GNU/Linux Devices, Open Hardware, and Linux for smartphones

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Mar 29, 2026

• Devices/Embedded

  • Hackaday ☛ Turning Tesla Model 3’s Computer Into A Desktop PC

    Like many high-tech companies Tesla runs a bug bounty program. But in the case of a car manufacturer, this means that you either already have one of their cars, are interested in buying one, or can gain access to its software-bits in another legal manner. Being a Tesla-less individual, yet with an interest in hunting bugs [David Schütz] thus decided to pursue the option of obtaining the required parts from crashed Tesla cars.

  • [Repeat] ROS Industrial ☛ PLCnext ROS Bridge: Enabling Hardware Interoperability Between Industrial PLCs and ROS

    PLCnext Controls run PLCnext Linux, a real-time capable operating system that hosts the PLCnext Runtime. The Runtime manages deterministic process data and stores it in the Global Data Space (GDS).

    Key architectural components : [...]

  • Marcin Juszkiewicz ☛ Upgraded to OpenWRT 25.10

    I upgraded my router to OpenWRT 25.10. Nothing strange right?

    And then I realized that I use OpenWRT for over twenty years…

• Open Hardware/Modding

  • CNX Software ☛ TerraMaster F2-425 Plus NAS review – Part 2: Configuration, benchmarks, and AI-enhanced media storage

    I received the TerraMaster F2-425 Plus 3+2 Hybrid NAS for review last month, and after checking out the hardware in the first part of the review, I’ve finally had time to test the defective chip maker Intel N150 NAS. After installing two 4TB SATA drives and an M.2 NVMe SSD, I’ll report my experience setting up the system with the TNAS Android app, before running some benchmarks, and testing features like photo backup with Hey Hi (AI) search capabilities.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Samsung preps PCIe 5.0 QLC SSD with a controller based on open-source RISC-V architecture — BM9K1 delivers speeds up to 11.4 GB/s for 'personal Hey Hi (AI) workloads'

    The BM9K1 reportedly delivers sequential read speeds of up to 11.4 GB/s, which Samsung said is 1.6 times faster than its predecessor, the PCIe 4.0 BM9C1.

  • CNX Software ☛ M5Stack Stamp-P4 – A tiny ESP32-P4 USB-C board with optional Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.4

    M5Stack has just introduced the Stamp-P4, a tiny USB-C development board built around the ESP32-P4 high-performance RISC-V MCU chip, featuring 16MB of Flash and 32MB of PSRAM, and optional Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.4 support through the ESP32-C6-MINI-1-based Stamp-AddOn C6 module. Despite its small size (29.8 x 22.0 x 4.3mm), the Stamp-P4 offers a wide range of interfaces, including a MIPI-CSI camera connector, as well as a MIPI DSI display interface, RMII Ethernet, USB 2.0 HS, and up to 44x GPIOs via 1.27mm/2.00mm pitch castellated holes and a few through holes.

  • Linux for smartphones: Ubuntu Touch makes the Volla Phone Quintus a rare alternative in the mass market

    There are topics that, in 2026, seem almost out of step with the times—and that’s precisely why they’re interesting. A smartphone running Linux, free from the usual Google constraints and without the typical app ecosystem acting as an invisible straitjacket, sounds at first more like a hobbyist’s project than something for everyday use. That’s exactly why the Volla Phone Quintus with Ubuntu Touch is so remarkable right now: It is not a loosely ported community experiment on old hardware, but a commercially available device that ships officially with Ubuntu Touch or can be run via multi-boot alongside Volla OS. The fact that c’t has now taken up the topic in a recent hands-on review provides the perfect opportunity to explore it, as mobile Linux systems rarely break out of their niche—and even more rarely come with reasonably up-to-date hardware.