Category: Linaro Connect

Wookey on Telepresence robot at Linaro Connect San Francisco 2017

Posted by – September 28, 2017

Wookey (who I also previously interviewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XdgQ7AmWX0) has been bootstrapping ILP32 in Debian, the 32-bit ABI that will run on aarch64 core with no 32-bit instruction set support. He has been doing this using Helmut Grohne’s excellent ‘rebootstrap’, which uses the work Debian has done over the last few years to make it self-bootstrapping (multiarch, dependency-loop removal, build profiles, cross-building support, ‘botch’ dependency analysis tools) to automate the process of a bootstrap. This lets people doing bootstraps of new architectures concentrate on just the stuff that has actually changed due to the new arch, and allows repeatable builds.

He is attending Linaro connect in San Francisco this year using a Beam telepresence robot, in order to avoid the hefty couple of tonnes of emissions that flying across the Atlantic generates. That’s slightly more than one’s person’s annual sustainable allowance for _everything_: food, transport, heating, stuff, and he reckons eating is more important than geek conferences given that we really do have to choose…

Autofocus test on Firmware 2.0 Panasonic GH5

Posted by – September 28, 2017

I am doing my first handheld autofocus test using the Panasonic GH5 and its new Firmware 2.0 update. I’m hoping that the auto-focus may be good enough for my style of handheld, always moving, constantly re-framing, focusing on faces and things people show off. What do you think about this Autofocus performance? This was filmed with Serge Broslavsky at Linaro Connect 2017, see his GH5 setup here. This video was filmed at 4K60p at 150mbit/s H264. Thus far the Panasonic GH5 firmware can’t film 4K60 in HLG HDR mode and they don’t yet offer an H265 option at 4K60 to save on bitrate at same quality for faster YouTube uploading.

Bero builds ARM Desktop PC Quad-core ARM Cortex-A72 Marvell MACCHIATObin

Posted by – September 28, 2017

Bero (Bernhard Rosenkränzer) from Linaro is building his own 64bit ARMv8 quad-core ARM Cortex-A72 Desktop PC with Nvidia GPU (possibly with a Radon GPU card support later), 16GB RAM, today is Wednesday, he hopes to have it running by Friday then I can film a new video. Bero and his colleagues have also worked on many other things such as AOSP TV, Trebble related unifying builds adapting a new partition layout enabling automatic updates among kernel builds to work properly.

OpenGPU on Altera Cyclone V FPGA at Linaro Connect 2017

Posted by – September 27, 2017

Fabrício Ribeiro Toloczko, ​Systems engineer of The Technological Integrated Systems Laboratory (LSI-tec) and CITI-USP (Interdisciplinary Center in Interactive Technologies from University of São Paulo) presents the OpenGPU, a real GPU implementation that proposes a methodology to progressively develop hardware from a software implementation, making the process for producing hardware more easy and fast. Today, it runs on an Altera Cyclone V SoC FPGA with a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9. This processor is used to keep running a Linux distribution, while sending and receiving data through the memory mapped communication with the FPGA. Mesa3D and Gallium’s softpipe driver are used for creating most of the graphic pipeline. The FPGA holds one rasterizer, which is a fixed function in graphic pipeline. With that, it’s possible to run any OpenGL application, doing the hardware and software changes in real time.

Serge Broslavsky’s GH5 setup with Zoom H5, monopod, light, some DIY, some from Aliexpress

Posted by – September 27, 2017

Serge Broslavsky is a software engineer at Linaro, he is filming a documentary about Upstreaming. Here he shows his Panasonic GH5 camera equipment which features the Panasonic 12-35 f/2.8 markII lens, Zoom H5 audio recorder, Zoom SSH-6 MS (stereo shotgun) capsule, Polsen OLM-20 Dual Omnidirectional Lavalier Microphone, DIY female TRS to dual male XLR cable. And from Aliexpress the Innorel H60 video head, Innorel RM80 video monopod with F-01 mini-tripod base for monopod, Long arca swiss style plate with dual flexible flash holders (both removed), QR-50 QR Plate Adapters (arca swiss style), 11″ Magic Arm, 7″ Magic Arm, Yongnuo YN300 video light, BB-6 fake NP-F battery (uses 6xAA), Boya BY-C10 shoe shockmount for audio recorder, Acoustic foam screen for shotgun microphone and more.

96Boards RoboMezzi, LoFive, PocketBeagle, PocketBone KiCAD, BeagleWire by Michael Welling of QWERTY

Posted by – September 27, 2017

Michael Welling of QWERTY Embedded Design at Linaro Connect 2017, showing off some of his custom PCB Designs including the 96boards mezzanine boards such as the RoboMezzi, RISC-V based LoFive development board (crowdfunding here), PocketBeagle, PocketBone KiCAD, BeagleWire and how he designs them in KiCAD and more.

You can read more about his projects below:

LoFive
Groupgetspage: https://groupgets.com/campaigns/353-lofive-risc-v
Hackaday.io page: https://hackaday.io/project/26909-lofive
Hackster.io page: https://www.hackster.io/mwelling/lofive-ab6d8a
SourceGithubRepository: https://github.com/mwelling/lofive

Mentions:
https://www.cnx-software.com/2017/08/31/lofive-is-a-tiny-open-source-hardware-board-based-on-sifive-fe310-risc-v-open-soc/
https://blog.adafruit.com/2017/09/23/lofive-risc-v-groupgetscom-sifiveinc/
https://hackaday.com/2017/09/18/a-smaller-cheaper-risc-v-board/
PocketBeagle
Homepage: https://beagleboard.org/pocket
SourceGithubRepository: https://github.com/beagleboard/pocketbeagle
PocketBoneKiCAD
Hackaday.io page: https://hackaday.io/project/19495-pocketbone-kicad
Hackster.io page: https://www.hackster.io/mwelling/pocketbone-kicad-4fba09
SourceGithubRepository: https://github.com/mwelling/pocketbone-kicad
Blogsandvideo:
https://hackaday.com/2017/04/15/an-even-smaller-beaglebone/
https://octavosystems.com/2017/07/25/hand-assembly-of-pocketbone-using-the-osd3358/
https://octavosystems.com/2017/04/20/pocketbone-kicad-design/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYUbEIdKWXg
BeagleWire
Hackaday.io page: https://hackaday.io/project/20989-beaglewire
Hackster.io page: https://www.hackster.io/46021/beaglewire-566292
GithubRepos:
https://github.com/mwelling/beagle-wire
https://github.com/pmezydlo/BeagleWire
GSoCProjectPage:
http://elinux.org/BeagleBoard/GSoC/BeagleWire_software_support
96boardscommunityinitiative
https://github.com/96boards/mezzanine-community

Christophe Arviset, ESA Gaia and Euclid Missions Online Data Sharing

Posted by – May 9, 2017

Christophe Arviset is the Head of the Data and Engineering Division at ESA’s European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC). The European Space Agency’s (ESA) current mission Gaia and upcoming one Euclid will generate massive amounts of astronomical data to be made freely available on-line through powerful data management systems. This big data era brings a change of paradigm and associated big challenges for building these missions’ archives. The current use case of “bring the data to the user” is being replaced by the new concept of “bring the user to the data”. This new generation of science archives is transforming into science exploitation and collaborative platforms, where the users can send her/his code to the data, run it on computing and storage services provided directly by the archive (where the data reside), and easily share all this with other scientists they’re collaborating with.

You can watch Christophe Arviset’s keynote at Linaro Connect here:

Speeding up Android boot with Bernhard Rosenkränzer, Linaro Mobile Group

Posted by – April 11, 2017

Bernhard Rosenkränzer, also known as Bero, on the Linaro Mobile Group, talks about some of the latest things Linaro is doing on Mobile, since many of the optimizations that he has been showing over the past years have been integrated by Google into Android, here talking about some of the latest things Linaro is doing to speed up the boot time of Android devices, speeding up all aspects of Android and mobile.

Andrea Gallo, Linaro Segment Group Manager, intern at Acorn Computers

Posted by – April 11, 2017

Andrea Gallo talks about his role at Linaro and the ROI value for Linaro members. He also covers his early days as software programmer and summer student at Acorn working on the very first ARM-based Archimedes, when he met ARM guru Sophie Wilson who I interviewed here 1of3, 2of3, 3of3 Andrea talks as well about the challenges that made Acorn turn into what ARM is today.

Linaro CEO George Grey at Linaro Connect Budapest 2017


Linaro CEO George Grey interview on the last day of the Linaro Connect in Budapest 2017, talking about Google joining Linaro as a club member, some of the latest developments at Linaro, the high amount of contributions from Linaro into Linux and open source, IoT, Servers, Mobile, Networking, Kernel, Gateways, Set-top-boxes, Smart TVs, Android, and a lot more. Other new Linaro members are HXT a joint venture between Qualcomm and the CHinese Government, Fujitsu with their new ARM Powered Supercomupter. You can watch George Grey’s opening keynote at Linaro Connect Budapest 2017 here.

Amit Kucheria, 96Boards Technical Lead about 96Boards evolution, IoT, mezzanine and future spec

Posted by – March 28, 2017

Amit Kucheria, 96Boards Technical Lead, Yang Zhang, 96Boards Director and Robert Wolff, 96Boards Community Manager host of the http://96boards.org/openhours talk about the 96Boards adoption process for chip makers and manufacturers. Amit and Robert dive deeper into the 96Boards evolution and specification, compliance and testing, and the OpenHours program. Highlighting many announcements from the previous day’s keynote, taking a look at a table full of 96Boards from Consumer edition to IoT edition and a bunch of community driven Mezzanine products. The 96Boards team takes a look at the different 96Boards footprints and talks about the future.

Jon Maddog Hall and Robert Wolff after the Linaro Opening Keynote

Posted by – March 28, 2017

Robert Wolff and Jon “maddog” Hall talk about the opening keynote from Linaro Connect in Budapest #BUD17. Check out maddog’s reaction to the on stage IoT demo, which used not only Cabon and Nitrogen IoT boards, but also the new Sensor Hub board. Robert and maddog also touched on the various 96Boards announcements around newly available Consumer, IoT and Enterprise edition boards such as the Orange Pi, Oxalis and the MediaTek X20 Professional development board and how it all fits in the 96Boards ecosystem.

96Boards MediaTek X20 Pro development board by ArcherMind

Posted by – March 25, 2017

ArcherMind presents the MediaTek X20 Pro 96Boards development board featuring the MediaTek X20 10-core heterogeneous processor, Tri-Cluster dual ARM Cortex-A72, octa ARM Cortex-A53 with Mali-T880 GPU and MediaTek’s multimedia support. The MediaTek X20 Pro development board also features 3G/4G LTE support, 2k LCM or two 1080P LCM,13M+13M dual camera you can read more about it here. This video also features ArcherMind’s Mstar Altra enterprise edition 96Boards based on Mstar MSD6A838 quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 featuring Mstar 4K M-Genuine Video Engine which supports MEMC, HDR, De-noise, color enhance and etc.

Yang Zhang, Director of 96Boards and Robert Wolff, Host of 96Boards Open Hours


Yang Zhang is the Director of Linaro’s http://96boards.org with Robert Wolff host of http://96boards.org/openhours talk about the status of the 40+ 96Boards that are in development, the 96Boards standard and latest news, IoT boards, extended boards, Enterprise boards and what may happen in the future.

David Rusling, Linaro CTO, status and roadmap of Linaro

Posted by – March 20, 2017

David Rusling talks about the latest things that are happening and going to happen at Linaro at Linaro Connect Budapest 2017. You can watch my interview with him from nearly 5 years ago here.

Zephyr Project, open source OS for IoT

Posted by – March 20, 2017

Matt Locke, Director of the Linaro IoT and Embedded Group (LITE) and Maureen Helm of NXP, one of the maintainers of the Zephyr Project which is a Linux Foundation hosted open source collaboration project, uniting leaders from across the industry to build a best-in-breed small, scalable, real-time operating system (RTOS) optimized for resource constrained devices, across multiple architectures. The Zephyr Project’s goal is to establish a neutral project where silicon vendors, OEMs, ODMs, ISVs, and OSVs can contribute technology to reduce the cost and accelerate time to market for developing the billions of devices that will make up the majority of the Internet of Things of the future.

The Zephyr Project is perfect for building simple connected sensors, LED wearables, up to modems and small IoT wireless gateways. Because the Zephyr OS is modular and supports multiple architectures, developers are able to easily tailor an optimal solution to meet their needs. As a true open source project, the community can evolve the project to support new hardware, developer tools, sensor and device drivers. Enhancements in security, device management capabilities, connectivity stacks and file systems can be easily implemented.

Qualcomm Dragonboard 410c at Linaro Connect Budapest 2017

Posted by – March 17, 2017

Following the http://96boards.org/openhours/ session at Linaro Connect Budapest 2017, Lawrence King, Engineer, Sr. Staff/Mgr at Qualcomm Canada, talks a bit about the history of Dragonboard (since my video of an early Dragonboard filmed with him at Computex 2011) leading to the Dragonboard 410c, the ecosystem that is being built around it and some of what’s to come from Qualcomm with Dragonboard.

Socionext SC2A11 ARM Server SoC is 24-core ARM Cortex-A53

Posted by – March 14, 2017

Socionext shows their new SC2A11 ARMv8 server SoC featuring 24 ARM Cortex-A53 cores and their SC2A20 Interconnect bridge. SC2A11 is a highly integrated low-power server system suitable for edge computing which processes data at the edge of the cloud in the IoT era. Large amount of data can be processed faster in memory by adopting the 64bit ARMv8 architecture. Up to 1536 cores can be configured in a system for uses such as web serving, indexing, cloud computing.

Linaro OP-TEE open-source security for the mass-market

Posted by – March 14, 2017

Joakim Bech talks about Linaro’s work in OP-TEE (Open Portable Trusted Execution Environment) small OS-like environment that sits aside a rich operating system, for instance Android. The purpose of the TEE is to keep all secret credentials and data manipulation in the small TEE rather than in a larger rich OS that is often the vulnerable target of malware and hackers in general. In order to reach this goal, application software is architected in a way such that sensitive functions are precisely defined and offloaded to the TEE in the form of Trusted Applications.

Apache Ambari on ARM server

Posted by – March 14, 2017

At Linaro Connect Budapest 2017, ARM and the Linaro LEG (Linaro Enterprise Group) team demonstrate Apache Ambari running on ARM servers. Apache Ambari is one of key Big Data components that provides an easy to use web interface to provision, manage and monitor Hadoop cluster and various other Big Data tools. In this demo Apache Ambari is running on 3 node cluster with Hadoop, YARN and Zookeeper, all on AARCH64 hardware.

With ARM servers getting into Datacenter, Linaro has been collaborating with ARM and ARM vendors in making sure Big data components work well in AARCH64 architecture. Porting and Building Apache Ambari on AARCH64 is one of the efforts the team has been working on apart from porting, building and benchmarking Hadoop, Spark, Hive, HBase and other Big data components. The team chose to showcase Apache Ambari as a high level component due to it being very intuitive, easy-to-use Hadoop management web UI backed by its RESTful APIs. Ambari provides a dashboard with metrics for CPU, Storage, memory utilization and also metrics for HDFS, MapReduce, Pig, Hive etc for monitoring Hadoop Cluster. It also provides step-by-step wizard for managing Hadoop Clusters (like adding nodes, taking down nodes, doing rolling upgrades, etc).

As of today, Ambari is officially supported only on X86 servers. The work team has done is to patch Ambari to work on AARCH64, which involved patching various dependencies like phantomjs, leveldb, leveldbjni java libaries, etc. Linaro is also part of ODPi organization (odpi.org), which has been working on standardizing Big Data. Ambari is part of ODPi’s operations specs. The collaboration helps in speeding up upstreaming process since ODPi also has some of same maintainers as of ASF.

The work done for this demo is a PoC running in ARM lab (working on Linaro Dev Cloud at the mean time) and yet published.

This video features Eugene Xie ARM Principal Software Engineer & Tech lead of Workloads team of Enterprise Software, BSG, Ganesh Raju – Tech Lead, BigData team and Naresh Bhat, Cavium assignee to Linaro for BigData.