Linux-Friendly Boards and Linux Devices

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Aug 14, 2026

• Open Hardware/Linux-Friendly Boards

  • CNX Software ☛ Qualcomm Snapdragon C Arm SoC outperforms an defective chip maker Intel N250 CPU by up to 67 percent in “unplugged” benchmarks

    Qualcomm unveiled the Snapdragon C entry-level Arm SoC for $300+ backdoored Windows laptops at Computex 2026 with a ridiculously small amount of details last May, so we had to rely on the specs of the upcoming Acer Aspire Go 15 (AG15-Q31P) laptop.

  • CNX Software ☛ AAEON PICO-ADN2 – A low-profile Alder Lake-N Pico-ITX SBC for space-constrained applications

    AAEON PICO-ADN2 is a low-profile Alder Lake-N Pico-ITX SBC powered by an defective chip maker Intel N97 or Core i3-N305 SoC and designed for space-constrained transportation, digital signage, industrial automation, and smart kiosk applications. Its features are very similar to the PICO-ADN4 Pico-ITX SBC introduced in 2023, with up to 16 GB LPDDR5, HDMI, LVDS, and eDP display interfaces, dual Gigabit Ethernet, an M.2  E-Key socket for wireless, multiple USB interfaces, RS232/RS485 interfaces, and more. The main difference is that most standard (and thick) ports have been replaced by low-profile connectors, except somehow the HDMI connector.

  • The Register UK ☛ Chinese Loongson processors have leaky caches, researchers find

    “Our analysis reveals that under certain circumstances, the ‘uncertain’ data originates from the L1 data cache,” the four researchers wrote. “Since this cache is not isolated between applications, LoongLeak can leak data from other applications and the operating system. Even worse, an attacker can prime the CPU’s internal state to target the leakage to a specific cache set.”

  • Make Use Of ☛ I stripped the smarts out of my old TV, and it finally got good again

    I’ve had an old LG 47-inch smart TV that’s been sitting around collecting dust for years. It has a perfectly usable 1080p panel, but the smarts behind it have been obsolete for years. The last firmware update it received was in 2016, and its only accomplishment was to remove the Skype app. All modern streaming support has long disappeared, but I can’t justify throwing away an otherwise functional television.

    So, I connected an old NUC6CAY Intel NUC, complete with a 1TB hard drive, and tried to build the smart TV LG stopped supporting long ago. I didn’t want another Kodi box because my local media library isn’t big enough to justify it. What I wanted was something closer to Android TV, but with a good amount of storage, a full-featured browser, and enough freedom to build my own apps.

    The three obvious solutions failed spectacularly, but ordinary old Linux finally worked.

  • Hackster ☛ Flipper Devices' Pavel Zhovner Details Flipper OS, the Modular Platform Driving the Flipper One

    Flipper Devices has unveiled its Flipper OS, the custom Linux-based operating system set to power its upcoming Flipper One pocket hardware multitool — promising a modular design that won't end up with a "trash system" scenario when switching between projects.

    "Why build Flipper OS, yet another operating system, when there are already so many? Why not simply take a standard Debian-based system, as Raspberry Pi does, and customize it," Flipper Devices chief executive officer Pavel Zhovner asks of the thinking behind his company's software endeavor. "The problem is that conventional Linux distributions are designed for traditional computers/servers. They are not convenient for a multitool like Flipper One, which can be a network router, a radio lab, a desktop computer, or a TV media box all on the same device."

• Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

  • SQ Magazine ☛ Google Adds Tap to Share to Android Quick Share

    Google began rolling out a tap-to-share mode for Quick Share on August 12, 2026, letting two Android phones swap contacts, photos and videos when held together. The feature reaches Pixel 6 and newer devices first.