You’d love to get an Nvidia Shield Android TV, but the price is just too high? No problem, as M9S Z8 offers you the appearance of Nvidia TV box for just $66. Sadly the comparison stops there, because instead of an Nvidia Tegra X1 processor, the box features your typical Amlogic S905 processor combined with 2GB RAM and 16 GB storage.

M9S Z8 specifications:

• SoC – Amlogic S905 quad core ARM Cortex-A53 @ up to 2.0GHz with penta-core Mali-450MP GPU
• System Memory – 2GB DDR3
• Storage – 16GB eMMC flash + SD card slot
• Video Output – HDMI 2.0 output up to 4K  @ 60 Hz, AV port
• Audio – HDMI, AV, and optical S/PDIF
• Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet, dual band 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0
• USB – 2x USB 2.0 host ports
• Misc – IR receiver, RGB LED light
• Power Supply –  5V
• Dimensions & Weight – 160 grams; 4.00 x 10.00 x 3.00 cm

The device runs Android 5.1 with a “fully loaded” (read piracy add-ons) Kodi 16.0, and ships with an IR remote control, an HDMI Cable, a power adapter, and a user’s manual in English.

Some more information is available on what may be the official product page.

Via AndroidPC.es

Tweet You’d love to get an Nvidia Shield Android TV, but the price is just too high? No problem, as M9S Z8 offers you the appearance of Nvidia TV box…

Karl here with a new review. This one is a little different. A smart watch, but not your average smart watch, as most smartwatches supplement a phone. This is a standalone smartwatch. It runs full Android 5.1. It is the D6 by No. 1. It has a 3G radio and SIM card slot. I was really excited when I found out I could do this review.

Below are some pics from their website.

Another professionally shipped and packaged product and some box pics

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Here are the specs from No. 1’s website.

First Impressions

The watch looks good to me. I had a few people say it looked big to them but I don’t feel like it is too big….in fact I wish it were bigger. Below are some pics I took. My pictures don’t due it justice so that is why I posted the professional pics above.

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First Tests

First thing I did was try to push it to the max and do some absurd testing. What does that entail? For me it was watching movies on a watch. Kodi Netflix MX player, Plex, HdHomerun, and Emby.

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To my surprise most worked pretty well considering it is a watch. With Emby I couldn’t use the built in player and had it use MX player and I couldn’t get Plex to work at all. This is not a deal breaker…it is really a ridiculous test but sometimes you do things just to see if they could be done. I also ran Antutu and got a 23221 on version 6.1.4….not too shabby for a watch.

OTA Firmware Update

After a couple days I received notification that the watch needed to be updated. So I performed the updated and followed the instructions. It went through and when it booted the first time after the update it hung on the boot animation and got really warm. I waited a long time I took the battery out and when I turned it on next it booted properly. Then a 2nd update appeared but this time the watch soft bricked. I went to the website, downloaded the latest firmware, and installed it. It mostly went off without a hitch except I should have waited to plug in the watch until after I installed the drivers. It took 30 tries for me to catch the device in the device manager to install the drivers manually from the download. Included in the download were the drivers and flashing tool and img. It did not come with any instructions that I saw but it was easy to reflash. (Received another update today and it installed perfectly.)

Setup

I didn’t like the built in launcher at first so I installed Nova Launcher. Added 3 widgets one is clock, circle battery widget from the play store, and power control widget. Nova is pretty customizable so I was able to mimic an android phone setup. But I ended up getting errors with Nova and it would force close frequently and I had to choose default launcher over again.

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I really wish Nova worked better, didn’t close like this, and I think it takes a toll on the battery. I installed Apex launcher which worked pretty well and not too heavy but had to sacrifice too much. After a while I ended up back with the stock launcher. It’s good enough for a watch that runs full android with a small screen.

Use

So as I see it, there are a couple ways use the device. You can use it as a standalone. Pop a SIM card in and use it as your phone. A Bluetooth headset is necessary for this. Speaker phone is weak and there is no privacy. I tested first with a Ting SIM card. Popped it in and I was immediately up and running. I only made a few calls this way. I also tested with a Metro PCS SIM. Not quite as easy…I had to call and give Metro my IMEI number, and about 30 minutes later I was in business. I am not a fan of Bluetooth headsets so I didn’t enjoy this way. And I got caught at the end of the day once before I started charging midday without phone service. 2nd way is you can use it paired to your phone through Bluetooth and receive notifications, pass files to the watch and uninstall applications on the watch. Use it like a traditional smart watch. I didn’t find this particularly useful and when you get out of range of the watch both the watch and the phone beep. I opted to use it standalone. When out and about I turn on my hotspot on my phone and when home I use my home WiFi. This seemed to work best for me. You could also pair the phone and watch and also use hotspot. I just didn’t find notifications particularly useful. The good thing about this watch is you get many choices.

Battery

The battery has a 450 mAh capacity…which is tiny considering this processor is installed in full size phones. I really had to watch what I installed and had to be conscious of background tasks or it would destroy the battery. After testing to see if I could make it all day I started charging on my lunch break at work after that I didn’t have to be concerned with battery life. It charges relatively fast. After receiving the last OTA update when this review was nearly complete, I got significantly better battery life. I used it quite a bit the next day and I had about 20% left at the end of my work day with no charging. Depending on how it is used will significantly impact battery. I would recommend a second charging cable. It is proprietary with magnets that aren’t particularly strong. I found sometimes it was difficult to get it to stay.

Apps

I installed lots of different apps. Everything would install and was mostly usable. On a small screen it was sometimes difficult to navigate. I covered all the video apps already but I also installed ES File Explorer and to get on the pop bandwagon I installed Pokemon Go and it played fine.

There are thousands of apps and if you would like for me to test one leave a comment below and I will give it a shot. I live in the United States so some apps might not be available.

Radios/Antennas

Cellular, WiFi, or GPS worked ok. I had more dropped calls than I typically did with my smartphone. I do live in rural America so this will vary. WiFi range was OK. With Pokemon Go I did notice that trees were enough to disrupt the GPS signal.

Final Thoughts

It’s a pretty neat watch considering what it is doing in such a small amount of space. With this last update from No.1 battery life improved a lot. I wish it had come earlier in the review. It is definitely up the tech junkies alley and would make a cool gift. I am sure there are a lot of uses that it could be used for. There is a long thread on XDA as well covering the watch and I would imagine a custom ROM will be out soon. People are already flashing an img from another smartwatch on this one. Supposedly 6.0 will be coming to the watch in the near future and hopefully bring adaptable storage to the watch. If you have any questions feel free to post in the comments below.

I would like to thank Chinavasion for sending the NO. 1 D6 to review. It comes in 3 different versions: silver like shown in review, gold, and black. You can purchase it for $76.99 on their website. Alternatively, you can also find the watch on GearBest, GeekBuying, eBay, and Aliexpress for similar or slightly higher prices up to $90.

Tweet Karl here with a new review. This one is a little different. A smart watch, but not your average smart watch, as most smartwatches supplement a phone. This is…

I’ve already taken some pictures of the device and board in part 1 of EBox T8-4 review, so today, I’m going to report my experience with the Android 5.1 firmware for this Amlogic S905 TV box, air mouse, and wireless gamepad, specifically targetted to users leaving in the United Kingdom, but since the hardware is based on Zoomtak T8V, it may also be informative to international users, although the firmware, mostly launcher and IPTV services, will be different.

EBox T8-4 Setup Wizard & Configuration

Since I’ve already inserted an internal SSD into the SATA bay of the device, I did not connect an external USB harddrive, and only connected HDMI and Ethernet cables,  plus the RF dongle for the included air mouse, a USB keyboard to easily take screenshots, and of course the power cord. The power button will be red at this stage. If you want to start the TV box, you either need to press the button on the box, or the power button on the remote control, the power button LED will change to blue, and the display will show “boot”.

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A typical boot takes around one minute, but for the very first boot, you’ll be asked to go through setup wizard similar to what we find in few others boxes like WeTek Core or ARNU Box.

Click Next to “select” your language.. English only for now.

Next window is to adjust the screen in order to remove any black orders on the edges of the screen. If you are using HDMI output, most TV should have a setting to underscan. For example it is called “Just Scan” on LG televisions. That way you don’t need to adjust the screen at all, and you can keep it at 100%.

The next step is for network configuration for either Ethernet or WiFi.

The system correctly detected my three access points @ 2.4 GHz and 5.0 GHz, but I carry on with Gigabit Ethernet, and click on Finish button to access the main user interface.

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The launcher include EBOX MC fork of Kodi 16.1, EBOX APPS Hub folder with custom apps from the company including EBox  App to access support channels, EBox Apps app store, EBox OTA for firmware update, etc…, as well as icons to access all apps, the browser, settings, and to clean the memory.

Sadly, that’s another wizard that does not ask you to set your timezone, but maybe in that case it is understable since it’s designed for the British public and already set to the right timezone. Any I went through the settings, which looks quite similar as other Amlogic TV boxes.

You can change network configuration as needed, as well as display settings.

HDMI auto-detection is ON by default, and it set the resolution to 1080p50 by default, so I disabled it and manually selected 4k2k-60Hz mode. Sadly it looks like it does not always remember that setting after a reboot.

Advanced options are for Miracast, CEC Control is not working for me (same results as with all other Amlogic TV boxes I’ve tested), and you can also configure audio output to PCM, SPDIF or HDMI.

Other settings show some system information: Android 5.1.1 on top of Linux 3.14.29 running on p200_2G platform. More Settings lead to another familiar setup menu.

This is where I enabled HDMI adaptation (automatic refresh rate) via Play back settings, and set the correct timezone (Date & Time). You can access Android Lollipop settings by selecting “More setting”, so you’ve got three different settings user interfaces, which should really be unnecessary….

EBox T8-4 OTA Firmware

The company informed me by email of a new firmware update, so I updated it right before going further, by entering the System Update menu, but you can click on EBox OTA to enter the update app too. After clicking to check updates, I got a popup window “ROM update available”.

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So I start the download…

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Which was reasonably fast, and been asked whether I want to Wipe Data and/or Wipe Cache when installing the firmware. I always wipe the cache, but I avoid wiping the data since I like to keep my data (screenshots) and apps installed via Google Play.

Once I click on Install, I get another window explaining the box will reboot into recovery mode, flash the ZIP file, and automatically reboot.

So I click in Install against and this time the box reboots, shows me an animation with a green Android logo amd a progress board, and after 3 to 5 minutes, reboot the the main launcher and the update is complete. That part was flawless.

Entertainmentbox.com Customer Support

However, I had a big hiccup with the firmware, after spending much time taking screenshoot, and testing apps, I tested on and off, and power consumption, and all of a sudden the device would not boot to the launcher, and all I could see if a blueish background photo (the vertical line is just an issue with my TV).

I sent an email to my contact in the company about the issue, but since it was a Saturday, I was not sure when I’d get an answer, so I went to their website, and saw a “Chat Now – Online”  section on the bottom right of the page, so I decided to give it a try and asked my question about the box being stuck at boot time.

Within a few seconds, a support person called Vikram told me to try to factory rest the box, and provide a link with detailed instructions, and the chat was over in about one minute. I followed the instructions, which involved wiping the data, but I tried to only wipe the cache as I wanted to keep my data, and I did not work.

I wanted to try to re-install the firmware without wiping out the data instead. So I went back to start a new chat to ask about the firmware since I could not find T8-4 on their firmware page. Again Vikram answered within a few seconds, and said he was aware of the issue, and forwarded to the persons in charge. Again efficient, polite and to the point, so my experience with support was very positive, although my problem was not resolved.

Eventually, I got answer from my contact, as they had uploaded T8-4 firmware with clear instructions. So I copied the file to a USB flash drive, went into recovery, and flashed the firmware apparently successfully, but it did not resolve my issue. So I ended up wiping out the data, and lost all my files and installed app, wasting a few hours of work.

The reasons was that EBox Play app (now removed from the firmware) that allows you to play retro games was not compatible with Android 5.1, and messed up with the firmware.

Anyway, while I was clearly not happy about that annoying firmware bug and wasted time, Entertainmentbox.com customer support appears to be very good. They also have support forums.

Installed Apps and IPTV Streaming

The TV box comes with some interesting apps including popular video streaming and on-demand app in the UK such as BBC iPlayer, FilmOn, and TVCatchUp.

BionicTCP should be interesting too on other devices, especially if you have troubles with streaming videos, as it allows you to tweak TCP buffers to allow for larger buffers possibly improve the streaming experience.

So I had a quick try of the IPTV apps, although I’m not based in the UK.

Let’s start with Filmon.TV app which sorts live TV streams by country or categories.

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You can then select one category, and a stream from the list to watch live TV, in full screen or within the interface.

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There’s also an online TV guide (EPG) available from the app.

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After a while, the app will ask you to register. I think it’s free to watch SD channels, but you may have to pay to watch HD TV. (TBC)

TVCatchup is a service that allows to watch live TV even if you missed the right time when it was broadcasted. When the app start I’ve been asked to confirm I’m indeed based on the UK… to which I agreed…

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I could get the list of channels, and programs, but was unable to play any videos, most probably because I’m not actually in the UK…

You can also access the EPG from the app. You’d think free channels like Aljazeera would work from anywhere, but it did not play either.

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Finally, BBC iPlayer.. It asked me to install BBC Media Player, which I did, but then I could not stream any video due to geo-blocking.

So the pre-installed app are interesting if you are based in the UK, and wants something easy to setup. If you live overseas, you’d have to use a VPN, or some DNS services like StrongDNS.

Video and Audio Support in EBOX MC (Kodi 16.1)

EBOX MC (EBMC) used Confluence skin with a different background image.

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It is based on Kodi 16.1 with possible some customizations under the hood.

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Since I’ve reviewed so many Amlogic S905 TV boxes, I’ll just try 4K videos, and audio capabilities (e.g. HDMI pass-through). All files will be played from a SAMBA share.

4K video samples:

• HD.Club-4K-Chimei-inn-60mbps.mp4 – OK
  
• sintel-2010-4k.mkv – OK
• Beauty_3840x2160_120fps_420_8bit_HEVC_MP4.mp4 (H.265 @ 30 fps) –  OK
• Bosphorus_3840x2160_120fps_420_8bit_HEVC_MP4.mp4 (H.265 @ 30 fps) – OK
• Jockey_3840x2160_120fps_420_8bit_HEVC_TS.ts (H.265 @ 30 fps) – OK
• MHD_2013_2160p_ShowReel_R_9000f_24fps_RMN_QP23_10b.mkv (10-bit HEVC) – OK
• BT.2020.20140602.ts (Rec.2020 compliant video; 36 Mbps) – OK
• big_buck_bunny_4k_H264_30fps.mp4 – OK
• Fifa_WorldCup2014_Uruguay-Colombia_4K-x265.mp4 (4K, H.265, 60 fps) – OK
• Samsung_UHD_Dubai_10-bit_HEVC_51.4Mbps.ts (10-bit HEVC / MPEG-4 AAC) – OK
• Astra-11479_V_22000-Canal+ UHD Demo 42.6 Mbps bitrate.ts (10-bit H.265 from DVB-S2 stream) – OK
• Ducks Take Off [2160p a 243 Mbps].mkv (4K H.264 @ 30 fps; 243 Mbps; no audio) – Won’t start to play, and stays in UI.

So no problem playing most 4K video samples with the codecs supported by Amlogic S905 SoC (i.e. excluding H.264 4K @ 60 fps, and 10-bit H.264) expect a very high bitrate H.264 video. However, please note that automatic refresh rate switching is not working, even after it is configured in both the system and EBMC.

Time to test audio.

As expected Ebox T8-4 does not have the DTS and Dolby licenses for audio down-mixing since it’s using Amlogic S905, and not S905-H, but that’s a disappointment to find out that HDMI pass-through is basically unusable even for 5.1 channel audio due to a short noise that happens every 5 to 10 seconds, at least with Onkyo TX-NR636 receiver.

Gaming with Ipega PG-9028 Bluetooth game controller

I’m normally using Tronsmart Mars G01 RF gamepad in my review, but since the bundle I received includes a Bluetooth gamepad, that’s what I used with Riptide GP2 installed from Amazon Underground. At first, I had troubles pairing the gamepad as I only pressed the Home key, but then I was asked to press Home and X blue buttons together, and the gamepad would show a new device Bluetooth MAC address, and once paired show it as PG-9028.

Subsequently, you’ll just need to press the Home button to connect the gamepad to the TV box. I had then no issue navigating the user interface with B button for “Back”, A button for “Accept”, and the top left joystick to move around the launcher, and start Riptide GP2.

The game was a fluid as on other good Amlogic S905 TV boxes, so I set the graphics setting to the maximum, and played for over 15 minutes without any degradation of performance over time. The device stayed cool at all time, and the top and bottom temperatures of the case were respectively 36° C, and 39° C.

Other interesting features of the gamepad include the touchpad area to control the mouse pointer, and the five buttons at the bottom for volume, play/pause, back and next, which makes it suitable to control Kodi/EBMC. It is also possible to place your smartphone on top of the gamepad, if you want to play games on the phone instead of the TV box. You’ll find detailed pictures of the controller in the first part of the review.

EBox T8-4 Benchmarks – Antutu, Storage and Networking

Amlogic S905 is a now extremely well known platform, so I just ran Antutu 6.1.4 to double check there wasn’t any issue.

35,473 point is typical for this kind of device. All good.

I also tested internal storage performance A1SD bench, and the eMMC flash is reasonable fast @ 26.21 MB/s for sequential read, and 14.80 MB/s for sequential write.

Read/Write Speed in MB/s

One of the key selling point of the device is the presence of an internal 2.5″ SATA bay. I started by inserting an SSD with both NTFS and EXT-4 partitions, but it was mounted as a USB device with 0 MB size, so I switched another 1TB hard drive formatted with NTFS inside a Linux machine, which was a little loose in the SATA bay but still inserted to the SATA connector, and this time it was not detected at all. When I removed it, it was warm so I assume it got power. It’s quite possible the hard drive needs to be prepared inside a Windows computer to work with the box, based on a video for their older T8-3 box. That part was very disappointing.

Let’s switch to network performance with Gigabit Ethernet and iperf -t 60 -c server_ip -d command for full duplex transfer.

So the system cannot handle full duplex transfer very well, with the speed in one direction very fast (as it should), but very slow in the other direction. That test is worse case scenario though, and unless you plan to use the box as a server too, it should not be an issue, and I had no problem streaming 60 Mbps+ videos.

I’ve tested 802.11ac by transferring a 278MB file from SAMBA to the flash and vice versa 3 times using ES File explorer. For some reasons download was much faster than upload @ 5.67 MB/s vs 2.89 MB/s, and on average the transfer rate was a decent 4.27 MB/s.

Throughput in MB/s

Other remarks

The included air mouse is very convenient with mouse mode, remote side, and QWERTY keyboard side, and while usually I have to switch to the IR remote control to power on other devices, T8-4 can be powered on with that air mouse too. The air mouse function works well, the keyboard includes the media player keys (play/pause, etc..), and the only two downsides I found is the lack of tabulation key, and Alt key Blue on black markings are hard to read, at least with my eyesight (I need to remove my glasses to read them).

Power handling have been properly implemented too, but with only power on and power off modes. Power consumption is 0.2 watts in power off mode, 5.0 watts at idle with SSD, and 5.2 watts at with (non-detected) HDD.

I had no problem at all with Google Play with free and paid app, and Amazon Underground.

Conclusion

EBox T8-4 Android TV box performs well over time (no overheating), delivers good video playback performance in Kodi (EBMC), include pre-installed IPTV streaming app for the UK, and provide a good overall user experience, but there are still some issues that need to be fixed such as very poor HDMI pass-through implementation, and problems with internal SATA bay.

PROS

• Complete easy to setup and use bundle with TV box, air mouse, and wireless Bluetooth gamepad
• Stable and responsive firmware
• Good 4K video playback performance in Kodi with both H.264 and H.265 videos
• (Legal) pre-installed IPTV app for the UK market like BBC iPlayer, Filmon, and TVCatchup
• Gigabit Ethernet and good 802.11ac WiFi performance
• 2.5″ internal SATA bay (see CONS too!)
• OTA firmware update
• Good customer support with Live chat, forums, and online documentation

CONS

• HDMI audio pass-through is not working well, with only 5.1 channel audio support, and I got short white noise for almost all videos.
• No Dolby / DTS licenses
• My 2.5″ SSD (NTFS + EXT-4) and HDD (NTFS) were not recognized by the system
• DRM support limited to Widewine Level 3
• (Minor) Settings are spread over  3 menus
• (Minor) Somewhat slow boot (One minute)
• I loss all my data and installed apps after a while due to a bug in the firmware (But it should be now be fixed, and I could not reproduce the issue).

The main thing I like about EBox T8-4 bundle is that it’s easy to setup and comes with everything you may need to watch local and live TV (in the UK), the included air mouse and Bluetooth gamepad just work out of the box, without headache due to potential interoperability issues.

EBox T8-4 + S77 Pro air mouse + Ipega Bluetooth gamepad bundle I reviewed can be purchased for 108.33 GBP exc. VAT ($142 US), but you can also purchase the box alone for 79.16 GBP exc. VAT (~$104 US), or select other bundles with different input devices and/or an included 1TB hard drive (which could mitigate the issues I had).

Tweet I’ve already taken some pictures of the device and board in part 1 of EBox T8-4 review, so today, I’m going to report my experience with the Android 5.1…

Linux 4.7 is out:

So, after a slight delay due to my travels, I’m back, and 4.7 is out.

Despite it being two weeks since rc7, the final patch wasn’t all that big, and much of it is trivial one- and few-liners. There’s a couple of network drivers that got a bit more loving. Appended is the shortlog since rc7 for people who care: it’s fairly spread out, with networking and some intel Kabylake GPU fixes being the most noticeable ones. But there’s random small noise spread all over.

And obviously, this means that the merge window for 4.8 is open.Judging by the linux-next contents, that’s going to be a bigger release than the current one (4.7 really was fairly calm, I blame at least partly summer in the northern hemisphere).

Linus

Linux 4.6 brought USB 3.1 superspeed, OrangeFS distributed file system, 802.1AE MAC-level encryption (MACsec), and BATMAN V protocol support, improved the reliability of OOM task killer, and more.

Linux 4.7 most noticeable changes include:

• Support for Radeon RX480 GPUs
• Parallel directory lookups –  The directory cache caches information about path names to make them quickly available for pathname lookup. This cache uses a mutex to serialize lookup of names in the same directory.  The serializing mutex has been switched to a read-write semaphore in Linux 4.7, allowing for parallel pathname lookups in the same directory. Most filesystems have been converted to allow this feature.
• New “schedutil” frequency governor –  There are two main differences between it and the existing governors. First, it uses information provided by the scheduler directly for making its decisions. Second, it can invoke cpufreq drivers and change the frequency to adjust CPU performance right away, without having to spawn work items to be executed in process context or similar, leading to lower latency to make frequency changes.
• Histograms of events in ftrace –  . This release adds the “hist” command, which provides the ability to build “histograms” of events by aggregating event hits. As an example, let’s say a user needs to get a list of bytes read from files from each process. You can get this information using hist triggers, with the following command command:

  <br> echo ‘hist:key=common_pid.execname:val=count:sort=count.descending’ > /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events/syscalls/sys_enter_read/trigger<br>

  1	echo ‘hist:key=common_pid.execname:val=count:sort=count.descending’ > /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events/syscalls/sys_enter_read/trigger

  other data can also be retrieve by using fields found in /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events/syscalls/sys_enter_read/format. The output will look like:

  <br> # cat /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events/syscalls/sys_enter_read/hist<br> trigger info: hist:keys=common_pid.execname:vals=count:sort=count.descending:size=2048 [active]

  { common_pid: gnome-terminal [ 3196] } hitcount: 280 count: 1093512
  { common_pid: Xorg [ 1309] } hitcount: 525 count: 256640
  { common_pid: compiz [ 2889] } hitcount: 59 count: 254400
  { common_pid: bash [ 8710] } hitcount: 3 count: 66369
  …
  { common_pid: gdbus [ 2998] } hitcount: 1 count: 16
  { common_pid: rtkit-daemon [ 2052] } hitcount: 1 count: 8
  { common_pid: init [ 1] } hitcount: 2 count: 2

  Totals:
  Hits: 2116
  Entries: 51
  Dropped: 0
  

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

  # cat /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events/syscalls/sys_enter_read/hist trigger info: hist:keys=common_pid.execname:vals=count:sort=count.descending:size=2048 [active] { common_pid: gnome-terminal  [      3196] } hitcount:        280  count:    1093512 { common_pid: Xorg            [      1309] } hitcount:        525  count:     256640 { common_pid: compiz          [      2889] } hitcount:         59  count:     254400 { common_pid: bash            [      8710] } hitcount:          3  count:      66369 ... { common_pid: gdbus           [      2998] } hitcount:          1  count:         16 { common_pid: rtkit-daemon    [      2052] } hitcount:          1  count:          8 { common_pid: init            [         1] } hitcount:          2  count:          2     Totals:         Hits: 2116         Entries: 51         Dropped: 0

  More more details check ftrace documentation and related LWN article.

• EFI ‘Capsule’ firmware updates –  The EFI Capsule mechanism allows to pass data blobs to the EFI firmware. The firmware then parses them and makes some decision based upon their contents. The most common use case is to bundle a flashable firmware image into a capsule that the firmware can use to upgrade in the next boot the existing version in the flash. Users can upload capsule by writing the firmware to the /dev/efi_capsule_loader device
• Support for creating virtual USB Device Controllers in USB/IP – USB/IP allows to share real USB devices over the network. Linux 4.7 brings the ability to create virtual USB Device Controllers without needing any physical USB device, using the USB gadget subsystem. For what purpose? For example, for improving phone emulation in development environments, for testing USB and for educational purposes.

Some of ARM specific improvements and new features include:

• Allwinner:
  • Allwinner A13/R8 – Display Engine support
  • Allwinner A10/A20 – S/PDIF Support
  • Allwinner A31/A23/H3 – DMAengine improvements for H3 audio support
  • Allwinner H3 – USB support (multi-reset line support delayed til 4.8)
  • New hardware supported
    • Tablets – Dserve DSRV9703C, Polaroid MID2809PXE4, Colorfly e708 q1, Difrence DIT4350
    • Boards – Olimex A20 OLinuXino LIME2, Xunlong Orange Pi 2, Orange Pi One, and Orange Pi PC

• Rockchip:
  • Thermal management – Rockchip driver support for RK3399, RK3366
  • Added Rockchip RK3399 clock and reset controller
  • Pinctrl – Support the .get_direction() callback in the GPIO portions
  • New RK3399 device tree support
  • Added Rockchip DisplayPort PHY support
  • Added Geekbuying GeekBox, RK3399 Evaluation Board, mqmaker MiQi SBC
• Amlogic
  • Added Meson GXBB (S905) pinctrl support
  • Fixed memory nodes on Vega S95 DTS
  • Added Hardkernel ODROID-C2, Amlogic Meson GXBB P200 and P201 development systems
• Samsung
  • Added Samsung ARTIK5 evaluation board
  • Added generic exynos bus frequency driver
  • Added pinctrl driver for Samsung EXYNOS5440 SoC
  • DTS updates & fixes:
    • Fix s5p-mfc driver probe on Exynos542x Peach boards (need to provide MFC memory banks). On these boards this was broken for long time but apparently no one enabled this driver till now.
    • Fix creation of debugfs entries for one regulator on Exynos4210 Trats board.
    • Fix probing of max8997 MFD driver (and its children) because of missing interrupt. Actually the current version of the driver probes (just without interrupts) but after switching to regmap and regmap-irq, the interrupt will be mandatory.
    • Cleanup regulator bindings on Exynos5420 boards.
    • Support MIC bypass in display path for Exynos5420.
    • Enable PRNG and SSS for all Exynos4 devices.
    • Add PL330 DMA controller and Thermal Management Unit to Exynos 7
    • Enable accelerated AES (Security SubSystem) on Exynos4412-based boards
    • Enable HDMI CEC on Exynos4412-based Odroid.
    • Add regulator supplies for eMMC/SD on Odroid XU3/XU4.
    • Fix DTC unit name warnings.
• Qualcomm
  • Qualcomm IPQ4019 support in pinctrl
  • Change SMD callback parameters
  • 96Boards HiKey based on the Hisilicon Hi6220 (Kirin 620) gets an overhaul with a lot of devices enabled in the DT.
  • Added Qualcomm IPQ4019 “Internet processor”,  Arrow DragonBoard 600c (96boards) with APQ8064 Snapdragon 600
  • Device tree changes:
    • Add additional nodes for APQ8064
    • Fix APQ8064 pinctrls for i2c/spi
    • Add MSM8974 nodes for smp2p and smd
    • Modify MSM8974 memory reserve for rfsa and rmtfs
    • Add support for BQ27541 on Nexus7
• Mediatek
  • Added  CPU power cooling model to Mediatek thermal driver
  • Added Mediatek MT8173 display driver, DRM driver, and thermal controller
  • Added MIPI DSI sub driver
  • 4GB mode support for Mediatek IOMMU driver
  • DTS updates:
    • add pinctrl node for mt2701
    • add mt2701 pmic wrapper binding
    • add auxadc binding document
• Other new ARM hardware or SoCs – LG1312 TV SoC, Hisilicon Hip06/D03, Google Pixel C, NXP Layerscape 1043A QDS development board, Aspeed AST2400/AST2500, Oxnas 810SE (WD My Book World Edition), ARM MPS2 (AN385 Cortex-M3 & AN399 Cortex-M7), Ka-Ro electronics industrial SoM modules, Embest MarS Board, Boundary Devices i.MX6 Quad Plus Nitrogen6_MAX and SoloX           Nitrogen6sx embedded boards, Technexion Pico i.MX6UL compute module, ZII VF610 Development Board, Linksys Viper (E4200v2 / EA4500) WiFi router, Buffalo Kurobox Pro NAS, samtec VIN|ING 1000 vehicle communication interface, Amazon Kindle Fire first generation tablet and ebook reader,  OnRISC Baltos iR 2110 and 3220 embedded industrial PCs, TI AM5728 IDK, TI AM3359 ICE-V2, and TI DRA722 Rev C EVM development systems.

MIPS architecture changelog:

• Add support for relocatable kernel so it can be loaded someplace besides the default 1MB.
• Add KASLR support using relocatable support
• Add perf counter feature
• Add support for extending builtin cmdline
• seccomp: Support compat with both O32 and N32
• ath79: Add support for DTB passed using the UHI boot protocol, remove the builtin DTB support, add zboot debug serial support, add initial support for DPT-Module, Dragino MS14 (Dragino 2), and Onion Omega
• BMIPS: Add BCM6358 support, add Whirlwind (BMIPS5200) initialization code, add support for BCM63268
• Lantiq: Add support for device tree file from boot loader
• Add basic Loongson 3A support
• Add support for CN73xx, CN75xx and CN78xx
• Octeon: Add DTS for D-Link DSR-1000N
• Detect DSP v3 support
• Detect MIPSr6 Virtual Processor support
• Enable ptrace hw watchpoints on MIPS R6
• Probe the M6250 CPUand the P6600 core
• Support sending SIG_SYS to 32bit userspace from 64bit kernel
• qca: introduce AR9331 devicetree
• ralink: add MT7628 EPHY LEDs pinmux support
• smp-cps: Add nothreads kernel parameter
• smp-cps: Support MIPSr6 Virtual Processors
• MIPS64: Support a maximum at least 48 bits of application virtual

For even much more details, you can check out Linux 4.7 changelog with comments only generated using git log v4.6..v4.7 --stat. Alternatively, and much easier to read, you can head to kernelnewbies.org to learn more about Linux 4.7 changes.

Tweet Linux 4.7 is out: So, after a slight delay due to my travels, I’m back, and 4.7 is out. Despite it being two weeks since rc7, the final patch…

OSHCHIP is a tiny development board powered by a Nordic Semi ARM Cortex-M0 Bluetooth LE / ANT SoC that neatly fits on a breadboard, and beside wireless connectivity thanks to its 2.4 GHz radio, also provides up to 14 I/Os to interface with external hardware.

OSHCHIP specifications:

• Nordic Semi nRF51822 ARM Cortex-M0 MCU @ 16 MHz with 256KB Flash Memory, 32KB SRAM
• Radio – 2.4 GHz Radio with support for 4 protocols: Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) / Bluetooth Smart, Gazell, ESB (Enhanced Shock Burst), and optionally ANT
• Antenna – Built-in antenna, range is 10 to 20 feet, depending on environment (metal, desks, chairs, …)
• Expansion – 14 general purpose I/O pins. All peripherals (except the ADC) can use any I/O pin: UART, 10-bit ADC, Counter/Timers, SPI, I2C
• Security – AES Encryption, Random Number Generator.
• Misc – Temperature sensor, RTC, Watchdog Timer Quadrature Decoder, 3 LEDs,
• Power Supply – 1.8V to 3.6V
• Dimensions – N/A

The board is programmed via Serial Wire Debug (SWD) protocol using an SWD programmer. Software development can be done with Keil, GNU GCC, the Arduino IDE, or mbed, and documentation appears to be fairly detailed. OSHCHIP is also open source hardware and you can find all hardware design files on Github.

Philip Fredin, the board’s developer also made a presentation a few months ago at HDDG10.

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OSHCHIP board can be purchased for $25 on Tindie.

Thanks to Nanik for the tip.

Tweet OSHCHIP is a tiny development board powered by a Nordic Semi ARM Cortex-M0 Bluetooth LE / ANT SoC that neatly fits on a breadboard, and beside wireless connectivity thanks…

A couple of months ago, I wrote about a Raspberry Pi battery kit with a 3,800 mAh battery, a battery control board, an acrylic enclosure, and an heatsink + fan set that I found on DealExtreme for about $22. I decided to buy it once I got confirmation the battery was included, and so today I’ll write about my experience assembling the kit, and running it with a Raspberry Pi 2 board. If you are only interested in the “RPi PowerPack” battery control board and battery, you can find them on Banggood for $11.93.

Raspberry Pi Club Battery Kit Unboxing

DX put all the accessories inside a zip bag, and shipped it in a bubble envelop.

It contains a white box with the RPi PowerPack V1.0 battery and battery, several screws, spacers, and bolts sets, a fan with screws, an acrylic case with three layers, an heatsink set with two aluminum heatsink for the Broadcom processor and USB hub, and a copper plate for the memory, as well as a short USB cable to connect the power from the battery board to the Raspberry Pi.

Click to Enlarge

The three acrylic plate are covered by brown covers on each side. It can be peeled optionally, but I discovered they would not come off that easily, so I left it that way.

Click to Enlarge

The top of the top has the connector for the battery (already connected), two USB ports include one “Output For RPi” to connect to Raspberry Pi micro USB port for power, one micro USB port to connect a 5V/2A charger, an On/Off switch, and a charge status LED.

The board can be used a as dumb UPS taking care of keeping power during outages, but you could make it more useful with some hardware hacking, by connect the Charge status LED to the Raspberry Pi board to find out when the battery is charging, as as well as the positive output from the “LiPo” connector via an ADC chip in order to monitor the battery voltage level in order to know when the battery level is critical, and to take actions such as powering off the Raspberry Pi board.

The back of the board just have the 3,800 mAh battery firmly attached to the board.

Raspberry Pi Club Battery Kit Assembly

Assembly is quite straightforward if you look the picture on DealExtreme, but I’ve shot a video explaining how to assemble the kit. Sadly, my Linux based video editor (Openshot-qt) is very unstable, and I’ve not been able to create the video after multiple attempts (any recommendations for a Linux Video Editor with fast forward support?).

But basically I did as follows:

1. Fasten the Raspberry Pi board to the middle plate with the four smaller spacers and corresponding bolts.
2. Insert four long spacers to the top plate (with the hole for the fan)
3. Attach the fan to the top plate with its screws/bolts
4. Connect the fan to 5V (pin 4), and GND (pin 6)
   
5. Fasten RPi PowerPack to the bottom plate with four medium spacers, screws (bottom), and bolts (top)
6. Screw four long spacers to the long spacers instead on the Raspberry Pi acrylic plate
7. Attach the bottom cover with the four remaining screws
8. Insert the short USB Cable between the USB port of the battery board and the micro USB port on Raspberry Pi board
9. Done!

Click to Enlarge

I could not find one screw during assembly, but finally they are all accounting for. Just one decided to hide under a bag 🙂

Raspberry Pi Club Battery Kit Review

Now that assembly is complete, it’s time to connect a 5V/2A micro USB power supply to test the battery and fan.

As soon as I applied power, I noticed that the fan was turning, and Raspberry Pi 2 board running, irrespective of the On/Off switch on the battery board. The charge LED is turn on as long as power is applied, and the battery is not fully charged.

Then after I cut off the power from my power extension, and the Raspberry Pi board was still running fine, although the fan was turning a little faster, likely because the voltage straight out of the battery board is higher than the one from the power supply (e.g. 5V vs 5.4V). It’s only in this mode (no mains) that the OFF mode for the power switch is useful, and Raspberry Pi board will stay powered off.

I’ve also let the Raspberry Pi 2 run Raspbian in idle mode for over two hours on the battery and no problem. A 3.7V / 3,800 mAh battery has about 14 Wh capacity, and since the Raspberry Pi consumes less than 5 Watts in most cases, it should be good for at least 2 to 3 hours, but it depends on your load. Disconnecting the fan would also extend it a little longer.
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When I tried the UPS mode in the video review above I did not connect the Raspberry Pi to a monitor, but once I did, I discovered the screen will blink (black) for about a second when switching from mains to the battery, and once out of my 10 tries the board rebooted while switching power from mains to battery.  So this may not be a 100% reliable solution for UPS.

Tweet A couple of months ago, I wrote about a Raspberry Pi battery kit with a 3,800 mAh battery, a battery control board, an acrylic enclosure, and an heatsink +…

96Boards was born as a hardware and software standard with Consumer (CE) & Enterprise Editions (EE), with different form factors with the latter focusing on server boards, but with similar…

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There are several ways to play with LoRaWAN protocol on the Raspberry Pi including RisingHF Discovery kit or Cooking Hacks LoRa Shield for Raspberry Pi, but the latter requires you to spend close to…

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ESP8266 WiFi modules initially stormed the maker market for IoT applications thanks to their low price, and later it became the dominant WiFi IoT platform for hobbyists thanks to its large community of developers. But technology progresses over time, and it’s always fun to look out for new solutions, and Realtek RTL8710 could prove to be an interesting alternative with its ARM Cortex-M3 processor @ 166 MHz, a little more user memory (48KB), audio support, faster WiFi performance, while still keeping a low price, as modules can be purchased for $3.90 on ICS station, a little more on eBay, and as low as $1.95 per unit on Aliexpress including shipping if you purchase 100 pieces or more.

A Chinese website as a side-by-side comparison between Realtek RTL8710 and Espressif ESP8266, which I also found translated into English.

The processor is said to run FreeRTOS operating systems, which happens to be the one also used in Espressif ESP8266 and ESP32 SDKs. Boantong also provides a development board integrating their RTL-00 module with PCB antenna for $14 + shipping.

RTL8710 Development Kit

Debugging and programming can be done through the micro USB port using CMSIS DAP), or JLINK.  I’ve not been able to find RTL8710 SDK yet, but there does seem to be a dedicated support forum (in Chinese only).

So at this stage RTL8710 is clearly not for everyone yet, but if you are interested in using or evaluating RTL8710 modules in commercial projects, you may want to check out “Boantong IoT Business Department“.

Via Bird on SMEoT Facebook Group.

Tweet ESP8266 WiFi modules initially stormed the maker market for IoT applications thanks to their low price, and later it became the dominant WiFi IoT platform for hobbyists thanks to…

Entry-level Android TV boxes are now already pretty cheap, and in the past we’ve seen deals in for around $25 and less, but with SCISHION V88, I think it’s the first time I see a new 4K Android TV box selling for less than $20 shipped.

SCISHION V88 specifications:

• SoC – Rockchip RK3229 quad core ARM Cortex A7 processor @ 1.5 GHz with  ARM Mali-400MP2
• System Memory – 1GB DDR3
• Storage – 8GB eMMC flash + SD card slot up to 16GB
• Video Output – HDMI 2.0 up to 4K2K @ 60 fps, and 3.5mm AV output (composite)
• Audio Output – HDMI, AV, and coaxial S/PDIF
• Connectivity – 10/100Mbps Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi
• USB – 4x USB 2.0 host ports
• Power Supply – 5V/2A
• Dimensions – 11.6 x 11.6 x 2.5 cm

The devices runs Android 5.1, and ships with a power adapter, a HDMI cable, an IR remote control, and a user’s manual. It also looks pretty similar to MX4 TV box minus Bluetooth support.

Based on my experiences with MXQ 4K and Zidoo X1 II, devices based on Rockchip RK3229 are pretty good at playing 1080p and – to a lesser extent – H.264 and H.265 4K videos, but will feel sluggish for many other apps, although it’s quite possible the upgrade to Android 5.1 improved the situation (my two reviews are based on Android 4.4). For ARM Linux fan, this may not be the best hardware to play with Linux either, and you’d better stick with Amlogic S905 devices if you want to experiment.

Tweet Entry-level Android TV boxes are now already pretty cheap, and in the past we’ve seen deals in for around $25 and less, but with SCISHION V88, I think it’s…

Nowadays, product development often involves working with teams spread across the world, with for example hardware development in the US, software development in India, and manufacturing in China. Resolving issues may require several members of the teams to gather data and work together, and beside the distance issue, you have to handle different timezones too. GradientOne may help facilitating hardware and firmware debugging by connecting test equipments such as oscilloscopes, spectrum analyzers, frequency generators and others to the cloud, so that data can easily be shared, and any member of the team control the equipment remotely, even automatizing measurements if needed. It could also be useful to field application engineers who may bring portable equipment to the customer premises, and have one engineer investigate issues remotely.

There are two ways to integrate equipment with GradientOne:

• Web user interface to control instruments, set parameters (e.g. trigger, acquisition type, etc), via the web interface.

The company already did the hard work, and current supports Tektronix MDO3000 series oscilloscopes + function generator, Tektronix MDO4000/MSO200/DPO 2000 & DPO 4000 series oscilloscopes, as well as Agilent/Keysight U2000 power meters, and more support is planned for Agilent 859xA/B series spectrum analyzers, Agilent 8340/1 A/B RF signal generators, Chroma 62000P series power supplies, Agilent 34401A digital multimeters.

Customer will benefits from data storage, organization, search, reporting, collaboration, signal replay, etc… through the interface.

• API to work with any existing test script to support sending test data and instrument configuration to GradientOne cloud as well as retrieve the data/configuration.

The HTTP(S) & JSON API is useful to add instruments not yet supported by the Web UI, and for customers who want to keep using their existing instrument scripts but securely (OAuth 2.0 authenticate) store and retrieve data from GradientOne cloud.

The promo video below quickly shows some of the features of GradientOne service.

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The company also offer on-site or online (Google Hangouts) live demos to interested companies. More details can be found on GradientOne website.

Tweet Nowadays, product development often involves working with teams spread across the world, with for example hardware development in the US, software development in India, and manufacturing in China. Resolving…

I’ve just read an article on Tizen.org about Samsung and Intersoft Eurasia collaboration about a “personal radiation monitoring device DO-RA” sending data over Bluetooth 4.0 LE. But a visit to their website showed other models such as DO-RA-Q using a 3.5mm audio jack, and compatible with smartphone, and Windows & Linux computer. I could not find any of their devices for sale, so I searched for some alternatives, and I found FTLAB FSG-001 radiation counter on Aliexpress, Amazon and eBay selling between $30 and $40.

FTLAB FSG-001 Geiger counter specifications:

• Radiation measurement of: gamma, X-rays
• Measurement range – 0.1 to 200 μSv/h
• Measurement error –  <30% within a given deviation between
• Dimensions – Φ10 x 30 mm (total length: 47mm with 3.5mm audio jack)
• Weight – 6 grams
• Operating temperature – 10 to 40 ℃

You’ll need to plug the dongle into your smartphone audio jack, and download FTLAB “SmartGeiger” app for Android or iOS.

If you want to check nuclear radiation you’ll then need to point to the object (e.g. food item like fish or vegetables)  for at least 3 minutes, and they recommend 10 minutes for more accurate results. It’s supposed to work with any smartphone, but the company warn that measurements may vary slightly depending on the smartphone model.

Accuracy is unclear, but the eBay page shows a picture pitting a professional radiation counter against FTLAB FSG-01 and results are similar. A YouTube video also shows a quick demo of the system using an old compass with a radium infused dial.
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Tweet I’ve just read an article on Tizen.org about Samsung and Intersoft Eurasia collaboration about a “personal radiation monitoring device DO-RA” sending data over Bluetooth 4.0 LE. But a visit…