x86 News - CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

July 30, 2026 by Debashis Das - 2 Comments

NightRun UEFI application boots a local LLM on Raspberry Pi 5 and x86 PCs without an OS

Running LLMs locally on an SBC or mini PC is a good way to keep your data private, but they typically require a conventional operating system, which uses a good portion of system memory. NightRun is an experimental open-source project that addresses this issue by booting a machine directly into a local LLM from a USB drive or microSD card, without loading a conventional OS. By removing the operating system, NightRun makes more RAM and memory bandwidth available for AI inference. The runtime is written in Rust, and during boot it loads a quantized model (1.3 GB to 2.4 GB) directly into RAM while verifying its CRC-32 checksums. After the model is loaded, storage is “sealed,” meaning any later attempt to read from the disk will trigger a hard fault. NightRun key features: Hardware support – Supports 64-bit x86_64 UEFI PCs (Secure Boot disabled) and Raspberry Pi 5 via USB […]

June 18, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

UP WCL – A credit card-sized Wildcat Lake SBC with up to 24GB LPDDR5, 256GB UFS

AAEON’s UP WCL is an upcoming credit card-sized single board computer (SBC) powered by an Intel Wildcat Lake processor up to the Core 7 350 hexa-core CPU paired with up to 24GB LPDDR5 and 256GB UFS storage. The board also features an HDMI 2.1 video output, a 2.5GbE RJ45 jack, an M.2 Key-E socket for optional WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity, three USB 3.2 ports, and a few wafers for I/O expansion. AAEON UP WCL specifications: Wildcat Lake SoC (one or the other) Intel Core 3 304 5-core CPU – 1x P-cores @ 1.5/4.3 GHz (Turbo) + 4x LPE-cores @ 1.4/3.3 GHz (Turbo) GPU – 1-core Intel Xe3 Graphics @ 2.3 GHz (9 TOPS) NPU – 15 TOPS Intel Core 5 320 6-core CPU – 2x P-cores @ 1.5/4.6 GHz (Turbo) + 4x LPE-cores @ 1.4/3.4 GHz (Turbo) GPU – 2-core Intel Xe3 Graphics @ 2.5 GHz (20 TOPS) NPU – […]

May 20, 2026May 20, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 24 Comments

ODROID-H5 – A $250 Intel Core i3-N300 SBC with 10GbE networking, four M.2 PCIe slots

Hardkernel ODROID-H5 is an affordable Intel Core i3-N300 octa-core Alder Lake-N SBC providing a 10GbE RJ45 networking jack, and four M.2 PCIe slots for storage, wired/wireless networking, or AI accelerator expansion. It relies on the same SoC as in the earlier ODROID-H4 Ultra SBC, but trades a single PCIe Gen3 x4 M.2 slot and four SATA ports for four M.2 slots, and upgrades from dual 2.5GbE to single 10GbE. It still features four USB ports, but only one USB 3.0 port, and three USB 2.0 ports. ODROID-H5 specifications: SoC- Intel Core i3-N300 CPU – Octa-core “Alder Lake-N” processor @ up to 3.8 GHz (Turbo single-core) or 2.3 GHz (Turbo multi-core) with 6MB cache GPU – 32EU Intel UHD Graphics @ 1.25 GHz TDP: 7W System Memory – Up to 64GB DDR5 4800 MHz SO-DIMM memory Storage Up to 4x 2280 NVMe SSDs via M.2 slots (See Expansion section) eMMC flash […]

May 19, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

Ubuntu Core 26 targets IoT devices and embedded systems, offers up to 15 years of security maintenance

Canonical has just introduced Ubuntu Core 26, based on the recently-released Ubuntu 26.04 LTS and designed for IoT devices and embedded systems, with precise Linux builds, optimized OTA updates, live kernel patching, and enhanced hardware-backed protection for mission-critical deployments. Offered with up to 15 years of security maintenance, Ubuntu Core 26 minimal, immutable operating system enables reduced installation times, 90% smaller OTA updates, and precision-led builds via Chisel. Every component is a containerized snap, just like in prior Ubuntu Core releases. Canonical says it can help companies meet requirements for the EU Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) with securely designed and private AI deployments relying on hardware-based trust. Ubuntu Core 26 highlights: Faster snap installation and updates – An improved snap-delta format reduces update sizes between 50% and 90% for most snaps. For instance, updates to the Core base snaps dropped from 16MB to 1.5MB in size. This lowers data usage […]

April 28, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 21 Comments

What a difference two years make? Comparing SBC prices in 2024 and 2026

Looking back, 2024 feels like a golden year for single board computers, as the increasing price of RAM (and storage and other components) since late 2025 due to the AI demand has made those much less attractive, price/performance ratio-wise. We’ve already documented Raspberry Pi SBC price hikes, and after several increases, the Raspberry Pi 5 16GB went from $120 to $305, or a 154% change in price. Yesterday, I noticed the Banana Pi BPI-M4 Zero had a new version with 4GB RAM and 32GB eMMC flash, and a reader was quick to point out the $181 price tag to Europe was painful, bearing in mind it also includes VAT and shipping. Looking at the original December 2023 article, the BPI-M4 Zero 2GB/8GB sold for $28.90 plus shipping, and it now shows up at $115 before taxes. That’s a 297% hike, or about four times the price from a little over […]

April 24, 2026April 24, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

Ubuntu 26.04 LTS “Resolute Raccoon” released with Linux 7.0

Canonical has just announced the release of Ubuntu 26.04 LTS “Resolute Raccoon” Linux distribution about two years after Ubuntu 24.04 LTS “Noble Numbat” was introduced. The new version of the operating system comes with the just-released Linux 7.0 kernel, GNOME 50, and a range of updates and new features. As a long-term support release, Ubuntu 26.04 LTS will be supported for 5 years until April 2031, and an Ubuntu Pro subscription provides access to ESM (Expanded Security Maintenance) updates for ten years, or until April 2036. One of the benefits of using the latest Linux 7.0 kernel is support for Intel Core Ultra Series 3 “Panther Lake” processors, including Intel Xe3 integrated graphics and the integrated NPU (Neural Processing Unit) optimizations, which may also benefit Wildcat Lake processors (aka Panther Lake Lite). Canonical also highlights TPM-backed full-disk encryption, improved support for application permission prompting, Livepatch updates for Arm-based servers, and […]

March 11, 2026 by Debashis Das - No Comments

AMD Ryzen AI Embedded P100 series expands with up to 12 Zen 5 cores, 80 TOPS of AI performance

AMD Ryzen AI Embedded P100 series Embedded World 2026

At CES 2026, we saw AMD launch its new Ryzen AI Embedded P100 series of SoCs, with four- and six-core models designed for Edge AI. At the time of writing, the lineup had six SKUs, with higher-core variants to be announced later. Now at Embedded World 2026, AMD has expanded the Ryzen AI Embedded P100 series with six additional SKUs available in commercial and industrial temperature grades, while the automotive-grade SoCs remain unchanged. The new SOCs integrate 8-12 Zen 5 CPU cores (upgrade from 4-6 cores ), RDNA 3.5 graphics, and an XDNA 2 NPU on a single chip to deliver up to 80 TOPS (upgrade from 50 TOPS) of combined/system AI performance AMD claims up to 39% higher multithreaded CPU performance and 2.1× higher total system TOPS compared to Ryzen Embedded 8000 Series. They support unified CPU-GPU memory, enabling low-latency processing for tasks such as multi-camera machine vision, Visual […]

February 24, 2026February 24, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

GyroidOS virtualization solution aims to secure embedded devices, ease cybersecurity certification

Maintained by Fraunhofer AISEC, GyroidOS is an open-source, multi-arch OS-level virtualization solution designed for embedded devices with hardware security features, and aiming to support security certification processes such as Common Criteria (ISO/IEC 15408), DIN SPEC 27070 – IDS Trust Security profile, and IEC-62443 cybersecurity standards. The virtualization layer is based on Linux-specific features like namespaces, cgroups, and capabilities to provide isolation of different guest operating system stacks on top of a single, shared Linux kernel. It offers a much smaller footprint and additional separation of privileged instances compared to other container solutions, such as Docker. GyroidOS security features Container isolation based on a modularized OS-level virtualization layer Secure boot (e.g., UEFI on x86) Kernel module signing Signed GuestOSes (containers) Measured boot and remote attestation Full disk encryption coupled to TPM and secure boot Restriction of superuser in containers with Linux capabilities Fine-grained device access with device cgroups whitelists Secure Element […]