tutorials

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments on Freescale SABRE Lite i.MX6 Development Board Unboxing, Wandboard Quad Comparison, and Quick Start Guide

Freescale SABRE Lite i.MX6 Development Board Unboxing, Wandboard Quad Comparison, and Quick Start Guide

Freescale SABRE Lite is a development board powered by i.MX6 Quad processor with 1GB RAM, SATA, GbE Ethernet, and more. You can get SABRE Lite specifications in my first post about the board. I recently participated in Element14’s “brainteaser” competition for the 4th birthday of their community, where the company offered 9 SABRE Lite development kit to randomly selected participants, and I got lucky. The board can be purchased for $179 from Element14 (MCIMX6Q-SL). I’ll start by showing what in the package, followed by a side-by-side comparison with Wandboard Quad, and show how to getting started by following the Quick Start Guide provided with the board. SABRE Lite i.MX6 Development Kit Unboxing I received the board about 5 days after I provided my address in a large staple carton box with a few goodies. Beside SABRE Lite devkit, the package comes with Element14’s T-Shirt (not my size), double walled tumbler, […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments on Play HEVC/H.265 Videos and Embed HEVC Streams into MP4 and TS Files with openHEVC and GPAC

Play HEVC/H.265 Videos and Embed HEVC Streams into MP4 and TS Files with openHEVC and GPAC

I wrote an introduction to H.265 (aka HEVC) at the end of last year, including instructions showing how to encode videos to HEVC using the reference implementation. It worked but since it was not optimized for speed, it was extremely slow. Today I’ve stumbled across openHEVC, a open source compliant HEVC video decoder written in C, created as a fork of Libav. This is supposed to work pretty well as the implementation was used at Roland Garros Tennis tournament to playback an 720p50 HEVC stream transmitted over DVB-T2, IPTV, and MPEG DASH. Today I’ll mainly tried out the instructions provided on openHEVC github repo including: Build the source and playing a raw HEVC stream with hevc utility Build GPAC (open source multimedia framework), to get MP4Box, mp42ts, and MP4Client utilities. Import a raw HEVC stream into MP4 and TS containers, and play it back with GPAC tools. I’ve performed the […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 75 Comments on 12MB Minimal Image for Raspberry Pi using the Yocto Project

12MB Minimal Image for Raspberry Pi using the Yocto Project

Last year, I wrote instructions and provided a download link about a minimal image for Raspberry Pi based on Raspbian. The compressed image is 84MB, and the good thing about it is that you can just use apt-get to install packages. The problem is that it’s not actually that small as once it is uncompressed the rootfs is still a massive 414 MB. So today, I’ll explain how to create a smaller (and custom) image using the Yocto Project, a platform that let you build an embedded Linux distribution matching exactly your project’s requirements. Other advantages are that the build is configurable with config files, so it’s easily reproducible with a few command lines, and it might turn out to be useful to learn more about the Yocto Project as many boards and SoC are now making use of the framework, including Freescale i.MX6 (Wandboard, Olinuxino-imx233, Sabrelite, etc…), the Beagleboard, […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on DIY Modular Stripboard / Perfboard Casing for Raspberry Pi (Part 1)

DIY Modular Stripboard / Perfboard Casing for Raspberry Pi (Part 1)

I plan to play around with Bluetooth 4.0 LE in Linux using the Raspberry Pi as an hardware platform together with a small LCD display and possibly a relay board. Instead of having boards spread around, I thought it might be a good idea if I could design a case for my setup. I wanted to be able to connect small external boards and things like LEDs, it had to be easily assembled and disassembled, modular so that I could add or remove circuits easily, and about as cheap as existing “dumb” cases. So I though why not use stripboards (perfboards) for that? I searched the web to find out if other people had the same idea, and could only find one other person, but he does not appear to have completed assembly, nor actually used the stripboards to add hardware features. I decided to give it a try anyway, […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments on How to Find Configuration Options Quickly in Make Menuconfig

How to Find Configuration Options Quickly in Make Menuconfig

If you’ve ever compiled the Linux kernel, you’ll know make menuconfig is the command line used to unset/set options, disable/enable modules in order to match your hardware and requirements. I used to simply browse in the menu to find the option, and just remember the correct path. Sometimes I just looked at .config to locate the option I needed, and the possible path in make menuconfig. The first time you use a new option it can be time consuming. But I’ve just found there is a better way via Google+. “/” is actually available in make menuconfig, just like it is in vi/vim. If you want to enable NFS server in your kernel, press “/”, and search for NFSD. It will show the list of results with “NFSD” strings. NFS server support is right at the top, and the path is shown to be File Systems->Network File Systems. The neat […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 13 Comments on How-to Upgrade Firmware on AllWinner A31 mini PCs

How-to Upgrade Firmware on AllWinner A31 mini PCs

I’ve just received a mini PC powered by AllWinner A31, and I had to (re-)install the firmware, so I’ll explain the steps I followed in this post. The procedure is for CS868 mini PC, but it should be similar for all Android HDMI TV dongles, and media players based on AllWinner A20 or A31.The procedure below only works in Windows, and has been tested in Windows XP. I’ll mention a possible method in Linux at the end of the post. Download the latest CS868 firmware and tools, and extract “cs868 firmware and update tool 20130507.rar” file Download PhoenixUSBPro tool in English, and extract This is optional as the Chinese version is included in rar file above. Double-click on PhoenixUSBPro/PhoenixUSBPro.exe to start the program Click on Update to upgrade the tool to the latest version if need be. Click on Key to to load the key file (AW_LCTOOLS.key), on Image to […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 31 Comments on Installing Android Studio IDE in Ubuntu – Hello World Application

Installing Android Studio IDE in Ubuntu – Hello World Application

Google I/O started yesterday, and Google released an early access preview version of Android Studio, a new IDE based on IntelliJ IDEA with drag-and-drop GUI layout editor, Gradle-based build system, Lint tools, the ability to preview how apps look on different screen sizes, and more. This may eventually replace the Eclipse + ADT Plugin combination currently used, so I’ve decided to give it a try in Ubuntu 13.04 64-bit, but it’s also available for Windows and Mac OS X. First, head over to Android Studio Installation instructions, and download Android Studio for you operating system via your Browser (You’ll have to accept an EULA), then open a terminal to extract it:

Now let’s start Android Studio:

And I did press enter to continue, but Android Studio complained about JAVA_HOME no being defined. Let’s just install Sun Oracle JAVA JDK since this is the recommended method. I’ve used the  […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments on How to Play Games in Android mini PCs / STBs With a PS3 Bluetooth Controller

How to Play Games in Android mini PCs / STBs With a PS3 Bluetooth Controller

Android mini PCs ( HDMI TV dongles) are great to make your TV smart, and you may expect to be able to play Android games on your TV easily. The reality is that the keyboard and mouse, or remote controls used with those devices, are not suitable for games, and most games do not play at all. Of course, OUYA and GameStick projects will take care of this, as well as the recently available Project SHIELD ($349) , but if you already have one of those mini PCs, you may not want to spend the money for another device. Luckily there’s a solution, and with some efforts, you can play many games, but not all, with a PS3 Bluetooth controller connected to your Android mini PC or Set-Top Box. I decided to give it a try by buying “GOIGAME Rechargeable Bluetooth Wireless DoubleShock III Controller for PS3” for $16.60, which […]

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