Review of Ubuntu 18.04 on ODROID-XU4Q Development Board

ODROID-XU4Q

Hardkernel released their first Samsung Exynos 5422 octa-core board in July 2014 with ODROID-XU3, which at the time was really a powerful board, but also pricey at $179. Later that year, the company released a cheaper version ($99) called ODROID-XU3 Lite, which I had the chance to review with Ubuntu 14.04 and Android 4.4. The company’s adventure with Exynos 5422 processor did not stop there, as in 2015 they released the smaller and even cheaper ($74) ODROID-XU4 board, and last year launched a fanless version of the board with ODROID-XU4Q featuring a large heatsink. More recently, the company also introduced ODROID-HC1 and ODROID-MC1 solutions for respectively network storage and clusters applications. That’s the short history of Hardkernel Exynos 5422 boards as I remember it, and that means that since 2014, or nearly 4 years so far, the company has kept updating Ubuntu and Android firmware for their board, including the […]

Acme Systems CM3-PANEL Panel PC based on Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3 Sells for 99 Euros and Up

After their first Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3 based board called CM3-Home designed for home automation, Acme Systems has designed a new RPi CM3 carrier board called CM3-PANEL for panel PCs / tablets. They sell four variants of their panel PC built around the board with or without WiFi module and/or 868MHz RF module, and offer customization services for people willing to purchase at least 100 pieces. CM3-PANEL based Panel PC  specifications: Socket for Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3 Display – 7″ (800×480 resolution) with 10-point capacitive touch Camera – MIPI connector for Raspberry Pi Camera Up to 24 GPIO lines available for extensions or LCD backlight control Camera led and camera shutdown control SPI bus (5 GPIOs) Hardware PWM lines (2 GPIOs) Serial line PCM line (4 GPIOs) I2C bus Model specific features: CM3-PANEL-W – 802.11 b/g/n WiFi @ 2.4GHz (RaLink RT5370N USB module) CM3-PANEL-U – 1x USB host […]

NXP QorIQ LayerScape LX2160A is a 16-core Arm Cortex A72 Communication Processor with 100 Gbit/s Ethernet

NXP Semiconductors has been working  on a high-end communication processor with their QorIQ LayerScape LX2160A SoC equipped with 16 Arm Cortex A72 cores, 16 Ethernet ports supporting 1 to 100 Gbit/s, as well as 24 PCIe Gen4 lanes, and four SATA 3.0 ports. NXP LX2160A key specifications / features: Processor – 16x Arm Cortex-A72 CPU cores, running up to 2.2GHz with 8MB L2 cache, 8MB platform cache Memory I/F – 2 x DDR4 72b including ECC, up to 3200 MT/s, maximum capacity of 256 GB Storage – 4 x SATA3.0 Ethernet Up to 16 Ethernet ports Supported Ethernet speeds include 1, 2.5, 10, 25, 40, 50, and 100 gigabits per second 130Gbps Layer 2 Ethernet switch PCIe – Up to 24 PCIe Gen4 lanes, supporting ports as wide as x8 24 SerDes lanes, operating up to 28GHz Acceleration Engines – 50Gbps security accelerator, 100Gbps data compression/decompression engine Security – Secure […]

Amlogic S905D2 Quad Core Cortex A53 Processor Coming Soon with Google Fuchsia Support

Amlogic-S905D2

Earlier today, I wrote about the latest version of USB Burning Tool, and noticed added support for Amlogic “905D2” processor in the changelog. I had heard about Amlogic S905X2, but S905D2? Never. I could find information in some recent Buildroot/Linux release notes, and as one would expect it’s another quad core Cortex A53 processor, and likely an update of S905D processor targeting set-top boxes with multiple independent tuners. Amlogic S905D2 specifications known so far: Processor – Arm Quad Cortex-A53 at up to 1.896 GHz GPU – Arm Dvalin MP2 GPU (Likely meaning Arm Mali-G31MP2) Memory I/F – DDR3/4, LPDDR3/4 Security – TrustZone & TVP Video decoding – 4K H265, VP9, and AVS2 Video Encoding – 1080p H264 H265 Video I/F – HDMI-Tx up to 4K2K, CVBS Ethernet – 10/100M/1000M IP License – Dolby, DTS There’s no mention about TS or DVB,  but it appears the processor may be clocked faster […]

RockPro64 Board is Now Available for $59.99 and Up for Early Adopters & Developers

Several Rockchip RK3399 development boards and SBCs were announced or launched in Q4 2017 / Q1 2018, including Orange Pi RK3399, ODROID-N1, Rock960, etc… RockPro64 was the most aggressively priced of the lot as it was expected to launch for about $60. The good news is that Pine 64 is now selling the first production batch for $59.99 (2GB RAM) or $79.99 (4GB RAM). The less good news is that software is still being worked on so the company only recommends it for early adapters and developers. RockPro64 specifications have changed a bit since the board now comes with LPDDR4 memory instead of LPDDR3: SoC – Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core processor with 2x ARM Cortex A72 cores up to 2.0 GHz, 4x Cortex A53 cores, and an Arm Mali-T860 MP4 GPU System Memory – 2 or 4 GB LPDDR4, dual channel Storage – eMMC flash module (up to 128 GB), micro […]

Ubuntu 18.04 Released – What’s New?

Canonical should release Ubuntu 18.04 “Bionic Beaver” long term support distribution later today. One of the most obvious change compared to Ubuntu 16.04 is the switch from Unity to GNOME 3.28 resulting in a fairly different user interface, although the company tried to keep the look-and-feel are close of the Unity version as possible. There are still some differences such as the dash now appearing on the top center of the screen. Eventually, Ubuntu 18.04 Desktop ISO file will be found on Ubuntu website, but in the meantime, I could update an Ubuntu 17.10 virtual machine to Ubuntu 18.04 using the following commands:

I’ll update my main machine a little later, maybe after the dot release in July, and my server after that, just in case some bugs have gone unnoticed. You’ll be greeted with a “What’s new in Ubuntu” window after upgrade showing the main part of the […]

Ubuntu Touch to Be Officially Supported on Librem 5 Open Source Smartphone

Ubuntu Touch looked really promising as a Linux mobile operating system supporting mobile desktop convergence, so eventually some people would have been able to use a single device for their mobile and desktop needs. If was not for lack of trying, but sadly Canonical had to end the development of Ubuntu Touch due to lack of interest from phone manufacturers and the community at large, focusing their resources instead of the cloud and IoT. But some people were still very enthousiastic about Ubuntu Touch, Unity and convergence, so since the code was open source, UBPorts continued working on Ubuntu Touch on their own.  UBPorts developers have now collaborated with Purism to make Ubuntu Touch one of the officially supported operating systems for the Librem 5 smartphone. Librem 5 will still ship with GNOME based PureOS, but Purism will support customers who want to easily install Ubuntu Touch or PureOS with […]

NanoPi K1 Plus is a $35 Allwinner H5 Development Board using Raspberry Pi Form Factor

NanoPi-K1-Plus

Almost exactly one year ago, FriendlyELEC launched NanoPi K2 board powered by Amlogic S905 processor, following Raspberry Pi 3 form factor, but adding an eMMC flash socket, Gigabit Ethernet, 4K video playback, an I2S header, more memory (2GB RAM), and doing without a camera or LCD display interface. The company has now launched another similar looking model – NanoPi K1 Plus – based on Allwinner H5 processor, also equipped with one DVP camera connector, but losing one USB 2.0 port, and HDMI is limited to 4K @ 30 Hz. NanoPi K1 Plus specifications: SoC – Allwinner H5 quad-core Cortex-A53 processor @ 1.3+ GHz with Mali-450MP GPU System Memory – 2GB DDR3 Storage – micro SD card slot, eMMC flash interface Video Output – HDMI 1.4 up to 4K @ 30 fps, CVBS (composite) Audio HDMI digital audio output 3.5mm audio jack On-board microphone 7-pin 2.54mm pin header Connectivity –  Gigabit […]