Linux 6.8 release – Notable changes, Arm, RISC-V, and MIPS architectures

Linux 6.8 release

Linus Torvalds has just announced the release of Linux 6.8 on the Linux kernel mailing list: So it took a bit longer for the commit counts to come down this release than I tend to prefer, but a lot of that seemed to be about various selftest updates (networking in particular) rather than any actual real sign of problems. And the last two weeks have been pretty quiet, so I feel there’s no real reason to delay 6.8. We always have some straggling work, and we’ll end up having some of it pushed to stable rather than hold up the new code. Nothing worrisome enough to keep the regular release schedule from happening. As usual, the shortlog below is just for the last week since rc7, the overall changes in 6.8 are obviously much much bigger. This is not the historically big release that 6.7 was – we seem to […]

Add WiFi connectivity to older USB printers with Orange Pi 3G-IoT-A and UoWPrint print server

Orange Pi 3G-IoT-A printer server

I previously used an inexpensive CHIP board as a Linux printer and scanner server for the Canon MP250 USB multi-function printer. It took a while to make it work with a long list of instructions and even then the scanner function was not working very reliably. ValdikSS’s UoWPrint driverless printing and scanning server aims to simplify the process for older USB printers and also supports AirPrint and Mopria standards over WiFi. The older Orange Pi 3G-IoT-A board was the hardware of choice for this project due to its ultra-low price. The resulting product enables users to convert their old USB printer (or MFP) into a WiFi printer/MFP and print and scan without drivers from Windows, macOS, and Linux, as well as mobile operating systems such as iOS/Android. ValdikSS told CNX Software he spent a considerable amount of time backporting patches required to run modern Debian 12 to the kernel 3.2.67 […]

Orange Pi AIPro SBC features a 20 TOPS Huawei Ascend AI SoC

Orange Pi Huawei Ascent SBC

Orange Pi AIPro is a new single board computer for AI applications that features a new (and unnamed) Huawei Ascend AI quad-core 64-bit processor delivering up to 20 TOPS (INT8) or 8 TOPS (FP16) of AI inference performance. The SBC comes with up to 16GB LPDDR4X and a 512Mbit SPI flash but also supports other storage options such as a microSD card, an eMMC flash module, and/or an M.2 NVMe or SATA SSD. The board also features two HDMI 2.0 ports, one MIPI DSI connector, and an AV port for video output, two MIPI CSI camera interfaces, Gigabit Ethernet and WiFi 5 connectivity, a few USB ports, and a 40-pin GPIO header for expansion. Orange Pi AIPro specifications: SoC – Huawei Ascend quad-core 64-bit (I’d assume RISC-V) processor delivering up to 20 TOPS (INT8) or 8TOPS (FP16) AI performance and equipped with an unnamed 3D GPU System Memory – 8GB […]

Linux 6.6 LTS release – Highlights, Arm, RISC-V and MIPS architectures

Linux 6.6 release

The Linux 6.6 release has just been announced by Linus Torvalds on the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML): So this last week has been pretty calm, and I have absolutely no excuses to delay the v6.6 release any more, so here it is. There’s a random smattering of fixes all over, and apart from some bigger fixes to the r8152 driver, it’s all fairly small. Below is the shortlog for last week for anybody who really wants to get a flavor of the details. It’s short enough to scroll through. This obviously means that the merge window for 6.7 opens tomorrow, and I appreciate how many early pull requests I have lined up, with 40+ ready to go. That will make it a bit easier for me to deal with it, since I’ll be on the road for the first week of the merge window. Linus About two months ago, […]

Orange Pi 5, 5B, and 5 Plus SBCs are now offered with 32GB RAM

Orange Pi 5 Plus 32GB LPDDR4x RAM

Rockchip RK3588 SoC has long been advertised as supporting up to 32GB RAM, but the higher RAM capacity was mostly vaporware until Firefly introduced versions of their RK3588 boards and modules with 32GB RAM at the beginning of the summer. Orange Pi has now unveiled its own 32GB RAM versions of the Orange Pi 5, Orange Pi 5B, and Orange Pi 5 Plus single board computers powered by the Rockchip RK3588S or RK3588 octa-core Cortex- A76/A55 SoC. Besides the higher RAM capacity, nothing else has changed and for reference, here are the Orange Pi 5 Plus 32GB specifications: Orange Pi 5 Plus specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3588 CPU – Octa-core processor with 4x Cortex-A76 cores @ up to 2.4 GHz, 4x Cortex-A55 cores @ up to 1.8 GHz Arm Mali-G610 MP4 GPU with support for OpenGL ES1.1/2.0/3.2, OpenCL 2.2, and Vulkan 1.2 6 TOPS AI accelerator with support for INT4/INT8/INT16/FP16 […]

Orange Pi Zero 2W – A Raspberry Pi Zero 2W alternative with up to 4GB RAM

Orange Pi Zero 2W

As its name implies the Orange Pi Zero 2W is an alternative to the Raspberry Pi Zero 2W with basically the same features and form factor, but equipped with a slightly more powerful Allwinner H618 quad-core Cortex-A53 clocked at 1.5 GHz, and more RAM options from 1GB to 4GB. The new Orange Pi board comes with a mini HDMI port, two USB-C ports, WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0 wireless module, a microSD card for the OS, a 16MB SPI flash for the bootloader, the usual 40-pin Raspberry Pi GPIO header, and a 24-pin “function” connector used for expansion boards and located where the camera connector is on the Pi Zero 2W. Orange Pi Zero 2W specifications: SoC – Allwinner H618 quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor @ up to 1.5GHz with 1MB L2 cache and Arm Mali-G31 MP2 GPU with support for OpenGL ES 1.0/2.0/3.2, OpenCL 2.0, Vulkan 1.1 System Memory – […]

Orange Pi Compute Module 4 – A low-cost Rockchip RK3566-powered alternative to Raspberry Pi CM4

Orange Pi Compute Module 4

Orange Pi Compute Module 4 is a system-on-module mechanically and electrically compatible with the Raspberry Pi CM4, but powered by a Rockchip RK3566 quad-core Arm Cortex-A55 AI processor just like the Radxa CM3 introduced a few years ago, or more recently the Banana Pi BPI-CM2 (RK3568). The new module, also called Orange Pi CM4 for shorts, comes with 1GB to 8GB RAM, 8GB to 128GB eMMC flash, and an optional 128/256MBit SPI flash, as well as a Gigabit Ethernet PHY and on-board WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0. It comes with the two 100-pin high-density connectors found on the Raspberry Pi CM4, and a smaller 24-pin connector for extra I/Os. Orange Pi Compute Module 4 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3566 quad-core Arm Cortex-A55 processor @ 1.8 GHz with Arm Mali-G52 2EE GPU, 0.8 TOPS AI accelerator, 4Kp60 H.265/H.264/VP9 video decoding, 1080p100f H.265/H.264 video encoding System Memory – 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, or […]

Orange Pi 3B – A Rockchip RK3566 SBC with an M.2 NVMe/SATA SSD socket, up to 8GB RAM

Orange Pi 3B

Orange Pi 3B is a new Rockchip RK3566 SBC that’s like a supercharged Raspberry Pi 3B board with the same form factor, but with a faster processor, up to 8GB RAM, and support for multiple storage options with a microSD card slot, an eMMC flash socket, an M.2 Key-M socket for NVMe (PCIe 2.1) or SATA III SSDs, as well as an SPI flash that should enable features like network boot. The board also features HDMI 2.0 and eDP display intefaces, a Gigabit Ethernet port, a WiFI 5 and Bluetooth 5.0 wireless module, four USB ports, MIPI DSI and CSI connector, and the 40-pin Raspberry Pi GPIO header. It’s powered through a USB-C port taking 5V instead of the micro USB port found in the Raspberry Pi 3B. Orange Pi 3B specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3566 CPU – Quad-core Cortex-A55 processor @ up to 1.8 GHz GPU – Arm Mali-G52 […]

EDATEC Raspberry Pi 5 fanless case