This Christmas I got myself another ARM dev board. In this case the HummingBoard-i2eX from SolidRun. The Vendor ========== http://www.solid-run.com/ SolidRun is an Israeli company producing small form factor computers. They previously produced the CuBox (know to many on this list). In recent history they moved to creating their devices with FreeScale's iMX.6 SoCs. They started with a common SoM (System on a Module), and developed two complimentary product lines of base boards that the SoMs connect to. These are the CuBox-i and the HummingBoard. The CuBox-i is a continuation of their 2'x2'x'2' cube computer design. The HummingBoard is a Raspberry Pi-like form factor (more on this later). The Board ========= Vendor Product Page: http://www.solid-run.com/product/hummingboard-i2ex/ Local Distributor Product Page: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813455003 This is the Hummingboard base board, with the Dual Core + 1GB + Extra Features SoM. This boils down to a system with extra features of a mSATA slot on the bottom of the board, a miniPCIe slot on the top, and an extra 2x4 header with two USB extra connections on it. The Board is nearly perfect match for the Raspberry Pi B (not B+) form factor. All the connectors (HDMI, USB, Power, etc...) line up where they would on a Raspberry Pi B. The only trick bit is the height of the mSATA connector on the bottom which will not fit in any of the Raspberry Pi B cases I own. This should not be an issue with the Hummingboard-i1 or -i2 as they don't have mSATA. First Boot ========== The board as purchased from NewEgg comes only with the board. You will need to provide your own USB supply 5v@2A. You will also need your own microSD card for the OS. Prep the microSD Card --------------------- If your familiar with the Raspberry Pi, there is a NOOBs-like OS installer called Ignition. You dd this to your microSD card and then on the first boot you get a GUI that will then download and install the Distro of your choice. http://www.solid-run.com/wiki/Ignition Install your OS of Choice ------------------------- First Note: There is check box to show all OS options. Check this as it by default hides all but four (Android 4.4, and three XBMC variants). Second Note: There is a debug window, click it, and then re-arrange the two windows so you can see both. Some of the installs are broken, I discovered this when trying to install Fedora 20 via Ignition, it never downloaded an install image, and some of the partitioning looks to be broken. This is not a fault of the Fedora Project, but of the solidRun community member that put together the Iginition script. I haven't started debugging it yet. I ended up choosing Debian Wheezy, and the install took about 10-15 minutes downloading and installing. Your millage will vary. Poking Around ============= The boot loader is on microSD card. You need it to boot. The boot loader is uboot. Kernel lists as a 3.14.14-cubox, so a custom build. lspci list just a 'bridge' device. I powered down, added a spare mPCIe wifi card I had around, and it showed up when I rebooted. Memory was listed as the full 1GB, so video buffer stealing doesn't seem to be happening. But I can't confirm that fully. That's it so far. -- Scott Sullivan
On Sun, Dec 28, 2014 at 09:12:53PM -0500, Scott Sullivan wrote:
This Christmas I got myself another ARM dev board. In this case the HummingBoard-i2eX from SolidRun.
$100... hmm, I guess we're paying for mSATA, mPCIe, and gigabit. I really don't know why Intel/AMD don't release x86 version for this market segment. People say, power consumption on ARM. They can reduce power consumption on x86, too. After attaching USB devices, mSATA SSD card, mPCI wifi card, the power issue is moot anyways. -- William
On 12/29/2014 01:35 AM, William Park wrote:
On Sun, Dec 28, 2014 at 09:12:53PM -0500, Scott Sullivan wrote:
This Christmas I got myself another ARM dev board. In this case the HummingBoard-i2eX from SolidRun.
$100... hmm, I guess we're paying for mSATA, mPCIe, and gigabit.
I really don't know why Intel/AMD don't release x86 version for this market segment. People say, power consumption on ARM. They can reduce power consumption on x86, too. After attaching USB devices, mSATA SSD card, mPCI wifi card, the power issue is moot anyways.
Intel certainly has not ignored these low power, small form factor SoCs. The have provided two SoC over the last few years, with inexpensive dev boards, one of which that is in it's second generation. http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/do-it-yourself/galileo-maker-quark-bo... http://arduino.cc/en/ArduinoCertified/IntelGalileo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Galileo http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/do-it-yourself/edison.html https://www.sparkfun.com/categories/272 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Edison AMD on the other hand, has taken a different direction. Their still recovering from nearly gutting the company from chasing Intel on the pyre that is Gaming Performance. Their new CEO is focusing on profitability in the markets where they are still strong, Servers and GPUs. This does however includes a road map for a common socket architecture for AMD64 and ARMv8 server systems. AMD became a full ARM licensee a few years ago for this purpose. http://www.amd.com/en-us/press-releases/Pages/ambidextrous-computing-2014may... http://www.amd.com/en-us/press-releases/Pages/64-bit-developer-kit-2014jul30... -- Scott Sullivan
On 2014-12-29 06:45 AM, Scott Sullivan wrote:
Intel certainly has not ignored these low power, small form factor SoCs. … http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/do-it-yourself/galileo-maker-quark-bo...
The (rev 1, at least) Galileo is a disappointment. Its prime purpose appears to be to generate heat. It's neither a tremendously useful small computer (up there with Pentium 2 performance) nor a usable Arduino clone (port polling in the few tens of Hz). If I must find an application, it could replace Y2K-vintage industrial PCs (the Galileo's mini PCIe slot is nifty), or be /slightly/ less power hungry than using an ancient PC as a firewall. I briefly ran it as the world's slowest dogecoin miner, but it's now just gathering dust. If anyone wants it (less the impressively fast wireless gubbins I rigged up for it), let me know. It can run Debian, but I'm not sure if it should. I do like the look of this new SolidRun board. Maybe I could use it to finally retire my SheevaPlug. cheers, Stewart
On Mon, Dec 29, 2014 at 7:45 AM, Scott Sullivan <scott@ss.org> wrote:
On 12/29/2014 01:35 AM, William Park wrote:
On Sun, Dec 28, 2014 at 09:12:53PM -0500, Scott Sullivan wrote:
This Christmas I got myself another ARM dev board. In this case the HummingBoard-i2eX from SolidRun.
$100... hmm, I guess we're paying for mSATA, mPCIe, and gigabit.
I really don't know why Intel/AMD don't release x86 version for this market segment. People say, power consumption on ARM. They can reduce power consumption on x86, too. After attaching USB devices, mSATA SSD card, mPCI wifi card, the power issue is moot anyways.
Intel certainly has not ignored these low power, small form factor SoCs. The have provided two SoC over the last few years, with inexpensive dev boards, one of which that is in it's second generation.
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/do-it-yourself/ galileo-maker-quark-board.html http://arduino.cc/en/ArduinoCertified/IntelGalileo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Galileo
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/do-it-yourself/edison.html https://www.sparkfun.com/categories/272 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Edison
~$100 Intel systems: http://www.cnx-software.com/2014/11/25/meegopad-t01-android-4-4-windows-8-1-... http://www.cnx-software.com/2014/11/11/meego-p01-mini-pc-with-intel-atom-z37...
| From: Tim Tisdall <tisdall@gmail.com> | ~$100 Intel systems: | http://www.cnx-software.com/2014/11/25/meegopad-t01-android-4-4-windows-8-1-... For a TV stick. Lots of Android competition. Still, this looks well priced: US$109.99 2G RAM, 32G eMMC. Windows. Sold out. | http://www.cnx-software.com/2014/11/11/meego-p01-mini-pc-with-intel-atom-z37... Now US$250. ================ I paid $150 for a netbook with similar specs from a "doorbuster" deal at the Microsoft Store. They often have interesting deals. Linux won't run on these yet.
http://www.cnx-software.com/2015/01/02/pipo-x7-intel-atom-z3736-based-mini-p... - Pipo makes a lot of Android devices in China On Tue, Dec 30, 2014 at 4:55 PM, D. Hugh Redelmeier <hugh@mimosa.com> wrote:
| From: Tim Tisdall <tisdall@gmail.com>
| ~$100 Intel systems: | http://www.cnx-software.com/2014/11/25/meegopad-t01-android-4-4-windows-8-1-...
For a TV stick. Lots of Android competition. Still, this looks well priced: US$109.99 2G RAM, 32G eMMC. Windows. Sold out.
| http://www.cnx-software.com/2014/11/11/meego-p01-mini-pc-with-intel-atom-z37...
Now US$250.
================
I paid $150 for a netbook with similar specs from a "doorbuster" deal at the Microsoft Store. They often have interesting deals.
Linux won't run on these yet.
--- GTALUG Talk Mailing List - talk@gtalug.org http://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
On Mon, Dec 29, 2014 at 01:35:06AM -0500, William Park wrote:
$100... hmm, I guess we're paying for mSATA, mPCIe, and gigabit.
I really don't know why Intel/AMD don't release x86 version for this market segment. People say, power consumption on ARM. They can reduce power consumption on x86, too. After attaching USB devices, mSATA SSD card, mPCI wifi card, the power issue is moot anyways.
Intel keeps coming out with $300 boards and boxes while talking about them being like the raspberry pi. Intel simply does not seem to understand the concept of cheap and low power hardware. -- Len Sorensen
Lennart Sorensen wrote:
Intel keeps coming out with $300 boards and boxes while talking about them being like the raspberry pi. Intel simply does not seem to understand the concept of cheap and low power hardware.
And thus was born the Berrywulf, in a conversation at the office awhile ago: if Intel wants to compare their offering at $300, then it's only fair to compare it to $300 worth of Raspberry Pis and a FastE switch set up as a Beowulf cluster. We'd have a lot more HDMI and USB ports that way too! I did footnote that it'd be crazy to actually build one and it was for price comparison purposes only. It'd be a good kind of crazy, though. -- Anthony de Boer
On 29/12/14 01:27 PM, Anthony de Boer wrote:
Lennart Sorensen wrote:
Intel keeps coming out with $300 boards and boxes while talking about them being like the raspberry pi. Intel simply does not seem to understand the concept of cheap and low power hardware. And thus was born the Berrywulf, in a conversation at the office awhile ago: if Intel wants to compare their offering at $300, then it's only fair to compare it to $300 worth of Raspberry Pis and a FastE switch set up as a Beowulf cluster. We'd have a lot more HDMI and USB ports that way too!
I did footnote that it'd be crazy to actually build one and it was for price comparison purposes only. It'd be a good kind of crazy, though.
Ideas like this one remind me that the world of the Internet is kind of like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man: the mere act of thinking it makes it flesh somewhere... and it's coming for you.
participants (8)
-
Anthony de Boer -
D. Hugh Redelmeier -
El Fontanero -
Lennart Sorensen -
Scott Sullivan -
Stewart C. Russell -
Tim Tisdall -
William Park