FYI: Snowball (new low-cost board similar to beagle/panda)

FYI: Snowball (new low-cost board similar to beagle/panda)

[Robert Schuster]

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Hi,
ST/Ericson made a low-cost Cortex-A9 (like beagle and panda) and nobody
knows about it. What a terrible marketing ... !

So, here is my attempt to make at least OpenEmbedded people know about
this gem:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhAETIPrhCg

Regards,
Robert


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Re: FYI: Snowball (new low-cost board similar to beagle/panda)

[Eric Bénard]

Hi,

On 18/06/2011 08:50, Robert Schuster wrote:
> ST/Ericson made a low-cost Cortex-A9 (like beagle and panda) and nobody
> knows about it. What a terrible marketing ... !
>
> So, here is my attempt to make at least OpenEmbedded people know about
> this gem:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhAETIPrhCg
>
it was announced on linux devices :
http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/News/Calao-Systems-Snowball/
but as you can see on their "community" site there are not much news since 
this date : http://www.igloocommunity.org/

If you want to pay for an "open" board to become a "free" beta tester for an 
other phone/tablet cpu manufacturer you can also wait for 
http://www.origenboard.org/

Next one in the list may be using an iMX6 from Freescale (in the page, this 
one is said to also target industrial applications and not only phones/tablets) :
http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/overview.jsp?code=IMX6X_SERIES
which will surely have its equivalent of the i.MX53's QSB :
http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=IMX53QSB

Eric

Re: FYI: Snowball (new low-cost board similar to beagle/panda)

[Han Hartgers]

> Next one in the list may be using an iMX6 from Freescale (in the page, this
> one is said to also target industrial applications and not only
> phones/tablets) :
> http://www.freescale.com/**webapp/sps/site/overview.jsp?**
> code=IMX6X_SERIES<http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/overview.jsp?code=IMX6X_SERIES>
> which will surely have its equivalent of the i.MX53's QSB :
> http://www.freescale.com/**webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.**
> jsp?code=IMX53QSB<http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=IMX53QSB>
>
> What is the general impression of this I.MX53 Quick Starter board?
It looks to be in a similar league as the Beagleboard xM.
It has a more memory, Sata, 2 SD card slots.  But at the down side
complicated expansion connector and less USB ports.

The main advantage of this board would be the hardware video encoder and
decoder and the better(?) software stack for that part. But I don't know if
it is really as good as mentioned on the website.
But a bit of a strange choice to have a good hardware encoder/decoder but no
dvi/hdmi connector (needs a daughter board.)
This (better supported?) hardware encoder/decoder would push this cortex-a8
to the level of (or beyond) the Pandaboard with it's dual core Cortex-a9 on
this video point.

The website http://imxcommunity.org/ does not look very active. (more email
on the beagle and panda mailing lists.)

I hope to hear from someone that owns / played with this board how it really
"works". Is there anyone with some experience with this board?

Greetings,

Han

Re: FYI: Snowball (new low-cost board similar to beagle/panda)

[Petr Štetiar]

Han Hartgers <han.hartgers@gmail.com> [2011-06-18 23:28:04]:

> It looks to be in a similar league as the Beagleboard xM.  It has a more
> memory, Sata, 2 SD card slots.  But at the down side complicated expansion
> connector and less USB ports.

What do you mean by 'complicated expansion connector'. Is it complicated to
get the connector/part? Or is it expensive?

> The main advantage of this board would be the hardware video encoder and
> decoder and the better(?) software stack for that part. But I don't know if
> it is really as good as mentioned on the website.  But a bit of a strange
> choice to have a good hardware encoder/decoder but no dvi/hdmi connector
> (needs a daughter board.) This (better supported?) hardware encoder/decoder
> would push this cortex-a8 to the level of (or beyond) the Pandaboard with
> it's dual core Cortex-a9 on this video point.

As always, it depends on your use case(s), plans and ideas, but for example I
prefer LVDS over HDMI and as another example, I've C3/C4 and no XM, because
there's simply no NAND flash. Simply said, there won't be some universal board
which would suit all of us :-)

And I think, that the competition is always good.

-- ynezz

Re: FYI: Snowball (new low-cost board similar to beagle/panda)

[Petr Štetiar]

Eric Bénard <eric@eukrea.com> [2011-06-18 09:20:54]:

> it was announced on linux devices :
> http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/News/Calao-Systems-Snowball/ but as you
> can see on their "community" site there are not much news since this date :
> http://www.igloocommunity.org/

I wonder, if that SOC used on this board is going to be as "easily" sourceable
as it's the Omap4 on Pandaboard. Or it's meant to be sourced in the huge
quantities only also?

> If you want to pay for an "open" board to become a "free" beta tester for 
> an other phone/tablet cpu manufacturer you can also wait for  
> http://www.origenboard.org/

Ditto.

And I sometimes wonder, which company is going to trademark some of the
buzzwords around the "free/open/community" first or even patent some kind of
"free/open/community" work flow :-)

> Next one in the list may be using an iMX6 from Freescale (in the page, this
> one is said to also target industrial applications and not only
> phones/tablets) :
> http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/overview.jsp?code=IMX6X_SERIES
> which will surely have its equivalent of the i.MX53's QSB :
> http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=IMX53QSB

Good to know, I was wondering last week, what is that Loco board in the Linux
kernel tree :-)

-- ynezz

Re: FYI: Snowball (new low-cost board similar to beagle/panda)

[Eric Bénard]

On 19/06/2011 11:15, Petr Štetiar wrote:
> Eric Bénard<eric@eukrea.com>  [2011-06-18 09:20:54]:
>
>> it was announced on linux devices :
>> http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/News/Calao-Systems-Snowball/ but as you
>> can see on their "community" site there are not much news since this date :
>> http://www.igloocommunity.org/
>
> I wonder, if that SOC used on this board is going to be as "easily" sourceable
> as it's the Omap4 on Pandaboard. Or it's meant to be sourced in the huge
> quantities only also?
>
OMAP4 is actually not easily sourceable, TI's web site says :
"This product is intended for high-volume wireless OEMs and ODMs and is not 
available through distributors."

>> If you want to pay for an "open" board to become a "free" beta tester for
>> an other phone/tablet cpu manufacturer you can also wait for
>> http://www.origenboard.org/
>
> Ditto.
>
> And I sometimes wonder, which company is going to trademark some of the
> buzzwords around the "free/open/community" first or even patent some kind of
> "free/open/community" work flow :-)
>
>> Next one in the list may be using an iMX6 from Freescale (in the page, this
>> one is said to also target industrial applications and not only
>> phones/tablets) :
>> http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/overview.jsp?code=IMX6X_SERIES
>> which will surely have its equivalent of the i.MX53's QSB :
>> http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=IMX53QSB
>
> Good to know, I was wondering last week, what is that Loco board in the Linux
> kernel tree :-)
>
loco is qsb here again it's not clear why they chose loco for the board name 
in the kernel and qsb for the product name on the shelf ...

Eric

Re: FYI: Snowball (new low-cost board similar to beagle/panda)

[Koen Kooi]

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On 19-06-11 11:15, Petr Štetiar wrote:
> Eric Bénard <eric@eukrea.com> [2011-06-18 09:20:54]:
> 
>> it was announced on linux devices :
>> http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/News/Calao-Systems-Snowball/ but as you
>> can see on their "community" site there are not much news since this date :
>> http://www.igloocommunity.org/
> 
> I wonder, if that SOC used on this board is going to be as "easily" sourceable
> as it's the Omap4 on Pandaboard. Or it's meant to be sourced in the huge
> quantities only also?

FWIW, you can get the AM45xx in low quantities from TI soon if you want
something in the OMAP4 family.

regards,

Koen
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Re: FYI: Snowball (new low-cost board similar to beagle/panda)

[Koen Kooi]

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On 18-06-11 08:50, Robert Schuster wrote:
> Hi,
> ST/Ericson made a low-cost Cortex-A9 (like beagle and panda) and nobody
> knows about it. What a terrible marketing ... !

Not really terrible marketing, the board ships with a kernel they refuse
to release the source for!

But still, it would be nice to add OE support for it, once they stop
violating the GPL.
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