The boards are powered by a Kirin620 SoC

May 13, 2016 22:52 GMT  ·  By

Today, May 13, 2016, Canonical has informed the Ubuntu community about the availability of HiKey 96Boards from LeMaker enabled with the latest Snappy Ubuntu Core operating system.

To our knowledge, HiKey is one of the first single-board computers (SBCs) to be certified for running the latest Ubuntu Core OS, which you can download right now (see link below). Moreover, it is also the first 64-bit Octa-Core A53 ARMv8 community development board that is compatible with the Linaro 96Boards CE specification.

"Recently, Canonical, Huawei and LeMaker have been working together and to create a developer image of Ubuntu Core for Hikey," reads today's announcement. "As a 96Board CE specification compliant board, HiKey offers software and hardware developers a standardized platform to target for their IOT applications and devices."

Live demo of Ubuntu Core on HiKey to be presented at OSCON 2016

The HiKey single-board computer is powered by a Huawei's Kirin620 CPU, which has a 64-bit architecture and comes with 8 cores, clocked at 1.2GHz. According to the developer, HiKey is capable of delivering over 10,000 Dhrystone VAX MIPS total performance, as well as high-performance 3D graphics, thanks to its ARM Mali 450-MP4 GPU.

Canonical, LeMaker, and Huawei have been working for a while now to offer the latest version of the Snappy Ubuntu Core operating system on the HiKey board, providing developers with one of the most popular development platforms for Internet of Things. Canonical is also dedicated to releasing regular updates for the Ubuntu Core operating system and its components.

A Beta version of Snappy Ubuntu Core for the Hikey board is now available for download for developers and anyone who wants to test Canonical's operating system for embedded and IoT (Internet of Things) devices. During the upcoming OSCON 2016 open source convention, users will be able to view a live demo of Ubuntu Core on HiKey at Huawei & LeMaker’s booth at 501.