Embedded Linux Conference 2014 Schedule

The Tenth Embedded Linux Conference (ELC 2014) will take place on April 29 – May 1, 2014 at the San Jose Marriott in San Jose, California. The event will feature 90+ sessions on embedded Linux, Android and IoT with over 450 attendees expected to attend. It will also be co-located with Android Builders Summit and the AllSeen Alliance Hackfest. Even if you can’t attend it’s still interesting to see what will be discussed at the event to get a grasp of on-going developments, learn a few things about different optimization techniques, and so on. So I’ve gone through the sessions’ description, and I’ve designed my own virtual schedule with sessions that could be of interest. April 29 9:00 – 9:30 – Keynote: The Paradox of embedded and Open Source by Tim Bird, Sony Mobile Linux has taken the embedded world by storm.  Billions (with a ‘B’) of devices have now shipped […]

Ubuntu 14.04 LTS Released

Every two years, Canonical releases Long Term Support (LTS) version of Ubuntu Linux based operating systems. The previous version was Ubuntu 12.04 LTS “Precise Pangolin”, and the latest Ubuntu 14.04 LTS “Trusty Tahr” has just been released with a 5 year support commitment for bug fixes and security patches. The company also releases other version every 6 months without long term support. There has not been major changes to this version, at least compared to Ubuntu 13.10, with the development team focusing on performance and stability improvements. For the first time, this LTS release also includes Kubuntu, Edubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu GNOME, Ubuntu Kylin, and Ubuntu Studio. It is also the first long-term support release to support “arm64” architecture for 64-bit ARM systems. Some notable others changes for Ubuntu Desktop include: Support for High-DPI screens and desktop scaling New screen saver and lock screen New window decorations, with improved appearance […]

How to Upgrade Firmware in Amlogic S802 Devices

Shenzhen Tomato has finally sent me an updated firmware (password: 17r0) for M8 / TM8 Android TV box powered by Amlogic S802. This firmware is rooted, and adds support for Google Apps (Play Store, Gmail and so on), among others things. So it’s a good time to try out and write about the firmware update instructions which are very similar to AML8726-MX firmware instructions. Bear in mind that firmware is usually specific to a given hardware platform, and if you try it on another non-compatible S802 TV box, you may brick your device. Standard “OTA” Method Any Windows, Mac OS, Linux computer or even your own Android device should be able to handle is as you just need to download, extract and copy files to an SD card. I’ve done the procedure from a computer running Ubuntu 13.04: Download the firmware (e.g. TM8 ap6330_03102014A_0410_ROOT.rar), and extract it Copy the files […]

pcDuino3 Development Board Features AllWinner A20 SoC, Arduino Headers

The first pcDuino board powered by AllWinner A10 has been available for about a year, later last year pcDuino V2 was released with a built-in Wi-Fi modules and mechanically and software compatible Arduino headers, and now pcDuino3 has been announced in a form factor similar to pcDuino V2 board but replacing AllWinner A10 Cortex A8 SoC with AllWinner A20 dual core Cortex A7, and improving overall specs such as faster Ethernet, the addition of a SATA port, and LiPo support. pcDuino3 specifications: SoC – AllWinner A20 dual core ARM Cortex A7 @ 1.0 GHz, with Mali 400MP2 GPU System Memory – 1GB DRAM Storage – 4GB NAND Flash, SATA connector, and microSD card slot (up to 32GB) Video Output – HDMI 1.4 with HDCP support, LVDS header Audio Out –  3.5mm analog audio interface, I2S stereo digital audio interface Connectivity – WiFi, 10/100M Ethernet USB – 1x USB host, 1x […]

Linaro 14.03 Release with Linux Kernel 3.14 and Android 4.4.2

Linaro 14.03 has just been released with Linux Kernel 3.14-rc7 (baseline), Linux Kernel 3.10.33 (LSK), and Android 4.4.2. This month, I could not find any major changes or updates, but work has been performed on big.LITTLE, Samsung Arndale / Arndale-octa, HiSilicon K3V2 and D01 boards and Broadcom Capri hardware, as well as ARMv8 models. Here are the highlights of this release: Linaro Stable Kernel (LSK) 3.10.33-2014.03 big.LITTLE support – ARM MP patch set, IKS (ARMv7 only). Interactive scheduler enhancements ARMv8 features – CPU frequency scaling, CPU topology, CPU suspend Power efficient workqueue support Android v3.10 patch set from AOSP GATOR ARMv8 4xA57 4xA53 FVP (Fixed Virtual Platform) and Versatile Express TC2 support Linux Linaro 3.14-rc7-2014.03 GATOR version 5.17 Android topic (linaro-android-3.14-merge) updated to get the recent code from AOSP uprobes v7 (new version) Updated big-LITTLE-pmu topic from ARM LT (Landing team) Updated basic Capri board support from Broadcom LT (bcm590xx […]

Giayee P105 is a Wall-Mountable Rockchip based Android / Ubuntu mini PC with a VGA Output

There are plenty of Android TV Boxes or HDMI TV dongles based on Rockchip RK3066 or RK3188. What makes Giayee P105 computer different is that they completely got rid of the HDMI port and replaced it with a VGA port, and the mini PC, and they also added mount option to attach the device to a wall or the back of your monitor. There are two versions of Giayee P105: P105-D with a dual core RK3168 SoC, and P105-Q with RK3188 quad core processor. Giayee P105 Specifications: SoC P105-D – Rockchip RK3168 dual core ARM Cortex A9 @ 1.2GHz with PowerVR SGX540 GPU P105-Q – Rockchip RK3188 quad core ARM Cortex A9 @ 1.6GHz with Mali-400 MP4 GPU @ up to  600MHz System Memory – 1 to 2GB DDR3 Storage – 1 to 32G NAND Flash Video Output – VGA – Resolution: 800×600 up to 1920×1080 Audio I/O – 1x Audio […]

Huawei D01 Server Board Features 16 ARM Cortex A15 Cores with up to 64 GB RAM, 3 SATA, 2 GbE Ports

During Linaro 14.02 release, I noticed a Huawei D01 board with 16 ARM Cortex A15 core, but details were lacking. Charbax was a Linaro Connect Asia earlier this month, and he could film the board in action, and interview the development team about this server board, and software development. Huawei D01 specifications: Processor HiSilicon SoC with16 x ARM Cortex-A15 CPU Core @ max. 1.5GHz (up to 84000 DMIPS) Support for CPU configuration as AMP/SMP Configurable Big or Little endian. Default: Little endian System Memory – 2x 64bit DDR3 DRAM Dual Inline Memory up to 1600 MHz, Module(DIMM) sockets:(2)&(3) . Default capacity: 8GB, upgradeable to 64GB Storage – 2x 1Gb NOR Flash, 2x 512MB NAND Flash, 3x SATA III for 2.5″ hard drives or SSD, 1x SD card Connectivity – 2x 10/100/1000Mbit/s Gigabit Ethernet ports, 1x 10/100Mbit/s FE port Other Peripheral Interfaces 2x USB 2.0 Host ports 2x UART, 4x I2C, […]

Selecting the Best Adobe Flash Player in Linux for x86 and ARM

I’ve had countless and recurrent crashes caused by Adobe flash plugin either in Firefox and Chromium, mainly while playing videos from YouTube or other online video services that still mostly use flash, instead of HTML5. Adobe flash death is certain, but up to now it has been soooo slow, so I doubt that thing will truly die any time soon, and unfortunately it will probably be with us for many years to come. To work around the issue, I started by enabling Youtube HTML5 player, and try to play embedded videos inside YouTube instead of the orignal website. I still had crashes from time to time, and this method did not help with other video services. So I decided to check out what I could do to fix the issue. When you go to http://www.adobe.com/software/flash/about/ you can check your flash version, and Adobe will also list the player version for […]

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