It looks like www.andahammer.com and friendlyarm have been busy again and released a couple of new boards, first up we have the mini210s black edition, with some neat features, made exclusively for andahammer, they feature a 6pin header for access to the buzzer, pot and mic headers and a write protect for the eeprom which means you can safely store mac addresses, phone numbers, device serial numbers etc. and retrieve them at boot, lastly there is a jumper to silence the onboard piezo buzzer.
They're only small changes but from a developers point of view they open up some nice features, firstly it means that you're no longer tied to having the inconvenient onboard placement for the buzzer, pot and mic, once the min210 is in a case, those devices will be near useless so being able to place them where they can be used is a big help.
As mentioned for the eeprom, it's easy to see the advantages of having a write protect option, it means that you can store information on the device without worrying it will be wiped, it means you can have a small level of security over your stored data and uniquely identify the board and more importantly store a mac address which is useful if you have a lot of mini210S on a network.
The buzzer, it screeches like a banshee, being able to mute it with a jumper is manna from heaven :)
Onto the shiny new exynos 4412 board, the folks over at http://www.andahammer.com/tiny4412sdk-hd70/ have a system ready to go, it's a standard friendylarm 'tiny' form factor, so it's a core tiny board (cpu, ram, e-mmc) with an arm cortex-a9 quad core cpu, 1GB ddr 3, 4GB e-mmc flash, then you have the SDK board which has all of the headers for all of the peripherals like usb/micro usb, ethernet, SD socket, com ports, hdmi, g-sensor (accelerometer), audio out/mic in,buttons and most interestingly there is a cpld on board for some programmable logic fun, if you want more information keep an eye on the andahammer website for updates.
I almost forgot, the LCD that goes with the tiny4412 kit is a 7" high resolution 1280x800 capacitive touchscreen which gives it a very nice resolution for any of the modern OS distros.
I can't wait to see what this board can actually do, 1.5Ghz quad core should go like a rocket, lots of ram, the nand flash should be that bit faster on the e-mmc setup, it should have better 3d/2d support and the usual hd codec support, it will be running kernel 3.50 and android 4.2.
Showing posts with label FriendlyArm. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FriendlyArm. Show all posts
Saturday, 27 July 2013
Friday, 14 September 2012
Mini210S has now got a wiki!
Armworks have put up a wiki for it's devices, you can find it here. It's a mediawiki based site, so it should be familiar to anyone that's used elinux or any other mediawiki based wiki.
You can jump straight to the mini210S pages here, I've spent a few days adding content with tutorials on things I've managed to discover since I got my lovely mini210S in the post :) I'm sure over the coming weeks and months the mini210S page will fill out nicely with community contributed code, projects and information.
I will probably start to do a mixture of wiki posts and link back to them here with a bit of background around the tutorial/how to, makes sense rather than blogging about it then having to reformat it for the wiki as well.
The tutorials to note so far are:
How to burn a rootfs image to nand
How to root Android 4.0.3 on the mini210S
How to install google apps into the android 4.0.3 img and burn to nand
How to install google apps on the mini210S Android 4.0.3
How to access android debug bridge via tcpip
Burning your own rootfs to nand is obviously going to be a useful skill :D FriendlyArm provided a prebuilt rootfs for us, so if you haven't got the time or inclination to build your own, you can just dump your working project binaries and scripts into a known working rootfs and just test them out. Of course once you work out how to build your own rootfs you can make your own from scratch and burn it quite easily.
Rooting Android 4.0.3 seems odd that you'd have to root a development device until of course you consider it's 'rooted' from a development point of view but not rooted from an end user viewpoint. so if you want to run around android treating it like you would any other device that you own, then you'll want to root it :) Of course this won't be the case if you're doing an installation of some kind, so use this with caution as rooting has serious security implications.
Google Apps, there are a couple tutorials for getting google apps. onto a mini210S, if you're developing android software on a mini210S, you're probably going to want some kind of access to google play (formally android market) this has to be done by installing google apps (gapps), if you are 'into' using google's web software then you will need to install google apps. Google apps. provides youtube, gmail, maps, play apps. for android, unfortunately the mini210S doesn't have them installed as standard so we have no way of installing them normally, so a tutorial is needed, I did 2, to cover 2 different methods.
Android debug Bridge via tcp/ip, this tutorial gives a quick and simple way to connect to adb on the mini210S via LAN/Wifi, saves digging around for a usb cable and could end up being a very powerful remote debugging feature, works nicely on a standard home network, I wonder how well it would cope across the internet?
There's also a tutorial on installing flash player on the mini210S, only really of any interest to UK mini210S owners, I did this one so that I could watch iplayer through the mini210S :D
They are mainly Android tutorials at the moment, should have more linux tutorials coming up. I will also have some info on booting the kernel and rootfs from an SD card soon too!!
You can jump straight to the mini210S pages here, I've spent a few days adding content with tutorials on things I've managed to discover since I got my lovely mini210S in the post :) I'm sure over the coming weeks and months the mini210S page will fill out nicely with community contributed code, projects and information.
I will probably start to do a mixture of wiki posts and link back to them here with a bit of background around the tutorial/how to, makes sense rather than blogging about it then having to reformat it for the wiki as well.
The tutorials to note so far are:
How to burn a rootfs image to nand
How to root Android 4.0.3 on the mini210S
How to install google apps into the android 4.0.3 img and burn to nand
How to install google apps on the mini210S Android 4.0.3
How to access android debug bridge via tcpip
Burning your own rootfs to nand is obviously going to be a useful skill :D FriendlyArm provided a prebuilt rootfs for us, so if you haven't got the time or inclination to build your own, you can just dump your working project binaries and scripts into a known working rootfs and just test them out. Of course once you work out how to build your own rootfs you can make your own from scratch and burn it quite easily.
Rooting Android 4.0.3 seems odd that you'd have to root a development device until of course you consider it's 'rooted' from a development point of view but not rooted from an end user viewpoint. so if you want to run around android treating it like you would any other device that you own, then you'll want to root it :) Of course this won't be the case if you're doing an installation of some kind, so use this with caution as rooting has serious security implications.
Google Apps, there are a couple tutorials for getting google apps. onto a mini210S, if you're developing android software on a mini210S, you're probably going to want some kind of access to google play (formally android market) this has to be done by installing google apps (gapps), if you are 'into' using google's web software then you will need to install google apps. Google apps. provides youtube, gmail, maps, play apps. for android, unfortunately the mini210S doesn't have them installed as standard so we have no way of installing them normally, so a tutorial is needed, I did 2, to cover 2 different methods.
Android debug Bridge via tcp/ip, this tutorial gives a quick and simple way to connect to adb on the mini210S via LAN/Wifi, saves digging around for a usb cable and could end up being a very powerful remote debugging feature, works nicely on a standard home network, I wonder how well it would cope across the internet?
There's also a tutorial on installing flash player on the mini210S, only really of any interest to UK mini210S owners, I did this one so that I could watch iplayer through the mini210S :D
They are mainly Android tutorials at the moment, should have more linux tutorials coming up. I will also have some info on booting the kernel and rootfs from an SD card soon too!!
Sunday, 9 September 2012
Mini210S, flash player, iplayer and google play
I live in the UK, so I get access to bbc TV/Radio video/audio streaming services for free via their iPlayer service, this needs adobe flash player, unfortunately, flash player isn't installed on the 210S and we don't have access to the android market/google play. Follow these instructions to quickly and simply install adobe flash player on the mini210S.
1. go to the adobe flashplayer archives and download a version appropriate for the version of android, http://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/archived-flash-player-versions.html I downloaded the latest version (Flash Player 11.1.for Android 4.0 (11.1.115.17)) as I have android 4.0.3 (Ice cream Sandwich) installed.
2. Save it to the Download dir on your SD card, using the ES file explorer, browse to the Download folder on the card, tap on install_flash_player_ics.apk, (if it complains about not being set to install apps that aren't downloaded from the android market, click on the settings button and scroll down and make sure 'unknown sources' is ticked, then press the back button and try again!).
3. once it's installed you can click done or open, if you click open, it will open the web browser and take you to the flash settings page, it was oversized on my LCD, so I don't think it was showing me the whole screen, probably something to do with screen pixel density maybe? Either way, you should see something legible on screen, if all you see is a little block with a ? in it, then something went wrong somewhere and I have no idea where :D
If everything went ok and you're in the UK you can test flashplayer by going to http://www.bbc.co.uk/mobile/iplayer and play a tv show.
Obviously this will use data, make sure you use it via wifi or it will use up your download quota if you're connected via mobile networks!!
You can still test it by doing going to the shows page but don't actually play the video, if it's working you will see all of the user controls and the video itself, if it's not working you will probably see the blue box with the ? in it or just a black area.
Unfortunately, android and flash player is a well trodden subject on the internet, you will find many forum posts on the subject and many apk files to download, I tried loads of different methods until I stumbled across the the developer archive!! I think this is probably going to be a bit of a commonly recurring theme while trying to track down issues with android.
Another unfortunate thing with the mini210S at the time of writing, there is no google play/android market support, it appears there are chinese app market tools on the device but nothing to cater for the continental markets. For the time being at least we will probably have to use an alternative market, it's been suggested to me to use this:
http://www.1mobile.com/app/market/
I haven't tried it myself yet but it will do until I can work out how to get 'gapps' (google applications) installed on the mini210S, which will give us gmail and other google associated goodies including access to the market.
1. go to the adobe flashplayer archives and download a version appropriate for the version of android, http://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/archived-flash-player-versions.html I downloaded the latest version (Flash Player 11.1.for Android 4.0 (11.1.115.17)) as I have android 4.0.3 (Ice cream Sandwich) installed.
2. Save it to the Download dir on your SD card, using the ES file explorer, browse to the Download folder on the card, tap on install_flash_player_ics.apk, (if it complains about not being set to install apps that aren't downloaded from the android market, click on the settings button and scroll down and make sure 'unknown sources' is ticked, then press the back button and try again!).
3. once it's installed you can click done or open, if you click open, it will open the web browser and take you to the flash settings page, it was oversized on my LCD, so I don't think it was showing me the whole screen, probably something to do with screen pixel density maybe? Either way, you should see something legible on screen, if all you see is a little block with a ? in it, then something went wrong somewhere and I have no idea where :D
If everything went ok and you're in the UK you can test flashplayer by going to http://www.bbc.co.uk/mobile/iplayer and play a tv show.
Obviously this will use data, make sure you use it via wifi or it will use up your download quota if you're connected via mobile networks!!
You can still test it by doing going to the shows page but don't actually play the video, if it's working you will see all of the user controls and the video itself, if it's not working you will probably see the blue box with the ? in it or just a black area.
Unfortunately, android and flash player is a well trodden subject on the internet, you will find many forum posts on the subject and many apk files to download, I tried loads of different methods until I stumbled across the the developer archive!! I think this is probably going to be a bit of a commonly recurring theme while trying to track down issues with android.
Another unfortunate thing with the mini210S at the time of writing, there is no google play/android market support, it appears there are chinese app market tools on the device but nothing to cater for the continental markets. For the time being at least we will probably have to use an alternative market, it's been suggested to me to use this:
http://www.1mobile.com/app/market/
I haven't tried it myself yet but it will do until I can work out how to get 'gapps' (google applications) installed on the mini210S, which will give us gmail and other google associated goodies including access to the market.
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