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July 7, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

ThinkNode M1/M2 Review – Getting started with Meshtastic

I’ve been writing about Meshtastic firmware and hardware since 2020, but I never had the opportunity to test it myself. This has now changed as Elecrow sent us the ThinkNode M1 and ThinkNode M2 Meshtastic nodes for review. Both rely on Semtech SX162x radios, but the M1 is based on a Nordic Semi nRF52840 Bluetooth MCU with a 1.54-inch E-Ink display and GPS, and the smaller M2 is based on an ESP32-S3 chip and a 1.3-inch OLED but lacks a built-in GPS module. Since I’ve never used Meshtastic before, this “review” will be more like a Getting Started Guide from a beginner’s perspective. After an unboxing and a teardown, I’ll test messaging, GPS sharing, and the range I can get in a suburban environment in Thailand. ThinkNode M1/M2 unboxing Both packages look similar, with a plastic case and a white cover. The ThinkNode M1’s main features include a high-gain antenna, […]

June 29, 2025July 9, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Pironman 5 Max Review – A fancy Raspberry Pi 5 Tower PC enclosure with dual M.2 PCI sockets for SSD and/or AI accelerator

SunFounder has sent me a review sample of the Pironman 5 Max Tower PC case for the Raspberry Pi 5 SBC. We had already reviewed the Pironman 5 last year, but the new Max model has various improvements, including a sleeker design made of black aluminum and semi-transparent black acrylic panels, a dual NVMe PiP expansion board for two M.2 NVMe SSDs (optionally in RAID 0/1 configuration), or one NVMe SSD and one AI accelerator module, a Tap-to-Wake feature for the OLED information display, and programmable RGB LEDs for the two fans. So the Pironman 5 Max deserves another review of its own. I’ll be doing an unboxing, going through the assembly instructions and software installation, before testing the new features, and finally, the cooling efficiency of the solution. Pironman 5 Max unboxing I received the Pironman 5 Max in its retail package along with a Raspberry Pi AI Kit […]

May 18, 2025May 19, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

M5Stack Tab5 Review – Part 2: Getting started with ESP32-P4 firmware development using the ESP-IDF Framework and Arduino IDE

In the first part of the review, we checked out the hardware of the M5Stack Tab5 ESP32-P4 IoT development kit and tried the demo firmware, whose user interface allows the user to quickly experiment with the camera, microphone, speaker, WiFi, power consumption, GPIOs, RS485, and more. Since there’s no user application for the Tab5 at this stage, I decided to look into software development resources for the ESP32-P4 devkit in the second part of the review. I’ll first follow the instructions to build the demo firmware from source using the ESP-IDF framework, then analyze key aspects of the source and make some small modifications. After that, I’ll have a look at ESP32-P4 Arduino support via M5Unified and M5GFX library. ESP-IDF 5.4.1 installation and ESP32-P4 Hello World program The first step is to get the ESP-IDF 5.4.1 and configure ESP32-P4 following the instructions on the Espressif website, before testing it with […]

May 13, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Root Commit releases free training materials on OpenEmbedded and Yocto using the BeaglePlay SBC

Michael Opdenacker, Founder of Root Commit, has published free and open-source training materials on OpenEmbedded and Yocto using the BeaglePlay SBC powered by a Texas Instruments AM625 processor. If the name rings a bell, it’s because Michael was the founder of Bootlin (previously Free Electrons) before selling the company to employees in 2021. He’s now started a new company called Root Commit, where he continues providing Embedded Linux training and development services. He’s kept the tradition of releasing free training materials, with the latest course being related to Yocto development on the BeaglePlay board. You’ll find resources on the Root Commit website with three files, including 220 pages of lectures, 18 practical labs for the BeaglePlay board and QEMU, and source code/patchsets released under a Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0 license. The course includes an introduction to the Yocto Project 5.0 and Embedded Linux, a Getting Started guide explaining how to […]

March 12, 2025March 11, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Tips to use a touchscreen display with Raspberry Pi OS in 2025

I’ve just reviewed the SunFounder 10.1-inch touchscreen display with Raspberry Pi 5 running Raspberry Pi OS, and the experience was not quite as smooth as I had expected, so I’ll report some tips to save people time. The first is the software keyboard. Matchbox keyboard used to be the go-to solution, but two years ago, my preferred keyboard became the Onboard keyboard. Sadly, it’s not working so well with the latest Raspberry Pi OS using labwc Wayland window-stacking compositor, so now Raspberry Pi recommends squeekboard. It was not installed by default, but installation is fairly easy:

sudo apt install squeekboard

1	sudo apt install squeekboard

It did not show up automatically when trying to type in a text field, maybe because I’m using a third-party touchscreen keyboard, but going to Raspberry Pi Configuration and setting On-screen Keyboard to Enabled always in the Display tab fixed that. I was able to type a URL/web search terms in the URL […]

February 12, 2025February 16, 2025 by Paisit Wongsongsarn - 10 Comments

SONOFF ZBM5 Review – A 3-gang Zigbee Smart Wall Switch tested with eWeLink and Home Assistant

We will be reviewing a smart home device from SONOFF that we recently received right after the New Year, the SONOFF SwitchMan Zigbee Smart Wall (ZBM5). This is SONOFF’s first Zigbee-enabled Smart Wall Switch. In addition to functioning as a smart wall switch, it can also act as a Zigbee Router, making it easier to expand your Zigbee network at home in one shot. One of the key features of the SONOFF ZBM5 is that it can either operate in with-neutral (N) or without-neutral (N) wiring setups. Typically, in the market, we see these as separate models: one for with-neutral and another for without-neutral. This feature adds more flexibility for users, especially those with wiring constraints in their homes. Let’s dive into the details. SONOFF ZBM5 Unboxing Inside the box, you’ll find a user manual, wall plugs, and the switch itself. The model we received has a rectangular shape (120mm) […]

January 29, 2025March 30, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 36 Comments

Radxa Orion O6 Review – Part 1: Unboxing, Debian 12 installation, and first benchmarks

Radxa sent me a sample of the Orion O6 mini-ITX motherboard for review. The system is powered by an CIX P1 (CD8180) 12-core Armv9 processor, equipped with 16GB RAM, and offers features like 5GbE, HDMI and DisplayPort, a PCIe Gen4 x16 slot, and more. It’s one of the most anticipated boards of the first part of 2025 since it’s powerful, offers a good performance/value ratio, and eventually promises to boot any ISO Arm64 image through an open-source BIOS / EDKII bootloader. I’ll start this review with an unboxing, NVMe SSD and WiFi module installation, and a short tutorial showing how to install Debian 12 operating systems before getting some system information and running a few benchmarks. In a few weeks, I’ll publish a more detailed review with features testing and more benchmarks to see what works and what doesn’t at this very early stage. Radxa Orion O6 unboxing I received […]

January 20, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Disabling VT-d improves Intel Arc GPU Linux performance on Meteor Lake and newer SoCs

Improve Intel Arc GPU performance Linux VT-d disabled

In this post, I’ll check whether disabling VT-d virtualization support may improve the performance of the Intel Arc GPU in recent Meteor Lake or Lunar Lake SoC using a Khadas Mind Maker Kit with an Intel Core Ultra 7 258V CPU with Intel Arc 140V graphics running Ubuntu 24.10. A few days ago, I read a post on Phoronix about Intel publishing tips to improve the performance of Intel GPUs in Linux: Keep the system updated with the latest kernel and Mesa versions. Ensure SoC firmware is up-to-date. These firmware updates currently require installing the Windows graphics driver; firmware updates via fwupd are in progress. Use Wayland where possible, as it supports additional modifiers for better performance. For MTL (Meteor Lake) and newer integrated GPUs, disable VT-d if virtualization is not needed. For discrete GPUs: Enable ReBAR_ Enable ASPM_ I was especially curious about the line about disabling VT-d virtualization […]