ThePandaBoard ESis a newer version based on the OMAP4460 SoC, with the CPU and GPU running at higher clock rates. Like its predecessor, it is a community supported development platform.[3]
The OMAP4430 SoC on the PandaBoard features a dual-core 1 GHzARM Cortex-A9 MPCoreCPU, a 304 MHzPowerVRSGX540GPU,IVA3 multimedia hardware accelerator with a programmableDSP,and 1 GiB ofDDR2 SDRAM.The PandaBoard ES uses a newer SoC, with a dual-core 1.2 GHz CPU and 384 MHz GPU. Primary persistent storage is via anSD Cardslot allowing SDHC cards up to 32 GB to be used. The board includes wired10/100 Ethernetas well aswireless EthernetandBluetoothconnectivity. Its size is slightly larger than theETX/XTXComputer form factor at 4 in × 4.5 in (100 mm × 110 mm). The board can output video signals viaDVIandHDMIinterfaces. It also has3.5 mm audio connectors.It has twoUSBhost ports and oneUSB On-The-Goport, supporting USB 2.0.[4]
The device runs theLinux kernel,with either traditionaldistributionsor theAndroidor MozillaFirefox OS[5]user environment. Optimised versions ofAndroidandUbuntuare available from theLinaroFoundation.Linarohas selected the PandaBoard to be one of the hardware platforms they support with monthly build images.
OpenBSDsupports PandaBoard.[6]FreeBSDadded PandaBoard support in August 2012.[7]
The PandaBoard has an integrated SGX540 graphics processor and provides 1080p HDMI output.[11]This GPU supportsOpenGL ES2.0, OpenGL ES 1.1,OpenVG1.1 andEGL1.3.
The situation for Linux -X11utilizing hardware floating point libraries is PowerVR's SGX540 GPU hardware is unusable without a GPU driver. Furthermore, PowerVR will not release documentation so that an open source driver could be produced. This all adds up to the GPU hardware being unavailable, so the above-mentioned features of course will not function. To be perfectly clear, a Pandaboard es will not play any low quality video, so 1080p output via the HDMI is certainly and proven not possible.
Due to PowerVR making the driver unavailable, and withholding the documentation on the GPU hardware, the only alternative is the difficult and inefficient reverse engineering method to develop a GPU driver. An effort was started in July 2012, but as of June 2013 there is no visible progress.[12]
The Linaro Linux project had a Linux X11 software floating point GPU driver available, but all current efforts with ARM Linux seem to be utilizing the hardware floating point libraries. The soft/hard floating point systems are not compatible.
The PandaBoard has areal-time clock,but it does not have a battery to save the time when power is removed. As an alternative, a software clock can set the clock time at bootup based on the time of the last modification to the file system so that times stored in files will be more reasonable.[13]NTPcan set the correct date and time if the PandaBoard has network access to an NTP server.
Raspberry PiSingle-board computer using an older ARM11 core with a more powerful GPU featuring 1080p hardware accelerated video decoding of H.264, significantly cheaper.
Gumstix Overo COMsuse the OMAP3503 or the OMAP3530 to provide a full product line of BeagleBoard-compatible products for hobbyist, robotic and commercial use.
CuBox- Low-power Marvell ARM desktop/nettop computer
BeagleBoard- Similar to PandaBoard but using OMAP3530 or OMAP3730, JTAG connector and one of the expansion connectors is the same.
^Lee, Jeffrey (2011-08-02)."Have I Got Old News For You".The Icon Bar.RetrievedSeptember 28,2011.[…] Willi Theiss has recently announced that he's been working on a port of RISC OS to the PandaBoard […]
