Linux Devices and Open Hardware

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Mar 11, 2025

• Devices/Embedded

  • EE Times ☛ Can Linux Enable Safer SDVs?

    The automotive industry continues its transition to software-defined vehicles (SDVs) with the promise of updatable features, enhanced functionality, and new customer experiences. Safety, however, remains the top priority and accepts neither competition nor compromise. Can Linux open the road to safer SDVs?

    In preparation for the Mobility Tech Forum and the panel discussion on SDV safety, EE Times Europe spoke with Moritz Neukirchner, senior director of strategic product management for SDVs at Elektrobit, to understand the penetration of Linux in automotive and how it can meet functional safety compliance requirements.

  • Hot Hardware ☛ Google Will Enable Android Phones With Ability To Run Debian Linux Soon

    Hidden away among the hullabaloo of Google's March Pixel feature drop lies a feature many enthusiasts and developers have asked for years—the Linux Terminal app. This Debian-based Linux environment is now available for Pixel phones with the latest stable update. This means users can load a portable desktop distro on their smartphones—can you believe this is happening right now? The app still lacks a proper GUI for now, but power users can already initiate commands like they would on their PCs/laptops.

    If an old 70s processor can run Linux, why can't a modern smartphone? Well, the wait is finally over. Google had hinted to serving up a proper Linux terminal app for Android for awhile now, but starting with the latest stable March Pixel update, the terminal app is open for all to use. To enable the app, you'll need a Pixel phone running the latest stable version of Android—of course—then head to Settings > System > Developer options > toggle Linux development environment. Once you do, the Linux Terminal app will appear in the app drawer. Launching the app will require an initial 567 MB download.

• Open Hardware/Modding

  • The Next Platform ☛ Europe Takes Another Whack At Homegrown Compute Engines

    With RISC-V International, the body controlling the RISC-V instruction set, located in Switzerland for the past five years, RISC-V now has just as much right to call itself indigenous to Europe as does Arm Ltd, the British chip company that finds itself on the other side of the English Channel after the Brexit break up and that is still around 90 percent owned by Japanese conglomerate SoftBank.

  • The DIY Life ☛ Build a Smart Family Planner with a Raspberry Pi 5

    Do You Struggle to Keep Track of Your Family’s Schedule? Today, I’m going to show you how to build a simple, smart family planner using a Raspberry Pi 5, a touchscreen display, and a 3D-printed stand!

  • Hackaday ☛ The ESP32 Bluetooth Backdoor That Wasn’t

    Recently there was a panicked scrambling after the announcement by [Tarlogic] of a ‘backdoor’ found in Espressif’s popular ESP32 MCUs. Specifically a backdoor on  the Bluetooth side that would give a lot of control over the system to any attacker. As [Xeno Kovah] explains, much about these claims is exaggerated, and calling it a ‘backdoor’ is far beyond the scope of what was actually discovered.

  • CNX Software ☛ NextPCB offers free ESP32-S3 PCBA prototypes for original designs (Sponsored)

    NextPCB has started offering free PCBA prototypes for PCB designs based on the ESP32-S3 wireless microcontroller following a similar offer for free Raspberry Pi RP2040/RP2350 PCBAs launched in January 2025. The Chinese PCB/PCBA manufacturer’s new “accelerator campaign” targets developers, makers, and researchers who developed their own PCB based on the ESP32-S3 microcontroller.

  • CNX Software ☛ ESP32-S3 based AC voltage controller/dimmer features a knob with integrated display

    Makerfabs has recently introduced Matouch 1.28-inch ToolSet_AC Dimmer an open-source ESP32-based AC voltage controller for dimming lights or adjusting motor speeds using phase-cut dimming. Built around an ESP32-S3 wireless MCU, it features a 1.28” capacitive touch display (240×240), and a UI designed with LVGL/Squareline and the Arduino V2.3.4 IDE.

  • It's FOSS ☛ Enjoying Self-Hosting Software Locally With CasaOS and Raspberry Pi

    I used CasaOS for self-hosting popular open source services on a Raspberry Pi. Here's my experience.

  • Raspberry Pi Weekly Issue #494 - Introducing: extended temperature range for Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4

    Howdy, Another week, another Raspberry Pi Weekly. I’m always only a Friday away <3 On Monday we announced the launch of Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4’s new extended temperature variants, with an operating temperature range stretching from −40°C to +85°C. They’re designed for applications in demanding indoor and outdoor environments.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ RISC-V mini AI PC that fits inside a Framework laptop shell revealed — DeepComputing's DC-ROMA RISC-V AI PC claims 50 TOPS, 64GB RAM

    The new device comes with two names: either the "DC-ROMA RISC-V AI PC" or the "DC-ROMA RISC-V Mainboard II for Framework Laptop 13" according to its listing page. The mainboard is one of many members of DeepComputing's DC-ROMA line, a family of SFF/laptop PCs all built on the RISC-V architecture set. It is also DeepComputing's second replacement mainboard for the Framework Laptop 13, with both the RISC-V AI PC and its predecessor functioning either inside the Framework or on its own as a stand-alone unit.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Raspberry Pi powers briefcase-sized PiEEG 'Bio Lab' project

    At the heart of the kit is the aforementioned PiEEG HAT, the same HAT that we saw back in 2023. But this time the PiEEG is part of a larger "Bio Lab" in a briefcase that now includes a custom PCB and screen. The PCB has breakouts for the GPIO, SPI, I2C, power and a web of sensors that connect to a "Snoopy cap" which is one of the included interfaces between your brain and the Raspberry Pi. The cap is used to read the electrical activity of the brain (electroencephalogram, EEG) but the kit also has sensors that can be used for electrooculogram (EOG to measure how the retina reacts to light/dark by outputting a voltage), electrocardiogram (ECG measures the electrical activity of the heart) and electromyography (EMG measure the electrical activity of muscles).

  • James G ☛ Repair cafes

    I would love to see more repair cafes across the UK where I can take things to be fixed. I could also imagine such cafes to be a place where you can exchange things you no longer need — for example, cables, or old computers — that could be made available to the community.

  • The Guardian UK ☛ ‘Positive, hopeful, lovely places’: how Britain’s repair shops are cutting waste and giving devices a new lease of life

    Boom in fixing rather than throwing away items creates jobs and cuts waste, emissions and costs

  • Techdirt ☛ All 50 States Have Now Pushed ‘Right To Repair’ Laws, But Actual Enforcement Is Spotty At Best

    While U.S. consumer protection issues are a hot mess in the United States, the right to repair movement continues to be a singular bright spot. The more that giants like Apple, John Deere, and others try to monopolize repair (usually through obnoxious DRM, “parts pairing,” or legal fine print), the greater the public support for the movement seems to grow.

    The catch: so far only Massachusetts, New York, Minnesota, Colorado, California, and Oregon have actually passed laws. And in some instances the bills have been watered down post-passage, like in New York, where Governor Kathy Hochul buckled to company lobbying to make the law much weaker while also exempting many of the most problematic industries.

  • Raspberry Pi ☛ HexBoard MIDI controller strikes a chord with RP2040

    Musical instruments are dependent on physics and maths for their sounds. A guitar string changes pitch when its physical properties change, be that string thickness, tension, or length. A note from a saxophone, or any wind instrument, changes according to the length of the instrument that the air is vibrating through. Any physical instrument needs to have some physical property that the player must interact with in order to play music, and this naturally limits who can play, and what can be played.

  • CNX Software ☛ Review of SunFounder 10.1-inch touchscreen display for SBCs using Raspberry Pi 5 and Radxa ROCK 5B

    SunFounder has just sent us one of their 10.1-inch touchscreen display designed for single board computers (SBCs) for review. It supports the Raspberry Pi family, but not only, thanks to a flexible design that allows mounting all sorts of boards with mounting holes that fit within an 85x70mm area. All you need is a board with HDMI output, a spare USB port for the touchscreen, and 5V USB-C input (up to 5A). So I’ll first test the SunFounder 10.1-inch touchscreen display with a Raspberry Pi 5 (85x56mm), then a larger Radxa ROCK 5 Model B Pico-ITX SBC (100 x 72mm).

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Raspberry Pi 5 powers cyberpunk themed brain scanner in a custom 3D printed case

    The Civitas Universe has dubbed this creation the Neuro Photonic R5 Flow Cyberdeck — named for its brain scanning functionality and the Raspberry Pi 5 powering it inside. The project is built around an existing brain scanning headset and has been programmed to interface with the Pi using an Adafruit Macropad. The housing has been created from scratch just for this project and features a really cool cyberpunk theme.

  • Martijn Braam ☛ After-FOSDEM videobox updates

    The FOSDEM video capture box is a custom device for doing all the in-room stuff for the live-streams of the event. It contains a Radxa x4 SBC, a digital audio mixer, an HDMI capture card, some USB chargers and a network switch. Every room that is livestreamed has two of these boxes, one in front that captures the audio and the HDMI signal for the projector. The other box is in the back of the room hooked up to the camera.