The Open Source Hardware OLinuXino boards are with new Linux Kernel 5.6 scripts to move Linux OS to eMMC or SATA are included

We are pleased to announce that now the images at http://images.olimex.com/release/ are with the lates Linux Kernel 5.6

All these are build with our Olimage script.

We still keep Ubuntu Bionic 18.04 LTS distribution and didn’t move to 20.04 LTS yet.

To addition for script which set boot from eMMC we add new one which allow you to boot from SATA.

The boot from eMMC and SATA is enabled for OLinuXino boards which has SPI Flash on them like:

• A20-OLinuXino-LIME-e16Gs16M
• A20-OLinuXino-LIME-e4Gs16M
• A20-OLinuXino-LIME-s16M
• T2-OLinuXino-LIME-e8Gs16M-IND
• T2-OLinuXino-LIME-s16M-IND
• A20-OLinuXino-LIME2-e16Gs16M
• A20-OLinuXino-LIME2-e4Gs16M
• A20-OLinuXino-LIME2-s16M
• T2-OLinuXino-LIME2-e8Gs16M-IND
• T2-OLinuXino-LIME2-s16M-IND
• A20-OLinuXino-MICRO-e16Gs16M
• A20-OLinuXino-MICRO-e4Gs16M
• A20-OLinuXino-MICRO-s16M
• T2-OLinuXino-MICRO-e8Gs16M-IND
• T2-OLinuXino-MICRO-s16M-IND
• A20-SOM-e16Gs16M
• T2-SOM-e8Gs16M-IND
• A20-SOM204-1Gs16Me16G-MC
• T2-SOM204-1Gs16Me4G-C-I
• T2-SOM204-1Gs16Me8G-MC-I

To make board booting from eMMC you have to boot from SD-card then execute:

$ sudo olinuxino-sd-to-emmc

then wait until script moves the OS to eMMC, remove the SD-card and reboot.

Similar if you want to make board boot from SATA you have to boot from SD-card then execute:

$ sudo olinuxino-sd-to-sata

A20-OLinuXino-LIME server with 320GB HDD works on LiPo battery over 6 hours

We have server rack with several x86 servers running Linux with our work file repositories, the ERP and etc.

They are quite power hungry as lot of HDDs are connected to them in RAID mirrors to prevent data loss.

We are located in industrial area and power supply glitches are not uncommon, specially during the winter.

To keep the servers alive during power downs, we had to buy expensive 2000 EUR UPS, which actually keep them no more than 20-30 minutes up when power is down, so basically just to allow you 10-15 minutes to finish your work and then to shut them down properly before the battery is drained.

This UPS has lead-acid batteries inside which has to be changed every 3 years and cost almost as much as the UPS itself.

Initially we kept our all Olinuxino Linux images on Gdrive, but there were few issues with this, the images grew to many Gigabytes, and Gdrive start to restrict the access to the files after some limits were reach, so we decided to host these images by us on torrent. We decided to make separate server for this due to security reasons, we just wanted to keep our local network private and to allow external access only to this isolated server which we access also from outside like other users.

To keep it as low power as possible we setup one A20-LIME + HDD320GB + 6600mAh LiPo battery. This configuration works well several years already.

Yesterday our power supply provider EVN warned us that they will change mains high voltage cables in our area and Olimex will have power supply cut from 9.00 to 15.00, so we had to take day off.

We came today and sure we found all x86 servers down, but to our surprise the LIME with the HDD was working fine all these 6 hours of power blackout and didn’t shut down!

We know that with 6600mAh battery the LIME will last at least 10 hours as it uses 1.5-2W, but the HDD is rated 5W (5V/1A), so we were expecting less time stand alone operation.

It was good surprise to see that actual consumption is less, maybe the HDD enters stand-by mode when not used?

HowTo setup A20-OLinuXino-MICRO RootFS on SATA and ownCloud

fromcologne posted on our forum interesting tutorial how to setup rootfs on SATA drive and to setup your own cloud service with A20-OLinuXino-MICRO.

Now you can keep all your work files, pictures, movies to your own Cloud storage service and have access to them via your phone, laptop, tablet etc devices.

Good work!

New Product in stock: SATA 2.5″ HDD 500GB for A10/A20-OLINUXINO

SATA-HDD-2.5-500GB is 500GB SATA HDD drive which works only on 5V and thus can work with A10-OLinuXIno-LIME and A20-OLinuXino and be powered even when power fail and LiPo is attached.

Tested with both boards and our power supply adapters. Also tested and fits in A20-ENC.

New Product in stock: SATA-CABLE-SET for A20-OLinuXino

SATA-CABLE-SET is specially made cable for connecting 2.5″ SATA drives to A20-OLinuXino it consist of SATA sata cable and SATA-PWR cable which have special JST connector for A20-OLinuXino SATA power connector, the length is matched to connect trouble free. Here is picture of A20-OLinuXino with 2.5″ SATA HDD 320GB and SATA-CABLE-SET put in A20-ENC: