-V tablet since it was launched in 2023, but at the time it was reserved for developers since it shipped with nothing… Users had to install the OS (that did not support the display yet) themselves, and work on the software/OS to improve it. The new model still targets developers and enthusiasts/early adopters, but at least now there’s a Debian 12 image optimized for the PineTab-V. The hardware is mostly the same, except Pine64 added an accelerometer, a status LED, an ID for the PineTab-V in the EEPROM, and a fix for slow charging while the tablet is turned off. PineTab-V (2025) specifications: SoC – […]

February 25, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 28 Comments

Armbian v25.2 and DietPi v9.11 released with updated Ubuntu and Debian-based Linux images for single board computers

Vendor-provided Linux images for single board computers are not always working optimally, so this post is a regular reminder that users may want to check out Armbian and DietPi projects mostly supported by the community but also backed by some of the vendors who offload some (repackaging) software work to them. Armbian and DietPi are separate projects, but this month, Armbian v25.2 and DietPi v9.11 were almost released simultaneously. I don’t report on each release (should I?), but they release an update every few months. The last time we had a look at both projects was in September 2024 for the releases of DietPi 9.7 and Armbian 24.8. Let’s see what the new releases have to bring. Armbian v25.2 Main changes: New Boards – Rock 2A and 2F, NanoPi R3S, Retroid Pocket RP5, RPMini, Rock 5T, GenBook, MKS-PI, SKIPR, Armsom CM5, NextThing C.H.I.P, Magicsee C400 Plus Rockchip 3588 Improvements – […]

October 3, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Quartz64 Zero – A customizable, cost-optimized Rockchip RK3566T SBC with Raspberry Pi PCIe connector

The Quartz64 Zero is a thinner, cheaper version of the Quartz64 Model B with a Rockchip RK3566T quad-core Cortex-A55 SoC clocked at 1.6 GHz, 1GB LPDDR4, and HDMI and USB ports. The Quartz64 Zero has almost the same design as the Quartz64 with footprints for optional components (more on that later). Two noticeable differences are the presence of the 20-pin PCIe connector compatible with the one found on the Raspberry Pi 5 instead of a mini PCIe socket, and WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.4 support instead of just WiFi 5/Bluetooth 5.0. Quartz64 Zero specifications (changes highlighted in bold and strikethrough when items have been removed): SoC – Rockchip RK3566T CPU – Quad-core Cortex-A55 processor up to 1.6 GHz GPU – Arm Mali-G52 GPU supporting OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0/3.2, OpenCL 2.0, Vulkan 1.1 NPU – 0.8 TOPS NPU for AI acceleration (Unclear whether it’s present, not listed in the specs) System Memory […]

June 26, 2024June 26, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

Pine64 Oz64 RISC-V+Arm SBC to support NuttX RTOS and Debian Linux

Pine64 Oz64 is an upcoming credit card-sized SBC based on the SOPHGO SG2000 RISC-V+Arm(+8051) processor that currently runs NuTTX RTOS, and a Debian Linux image is also in the works. With a name likely inspired by the earlier Pine64 Ox RISC-V SBC, the Oz64 is a more powerful embedded board with 512 MB of DRAM integrated into the SG2000, a microSD card, an eMMC flash module connector, Ethernet port, WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2, a USB 2.0 Type-A host port, and a 26-pin GPIO header. Pine64 Oz64 specifications: SoC – SOPHGO SG2000 Main core – 1 GHz 64-bit RISC-V C906 or Arm Cortex-A53 core (selectable) Minor core – 700 MHz 64-bit RISC-V C906 core Low-power core – 25 to 300 MHz 8051 MCU core with 8KB SRAM NPU – 0.5 TOPS INT8, supports BF16 Integrated 512MB DDR3 (SiP) Storage MicroSD card slot eMMC flash module connector Display – Optional 2-lane […]

May 13, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Linux 6.9 release – Main changes, Arm, RISC-V, and MIPS architectures

Linus Torvalds has just announced the release of Linux 6.9 on LKML: So Thorsten is still reporting a few regression fixes that haven’t made it to me yet, but none of them look big or worrisome enough to delay the release for another week. We’ll have to backport them when they get resolved and hit upstream. So 6.9 is now out, and last week has looked quite stable (and the whole release has felt pretty normal). Below is the shortlog for the last week, with the changes mostly being dominated by some driver updates (gpu and networking being the big ones, but “big” is still pretty small, and there’s various other driver noise in there too). Outside of drivers, it’s some filesystem fixes (bcachefs still stands out, but ksmbd shows up too), some late selftest fixes, and some core networking fixes. And I now have a more powerful arm64 machine […]

April 30, 2024April 29, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

SBC Case Builder v3.0 can create thousands of cases for popular SBCs and standard motherboards (mini-ITX, Pico-ITX, NUC…)

SBC Case Builder V3.0 case design utility has just been released with the ability to create over 1,000 standard cases – not including customization – for popular SBCs from Raspberry Pi, Hardkernel, Orange Pi, Radxa, and others, as well as standard motherboards following Mini-ITX, Pico-ITX, NUC, Nano-ITX, etc.., and SBC adapters following these standards, meaning you could install a Raspberry Pi 5 into a mini-ITX case if needed. SBC Case Builder started as a command line utility for designing DIY case for SBCs relying on OpenSDAD in April 2022, but Edward Kisiel (hominoids) quickly released version 2 with a GUI in October or the same, and has now further improved the utility with the release of SBC Case Builder v3.0. Version 3.0 comes with many improvements but the main focus was to reuse existing and new PC standard form factor cases by creating SBC adapters and custom I/O Shields since […]

April 21, 2024April 21, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 15 Comments

Rockchip RK3588’s NPU open-source driver performs object detection at 30 FPS

Tomeu Vizoso has been working on an open-source driver for NPU (Neural Processing Unit) found in Rockchip RK3588 SoC in the last couple of months, and the project has nicely progressed with object detection working fine at 30 fps using the SSDLite MobileDet model and just one of the three cores from the AI accelerator. Many recent processors include AI accelerators that work with closed-source drivers, but we had already seen reverse-engineering works on the Allwinner V831’s NPU a few years ago, and earlier this year, we noted that Tomeu Vizoso released the Etvaniv open-source driver that works on Amlogic A311D’s Vivante NPU. Tomeu has now also started working on porting his Teflon TensorFlow Lite driver to the Rockchip RK3588 NPU which is closely based on NVIDIA’s NVDLA open-source IP. He started his work in March leveraging the reverse-engineering work already done by Pierre-Hugues Husson and Jasbir Matharu and was […]

January 24, 2024January 23, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

FOSDEM 2024 schedule – Open-source embedded, mobile, IoT, robotics, RISC-V, etc..

FOSDEM – which stands for Free and Open Source Software Developers’ European Meeting – is a free-to-participate event where thousands of developers meet in Brussels on the first week-end of February to discuss open-source software & hardware projects. FOSDEM 2024 will take place on February 3-4 with 880 speakers, 818 events, and 66 tracks. Although I won’t attend, I’ve created a virtual schedule like every year with sessions most relevant to the topics covered on CNX Software from the “Embedded, Mobile and Automotive” and “Open Hardware and CAD/CAM” devrooms, but also other devrooms including “FOSS Mobile Devices”, “ Energy: Reimagining this Ecosystem through Open Source”, “RISC-V”, and others. FOSDEM Day 1 – Saturday, February 3, 2024 10:30 – 10:55 – Screen Sharing on Raspberry Pi 5 Using VNC in Weston and Wayland with the Yocto Project and OpenEmbedded by Leon Anavi In 2023, embedded Linux developers received eagerly awaited news: […]