Articles by Chris Fiege

USB-SD-Mux now reads SD Card registers

The USB-SD-Mux is designed to make life easier for embedded software engineers by automating the transfer of an SD card between a host PC (deploying a new software image to the SD card) and an embedded Linux device. Since we have introduced this device into our Embedded Linux development workflow back in 2019 we have probably written thousands of SD card images with it. Now the usbsdmux software controlling the device has gained a new feature: It can now read and decode a few SD card information registers. This makes it possible to gain more insight into the capabilities of the used SD card - especially while developing on low-level software and drivers interfacing with the SD card.


candleLight FD - Open Hardware USB-to-CAN-FD interface

This week Linux Automation has released a CAN-FD version of the low-cost USB-to-CAN interface candleLight: the candleLight FD. And as the candleLight the candleLight FD is Open Hardware. Check the KiCad project on Github.


LXA USB-T1L ❤️ Beagle Play: Exploring Single Wire Ethernet

It seems everybody is talking about Single Pair Ethernet (SPE) these days. So we want to follow the trend and do the same :-) SPE is a class of Ethernet transmission standards that uses just a single pair of twisted pair cable for data transmission. There are multiple SPE variants spanning maximum data rates from a hand full MBit/s to multiple GBit/s and cable lengths from a hand full of meters to kilometers. The most interesting ones from our embedded-centric point of view are 10Base-T1L (point-to-point, up to 1 km), 10Base-T1S (multidrop, approx. 10 m) and 100Base-T1 (point-to-point, 15 m). The new Beagle Play comes with a 10Base-T1L PHY. This makes it a great peer to experiment with our Linux Automation USB-T1L. In this post we will explore the possibilities of 10Base-T1L on a recent Linux system.


Embedded Linux Conference Europe 2023: Our Recommendations

Last month Pengutronix was present at the Embedded Open Source Summit (EOSS) in Prague. Thanks to all to all speakers for sharing your knowledge! In this blog post we want to shine a spotlight at a few talks that we found especially interesting. (Links to recordings will be added once the recordings are available.)


Embedded Linux Conference Europe 2023: Our Contributions

This year the Embedded Linux Conference Europe (ELCE) is back in Prague! Pengutronix, again, is on a field trip with 15 colleges to attend the conference. The ELCE is one of the big conferences where the Embedded Linux Community meets during the year. This time the ELCE is part of the Embedded Open Source Summit (EOSS): a new conference with only embedded topics and without cloud- or crypto-tracks.


Pengutronix at Embedded World 2022

Welcome to our booth at the Embedded World 2022 in Nürnberg!


Pengutronix at FOSDEM 2022

"FOSDEM is a free event for software developers to meet, share ideas and collaborate. Every year, thousands of developers of free and open source software from all over the world gather at the event in Brussels." -- FOSDEM


Did you know? Initializing CAN interfaces with systemd-networkd

End of January systemd 250 was added to Debian bullseye backports. With a lots of new features and fixes now comes the possibility to set the timing of CAN bus interfaces with systemd-networkd. In this blogpost I will take a look at why this helps us maintain our embedded Linux labs.


Smart City - vom Rapid Prototyping bis zur Tragfähigen Infrastruktur

Wir wollen zum Bundesweiten Digitaltag am 18.6.2021 das Thema "Smarte Städte" ein bisschen von der technischen Seite beleuchten, aber keine Angst: es bleibt für alle verständlich.


Showcase: Continuous Testing

About 70,000 patches go into the Linux kernel every year, and many of them are bug fixes. The same applies to most other open source projects that are part of a modern Linux system. In order to benefit from the work in the community, the sensible strategy is to constantly update to the latest software version and keep the system up to date. Of course, with this amount of changes, new bugs can be added or incompatibilities can arise.


ELCE 2020 - Recommended Talks

The Embedded Linux Conference Europe (ELCE) is the one biggest meetup of Embedded Linux developers in Europe. As usual Pengutronix has attended this conference - but this year from the warmth of our homes.


Pengutronix at the Embedded Linux Conference Europe

The schedule for this year's Embedded Linux Conference Europe (ELCE) has just been released. As in the last years Pengutronix contributes talks to current topics around Embedded Linux.


Pengutronix at Embedded World 2020

Yesterday, Embedded World started, in normal times one of the largest trade shows for embedded development in Europe. While many exhibitors (and thus maybe also lots of visitors) have canceled their presence due to the coronavirus, we present our booth and our demo show cases as usual.


FOSDEM 2020 – Recommended Talks

FOSDEM is one of the biggest Open Source community meetings in Europe and takes place in Brussels at the Université Libre de Bruxelles every year in February. For Pengutronix this is always a good chance to meet developers, discuss current topics and enjoy some Belgian beer and food. This year we attended FOSDEM with 15 colleagues. Here are some talks our colleagues recommend you to see.


Automated Testing Summit 2019

Jan, Rouven and Chris attended the Automated Testing Summit 2019 at the ELC-E in Lyon. The Summit began with Lightning Tasks on the progress in some projects. One highlight was Kevin Hilman's talk: "the bugs are too fast - and why we can't catch them."


Launch of Linux Automation GmbH

We proudly present our new spin-off Linux Automation GmbH for selling hardware products, like USB-SD-Mux.


FrOSCon 14

Pengutronix has been to FrOSCon at the University of Applied Sciences Bonn-Rhein-Sieg. This year we had a booth where we presented our Open Source activities and were able to contribute three talks. A booth at an Open Source conference like FrOSCon always opens doors to a lot of interesting conversations with new faces, old friends and colleagues.


Jump Start your BSP using DistroKit and PTXdist Layers

A BSP (Board Support Package) in Embedded Software is the layer of software that lets you run your application on a specific hardware. For Pengutronix a BSP usually contains a bootloader, Linux Kernel and a userspace. DistroKit is our Demo-BSP that supports a variety of common evaluation boards. DistroKit gives you a head start if you want to develop an application on top of such an evaluation board with most of the hard problems already solved.


Techweek 2019

In a place, far, far away, where no customer could find us, the Pengutronix team met for the annual Techweek.


USB-SD-Mux: EMC Testing

Today Jonas and I went to our EMC testing lab to continue the measurements needed to certify electromagnetic compatibility for the USB-SD-Mux.


Diary: Chemnitzer Linux Tage 2019

In this article we are writing our diary about the two fascinating days at the Chemnitzer Linux Tage 2019. We invite you to visit us at our booth. This year the OSADL is our guest.


Chemnitz Linux Days 2019

As last years, Pengutronix will again support the Chemnitz Linux Days, both by sponsoring the event, and by being there with a large crowd.


Pengutronix at Embedded World 2019

Like every year, Pengutronix is an exhibitor at the Embedded World 2019 trade fair in Nuremberg, Germany. You find us in Hall 4 Booth 4/261 (map).


FOSDEM 2019: cfi's Diary

This year 14 Pengutronix developers attended the FOSDEM at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. Since there was no embedded track this year we had lot's of time to follow talks, workshops and meetups on embedded Linux, graphics, multimedia, electronics and many more.


Pengutronix at Electronica in Munich

This year Pengutronix again has a Booth at the Electronica trade fair in Munich, Germany. You find us in Hall B5 Booth 102 (map).


Summary: Automated Testing Summit 2018

The Automated Testing Summit (ATS) was a co-located event at the ELC-E 2018 in Edinburgh. The summit was organized by Tim Bird and Kevin Hilman and brought together over 35 (embedded) testing experts from different projects and companies.


USB-SD-Mux: Automated SD-Card Juggler

Once the bootloader on your embedded device is up and running the development of kernel and userland in PTXdist-based BSPs is usually based on booting from network. Thus there is no need for the developer to write the boot media with a new image.