Linux-centric Hardware: ESP32, Raspberry Pi, and More

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Oct 08, 2026

• Devices/Embedded

  • RTL-SDR ☛ ESP32-SDR: Turbo Mode Throughput Improvement + Real I/Q Output

    Thank you to Zoltan Doczi for writing in and sharing with us an article he's written explaining how he managed to speed up the ESP32-SDR's sampling time by 50x. The ESP32 has recently been discovered to have undocumented features that let it be used as an SDR. However, ESP32s have very limited USB bandwidth, so the full 80 MS/s I/Q sample rate cannot be sent to a PC, and hence only the spectrum data can be sent to a browser-based UI in bursts with gaps in between.

  • Kevin Boone ☛ First steps in bare-metal programming using UEFI – part 1

    This series of articles outlines how to start writing bare-metal programs for modern PCs, using Linux as the development platform. By “bare metal” I mean there is no operating system, just the minimal resources provided by the motherboard’s UEFI firmware.

  • Kevin Boone ☛ First steps in bare-metal programming using UEFI – part 2

    There are other ways to boot the EFI test application. You might, for example, create a bootable DVD or USB flash drive. I’ve decided to explain how to boot from a hard drive first because, although it’s fiddly – and potentially risky – it’s relatively easy to understand. Moreover, you’ll almost certainly want to boot from a hard drive eventually. I’ll explain how to boot from removable media later.

  • Kevin Boone ☛ First steps in bare-metal programming using UEFI – part 3

    In this article I’ll explain how to create a bootable DVD drive or USB flash drive from test.efi. You’ll be able to boot this on a real or virtual machine without installing anything on a hard drive. Although booting from removable media is a safe and straightforward process, not requiring any changes to the test machine, most computers boot a lot more quickly from a hard drive than from removable media. That’s an important consideration if you’re developing a substantial EFI application (a new operating system, for example).

• Open Hardware/Modding

  • CNX Software ☛ DSPi firmware turns Raspberry Pi RP2040/RP2350 into a USB sound card with an onboard DSP engine

    DSPi is a full-featured audio DSP firmware for the Raspberry Pi Pico, Pico 2, and other Raspberry Pi RP2040/RP2350 boards, which turns them into a USB sound card with an integrated DSP. It allows users to make use of essential tools like room correction, active crossovers, parametric EQ, time alignment, and more, and essentially works as a regular sound card on your computer. DSPi firmware’s capabilities: Dual-Core DSP – EQ processing is split across both cores on both RP2040 and RP2350.

  • LWN ☛ A new Raspberry Pi Desktop release is finally available for x86-64

    Simon Long has announced a long-awaited release of Raspberry Pi OS, based on Debian 13 ("trixie"), for x86-64 systems.

  • CNX Software ☛ Efinix Sapphire RV64 SoC – Configurable RISC-V soft-cores with DDR3, LPDDR4x, and HyperRAM for Efinix FPGAs

    Efinix has introduced the Sapphire RV64 SoC, a configurable 64-bit RISC-V soft-core processor designed for its Titanium and Trion FPGAs. It is based on the VexiiRiscv core and can be configured with one to four RISC-V cores running at up to 400 MHz. The Sapphire RV64 has a seven-stage pipeline, configurable L1 caches, optional 64–512 KB L2 cache, and 4–512 KB of on-chip RAM. It supports DDR3, LPDDR4x, and HyperRAM with up to 512-bit AXI interfaces and external memory from 4 MB to 8 GB.

  • Linux Gizmos ☛ IBASE IB966 3.5-inch SBC with Panther Lake and up to 180 TOPS

    IBASE has announced the IB966, a 3.5-inch SBC based on Intel Core Ultra Series 3 “Panther Lake” processors, with up to 180 TOPS of aggregate AI performance, 128GB of DDR5-7200 memory, dual 2.5GbE and three M.2 slots.

  • RTL-SDR ☛ ESPsoup: Turn an ESP32-C5 into a 2.4 & 5 GHz Pocket Scanner with a Connected Phone or PC

    Thank you to Peter Holzhauser for writing in and sharing with us his latest open-source project, 'ESPsoup'. Peter has written in previously to share his Android app, V2X2MAP, which detects and plots vehicle V2X (car-to-car) communications used by some modern cars. His new project, ESPsoup, combines an ESP32-C5 and a connected PC or phone into a fully featured scanner for the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands.

  • Hackaday ☛ ESP32 As Your Raspberry Pi’s Linux Wireless Co-processor

    What if I told you there’s a unique solution to the problem, as long as the SBC has an SDIO or SPI to spare? There’s a wireless card we can all try to get behind, and it’s certainly not flawless but gives us way more room to grow – it’s got somewhat open-source firmware, it comes from a respectable company, and it’s nigh-guaranteed to be easy to source. I am, of course, talking about esp-hosted – using ESP32 modules as your WiFi/BT card, over SDIO or SPI.

    I’ve recently added an ESP32-C6 into my project, and setting up esp-hosted wasn’t ultra straightforward – so here’s a guide, and a discussion on what makes esp-hosted so cool and so incredibly promising. Spoilers: it works with privacy switches that cut out power, it could be hacked into a coprocessor for mesh protocols, and it could potentially help us build a fully open-source SDIO WiFi card.

  • Hackaday ☛ Repairing A Couple Of Very Expensive Registered DDR5 RAM Sticks

    The 128 GB stick was first on the bench, with the fault being that it would fail DDR5 training on boot. This suggests that one or more of the DRAM BGA packages had developed a cracked solder joint, which is something that you could conceivably fix with more diagnosing and testing for a single IC reballing.

  • Hackaday ☛ Solve Your TTL Video Woes With An RP2350

    It requires a bit of level shifting hardware, which at minimum can be a set of resistors, and it targets the Waveshare RP2350-PiZero which comes with a handy ready-made HDMI socket. There’s a USB serial terminal to manage the thing, for which there’s even a TK GUI script.

  • Hackaday ☛ Keep That Old Radio Alive With An ESP32

    As the legacy AM broadcast bands fade away, what happens to the millions of devices built to receive them? Many of them will go into e-waste, but with a century of radios to choose from, some of them are collector’s items. Vintage tube radios like the ones [GarethDaviesLondon] has would go silent, so he’s made a small AM transmitter to keep them alive.