gofk Blog — Creator CI20 - Debian 8 beta image I purchased...

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Creator CI20 - Debian 8 beta image

I purchased the original MIPS Creator CI20 and the Raspberry Pi 2 on their release. The CI20, manufactured by Imagination Technologies, had many attractive selling points, not least its built-in connectivity (Wi-Fi and Bluetooth), its good hardware specifications with 1GB DDR3 SDRAM, 8 GB flash memory, and a PowerVR SGX540 GPU. However, the CI20 has not been, to date, a commercial success like the Pi 2. With so many units sold, the Pi 2 has built a huge community base, driven by some excellent distributions with successive updates. A revised Creator CI20 was released in May, and has an improved layout, but its enhancements were still overshadowed by the slow pace of software development.

MIPS Creator CI20
(view large image)

Last week Imagination Technologies announced that the CI20 microcomputer is getting an update to Debian 8, with a modern Linux kernel 3.18, and major driver updates to the PowerVR graphics and Wi-Fi firmware, along with changes to the NAND memory driver. The announcement piqued my interest in the CI20 again.

The Debian 8 distribution is currently in beta, and has some issues including the lack of video hardware acceleration support for video players and audio recording. The beta is available on elinux’s website. To overwrite the onboard NAND memory, first write the beta image to a 32GB SD card. You need to change the boot_sl switch on the board to cover Pins 2 and 3, and then insert the SD card in the CI20. The board’s LED momentarily flashes red, then goes off a second, and then turns blue. This indicates that the image is being written to the NAND memory. After about 11 minutes, the LED turns back to red. This indicates the writing process has been completed. All very straightforward.

The first impressions are that the CI20 still feels significantly slower than the Pi 2, particularly using X Windows, but quicker than running Debian 7. How did start up times fare?

As you can see from the chart above, the boot up times of the CI20 are significantly improved under Debian 8, particularly powering on to the console, and launching LibreOffice Impress. But still the CI20 takes an age to get to the desktop compared with a Raspberry Pi 2. The start up time of popular applications such as LibreOffice Impress, GIMP, Shutter, and Filezilla and Terminal all see noticeable improvements with the beta Debian 8 operating system.

NBench

NBench is a single core synthetic computing benchmark which tests both integer performance and floating point performance.

The Raspberry Pi 2 scores 20.141 in the integer index, and 8.630 in the floating-point index. This is with a Linux 3.18.8-v7+ kernel. The MIPS CI20 (under Debian 7) scores an integer index of 18.032 and a floating-point index of 3.881. Using the updated Debian 8 beta, the CI20’s scores were almost identical. Full results are available in the screenshots below.

MIPS Creator CI20 - NBench Output
(view large image - CI 20 - Debian 8)		MIPS Creator CI20 - NBench Output
(view large image - CI 20 - Debian 7)		Raspberry Pi 2 - NBench Output - Raspbian
(view large image - Pi 2)

HardInfo

HardInfo acts both as a system profiler and benchmark. Here are the results of HardInfo’s benchmarks.

MIPS Creator CI20
Debian 8		MIPS Creator CI20
Debian 7		Raspberry PI 2
CPU Blowfish66.0365.7561.79
CPU Cryptohash13.9614.0315.48
CPU Fibonacci23.2023.1016.10
CPU N-Queens50.0350.2351.81
FPU FFT91.6983.2779.81
FPU Raytracing112.0595.7074.84

For all of the tests above with the exception of CPU Cryptohash, lower figures are better. Bear in mind that these tests only use a single core. Here, the CI20’s results were not that unfavourable, being comparable for the Blowfish, N-Queens, and FPU FFT tests.

GtkPerf


MIPS Creator CI20
Debian 8		MIPS Creator CI 20
Debian 7		Raspberry PI 2
GtkEntry0.660.460.15
GtkComboBox10.197.063.50
GtkComboBoxEntry6.825.642.36
GtkSpinButton1.943.310.53
GtkProgressBar1.622.280.43
GtkToggleButton1.912.390.55
GtkCheckButton0.831.531.63
GtkRadioButton1.222.020.62
GtkTextView - Add text2.404.701.63
GtkView - Scroll1.672.260.62
GtkDrawingArea - Lines5.068.921.72
GtkDrawingArea - Circles8.11243.773.29
GtkDrawingArea - Text8.387.012.90
GtkDrawingArea - Pixbufs1.242.540.63
Total time52.09293.9219.34

It’s a fact that the CI20’s results with Debian 8 are a far cry from the Raspberry Pi 2, but they still represent a massive improvement on the original software release.

SysBench

SysBench is an open source multi-threaded benchmark tool for testing CPU performance, memory allocation, file I/O performance and more.

With the Raspberry Pi 2, the CPU test with only a single core and all four cores executes in 298 and 74.5 seconds respectively. With the MIPS Creator CI 20 running Debian 7, the score with a single core is 138.7, with both cores the execution time is 69.2. With the MIPS running Debian 8, the scores are 139.0 and 69.4, so very little difference between the two.


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Calibrate your Monitor with these Open Source Tools

What is seen on your display and what the image should look like can be two quite different things.

If you value image quality and accuracy, calibration of your monitor will be important. Anyone involved in digital photography, graphic design or artwork will recognise the importance that their monitor is producing the best results, showing true colors and black levels. The objective when calibrating a monitor is to ensure the monitor has color references known by everyone (humans and software). This will mean the colours are represented accurately on your monitor.

Generally speaking, using a color measurement instrument to calibrate your display will result in a better calibration compared to a visual calibration. The following open source tools are invaluable for anyone looking for accurate color reproduction. The first one is dispcalGUI.

dispcalGUI

dispcalGUI in action

dispcalGUI is an open source graphical user interface for display calibration and profiling using ArgyllCMS.

This tool calibrates and characterizes display devices using a hardware sensor.

dispcalGUI is written in Python and uses NumPy, demjson (JSON library) and wxPython (GUI toolkit). It also makes extensive use of several Argyll CMS utilities.

Features include:

  • Display calibration using one of many supported hardware sensors
  • Profile verification and measurement report: Check the quality of profiles and 3D LUTs via measurements. Also supports custom CGATS files (e.g. FOGRA, GRACoL/IDEAlliance, SWOP) and using of reference profiles to obtain test values
  • 3D LUT generation
  • Profile inspection
  • Test chart editor: Create charts with any amount of color patches, easy copy & paste from CGATS, CSV files (only tab-delimited) and spreadsheet applications
  • Support for multi-display setups
  • Variety of available settings such as customizable whitepoint, luminance, tone response curve as well as the option to create matrix and look-up-table ICC profiles, with optional gamut mapping, as well as some proprietary 3D LUT formats
  • Support of colorimeter correction for different screens via correction matrices or calibration specral sample files (the latter only for specific colorimeters i.e. i1 Display Pro, ColorMunki Display and Spyder 4/5)
  • Create synthetic ICC (matrix) profiles with custom primaries, white- and blackpoint as well as tone response
  • All instruments supported by Argyll CMS are supported by dispcalGUI

ArgyllCMS

ArgyllCMS is an open source ICC compatible color management system. It supports accurate ICC profile creation for scanners, CMYK printers, film recorders and calibration and profiling of displays. Spectral sample data is supported, allowing a selection of illuminants observer types, and paper fluorescent whitener additive compensation.

Profiles can also incorporate source specific gamut mappings for perceptual and saturation intents. Gamut mapping and profile linking uses the CIECAM02 appearance model, a unique gamut mapping algorithm, and a wide selection of rendering intents.

It also includes code for the fastest portable 8 bit raster color conversion engine available anywhere, as well as support for fast, fully accurate 16 bit conversion. Device color gamuts can also be viewed and compared using a VRML viewer. Comprehensive documentation is provided for each major tool, and a general guide to using the tools for typical color management tasks is also available.

Features include:

  • Command line only collection of tool
  • Covers a wide range of needs from source or output characterization to monitor LUT loading and more
  • Supports many common (commercial and do-it-yourself) color meters such as the X-Rite i1 Display Pro and ColorMunki Display colorimeters
  • Suppport for ColorVision Spyder to produce an ICC monitor profile
  • Experimental support for ColorHug - an open colorimeter
  • Website: www.argyllcms.com
  • Developer: Graeme Gill
  • License: Affero GNU v3
  • Version Number: 1.8.3

Gnome Color Manager

GNOME Color Manager in action

GNOME Color Manager is a set of open source graphical utilities for color management to be used in the GNOME desktop. With the help of ArgyllCMS, it can create and apply display ICC color profiles. This gives a consistent color to an image or document, wherever it is output.

Features include:

  • Generate, install and manage device colors on a GNOME desktop
  • Uses International Color Consortium (ICC) profiles to map device color characteristics onto a standard color space used by the GNOME desktop
  • Website: apps.ubuntu.com
  • Developer: The Gnome Project
  • License: GNU GPL v2
  • Version Number: -

LPROF

LPROF in action

LPROF is a color profiler that creates ICC compliant profiles for devices such as cameras, scanners, and monitors. These profiles provide color consistency across devices. They can be used in color profile-aware software such as The Gimp and Scribus.

Camera and scanner profiles are built by using a thing known as “IT8 target”. IT8 targets are just a photo with a set of color patches. There are known colorimetric measurements for each of these patches. There is also a standard way to specify these measurements, the IT8/CGATS file format. Each IT8 target comes with a IT8/CGATS file that contains the colormetric measurements for that target.

Features include:

  • Easy to use graphical interface
  • ICC version 2 compliant
  • Use with software that utilizes the color profile in calibration
  • Website: lprof.sourceforge.net
  • Developer: Klas Kalass, Marti Maria
  • License: GNU GPL v2
  • Version Number: 1.11.4.1

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DFileManager: Cover Flow File Manager

A real gem of a file manager absent from the standard Ubuntu repositories but sporting a unique feature. That’s DFileManager in a twitterish statement.

A tricky question to answer is just how many open source Linux applications are available. Just out of curiosity, you can type at the shell:

~$ for f in /var/lib/apt/lists/*Packages; do printf ’%5d %s\n’ $(grep ’^Package: ’ “$f” | wc -l) ${f##*/} done | sort -rn

On my Ubuntu 15.04 system, it produces the following results:

Ubuntu 15.04 Packages

As the screenshot above illustrates, there are approximately 39,000 packages in the Universe repository, and around 8,500 packages in the main repository. These numbers sound a lot. But there is a smorgasbord of open source applications, utilities, and libraries that don’t have an Ubuntu team generating a package. And more importantly, there are some real treasures missing from the repositories which can only be discovered by compiling source code. DFileManager is one such utility. It is a Qt based cross-platform file manager which is in an early stage of development. Qt provides single-source portability across all major desktop operating systems.

In the absence of a binary package, the user needs to compile the code. For some tools, this can be problematic, particularly if the application depends on any obscure libraries, or specific versions which may be incompatible with other software installed on a system.

Installation

Fortunately, DFileManager is simple to compile. The installation instructions on the developer’s website provide most of the steps necessary for my creaking Ubuntu box, but a few essential packages were missing (why is it always that way however many libraries clutter up your filesystem?) To prepare my system, download the source code from GitHub and then compile the software, I entered the following commands at the shell:

~$ sudo apt-get install qt5-default qt5-qmake libqt5x11extras5-dev
~$ git clone git://git.code.sf.net/p/dfilemanager/code dfilemanager-code
~$ cd dfilemananger-code
~$ mkdir build
~$ cd build
~$ cmake ../ -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr
~$ make
~$ sudo make install

You can then start the application by typing at the shell:

~$ dfm

Here is a screenshot of DFileManager in action, with the main attraction in full view; the Cover Flow view. This offers the ability to slide through items in the current folder with an attractive feel. It’s ideal for viewing photos. The file manager bears a resemblance to Finder (the default file manager and graphical user interface shell used on all Macintosh operating systems), which may appeal to you.

DFileManager in action

Features:

  • 4 views: Icons, Details, Columns, and Cover Flow
  • Categorised bookmarks with Places and Devices
  • Tabs
  • Simple searching and filtering
  • Customizable thumbnails for filetypes including multimedia files
  • Information bar which can be undocked
  • Open folders and files with one click
  • Option to queue IO operations
  • Remembers some view properties for each folder
  • Show hidden files

DFileManager is not a replacement for KDE’s Dolphin, but do give it a go. It’s a file manager that really helps the user browse files. And don’t forget to give feedback to the developer; that’s a contribution anyone can offer.

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Vim Tools

This is the first in a series of brief articles looking at one of my favourite applications, Vim (a contraction of VI IMproved). Just in case you don’t know, Vim is an advanced, cross-platform, free and open source text editor designed for use both from a command-line interface and as a standalone application in a graphical user interface.

One of the main reasons why I love Vim is because of its flexibility. Besides the virtues of Vim (which would take a month of Sundays to explain), my fascination stems, in part, from the sheer number and range of excellent plugins that extend the functionality of the editor.

Having grown up using vi, it’s not that surprising I’m still using Vim today. Vim has a vi compatibility mode but when not in this mode Vim has many enhancements over vi. But I’m not looking to start an editor flame war. There is immense rivalry between users of Emacs and Vim. To set the record straight, I have immense respect for Emacs. While it’s not my editor of choice (can you teach an old dog new tricks?), I will be writing a series on Emacs packages and libraries in the future. But for now, let me cosset myself in covering a couple of indispensable plugins for Vim. Both do similar things, and both are a great starting point to explore the power of Vim plugins, helping users explore functionality in Vim that otherwise is likely to be missed. The first is Powerline.

Powerline

Powerline in action

Powerline is a statusline plugin for Vim. It displays useful information and attractive statusline and prompts for Vim, zsh,bash, tmux, IPython, Awesome and Qtile. Powerline uses several special glyphs to generate the arrow effect and some custom symbols for developers.

Powerline is derived from vim-powerline. When vim-powerline came out in 2012, it was received warmly by Vim users, particularly when the plugin was rewritten in Python. This enabled it to work with more applications.

Features:

  • Extensible and feature rich, written in Python
  • Stable and testable code base
  • Support for prompts and statuslines in many applications. The project has evolved to provide statuslines in tmux and several window managers, and prompts for shells like bash/zsh and other applications. It’s simple to write renderers for any other applications
  • Configuration and colorschemes written in JSON. JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is a lightweight data-interchange format.
  • Fast and lightweight, with daemon support. The code base is a couple of thousand lines of code, but the main focus is on good performance and as little code as possible while still providing a rich set of features

As Powerline is dependent on Python, it may be a little resource heavy for some Vim users. So if you use Vim on a low-spec machine, I would recommend checking out vim-airline. But much of its success is due to Powerline.


vim-airline

vim-airline in action

vim-airline is a lightweight open source statusline for Vim. It is easily configurable, extendable, and integrates with Powerline font symbols. vim-airline also automatically integrates with a variety of third party plugins and provides many themes out of the box.

vim-airline doesn’t seem to get much attention in the Linux press. But it is such a useful Vim utility that deserves to be better known. vim-airline supports many plugins and the number is increasing.

Features:

  • Tiny core written with extensibility in mind
  • Integrates with a variety of plugins, including: vim-bufferline, fugitive, unite, ctrlp, minibufexpl, gundo, undotree, nerdtree, tagbar, vim-gitgutter, vim-signify, quickfixsigns, syntastic, eclim, lawrencium, virtualenv, tmuxline, taboo.vim, ctrlspace and more
  • Looks attractive with regular fonts and provides configuration points so you can use unicode or powerline symbols
  • Optimized for speed; it loads in under a millisecond
  • Ships with many themes for popular color schemes including solarized (dark and light), tomorrow (all variants), base16 (all variants), molokai, jellybeans and others; have a look at the screenshots in the wiki. The themes use a 256 terminal color pallete
  • Unit testing suite

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