RED Brick Image 1.10 Test

[photron]

We're working for a while now on a big software update for the RED Brick. This includes Kernel 4.12 and Debian 9.

 

This means:

 

• Support for more WIFI USB sticks
  
• Support for Access Point Mode for more WIFI USB sticks
  
• Support for Bluetooth LE/4
  
• Updated software: Node.js 8, Nagios 4, Octave 4, ...
  
• And mode
  

But there are still some open problems:

 

• Currently no 3D/OpenGL hardware acceleration
  

Today, we provide the first test version of the new image, along with a new Brick Viewer version. We're looking forward to your feedback.

 

http://download.tinkerforge.com/red_110alpha1/

[photron]

Okay, here's Alpha 2 including the following changes:

 

• All network management is now done by Network Manager. this reduces the waiting times in Brick Viewer while configuring the network. The only thing that's not working yet is connecting to hidden WIFI networks
  
• OpenHAB updated to version 2
  
• Image size not too close to 8GB boundary anymore
  

http://download.tinkerforge.com/red_110alpha2/

 

Edit: The image is now uploaded.

[photron]

There's a new test version: beta1

 

See https://www.tinkerforge.com/en/blog/red-brick-image-110-beta-test/

[reinweb]

please add a swap file in the image 1.10

thx

 

[luzik]

..and beside 'desktop env' please add just Xorg server up - for GUI programs running fullscreen - 'kiosk mode' or something like this

[photron]

luzik, you can already run your program full screen on the desktop. What do you gain from getting rid of the desktop?

[luzik]

just get some free memory, and do not show desktop icons on embedded device

 

I achieved this running update-alternatives --config x-session-manager and choosing openbox

 

Can't wait new image

[luzik]

Oh, there is new image out there :-)

..downloading !

No info on your blog thus

[luzik]

With RED 1.10 brickd using constantly 20-25% of CPU, kworker using another 20-25 one. Can't profile IO because there is no suitable linux-perf/linux-tool package nor use any of iotop because of lack of I/O accounting support (CONFIG_TASKSTATS, CONFIG_TASK_DELAY_ACCT, CONFIG_TASK_IO_ACCOUNTING).

Is this normal ??

[bernhard.graeuler]

Hi,

this was recently discussed on the german board as well. Please let me try to  translate borgs statement from there:

we discussed the topic and checked the test we ran.

 

There are two findings:

 

1. The 1.10 image uses the Linux CPU frequency scaling governor. This means the CPU frequency is managed according to the load. Low frequency on low load and vice versa. This results in a lower system temperature and power consumption. But it also makes it look like the CPU resource consumption percentage is increased.

 

2. With image 1.10 we moved to the most recent Linux Mainline Kernel. Unfortunately, the SPI driver works very inefficient in our usage scenario. As far as we understand it the reason for this is, that drivers are optimized for multi processor systems, wich the RED brick is not. We already tried to improve the driver, you can find our modifications here: https://github.com/Tinkerforge/red-brick-linux/commit/2082ee9458d1bd553fb2c1b933162b3beabc8332

 

Anyhow, if you compare image 1.9 with 1.10 a performance decrease is measurable. We're working on improvements. Yet, this is a very time consuming topic.

[luzik]

Thank You

[borg]

RED Brick 1.11 image is now released with big performance boost again! https://www.tinkerforge.com/en/blog/red-brick-image-111-big-performance-boost/