Canonical Touts 64-bit ARM IoT Developer Platform

Canonical has created an ARM 64 environment for developer projects targetting the growing Internet of Things (IoT) environment.

Canonical of course has been positioning Ubuntu as suitable for embedded devices and IoT by taking advantage of the Snappy Ubuntu Core technology.

IoT Platform

The ARM 64 developer environment based on its slimmed down Ubuntu Core and on the tiny credit card sized DragonBoard 410c from Arrow Electronics.

Canonical says this is the very first ARM-based 64-bit development board and SoC available for Ubuntu Core, and is aimed at providing developers with “an affordable, powerful yet flexible development environment, which can scale from ARM-based servers to embedded solutions.”

The company is hoping to position the DragonBoard 410c as a standardised development board for the ARM ecosystem under the umbrella of Linaro’s open source 96Boards program. Canonical also announced it will make the Dragonboard 410c its reference platform for Ubuntu Core on ARM 64-bit. This entails creating a stable development environment as all future updates of the OS will be available for the DragonBoard 410c.

“We are thrilled that Canonical is working to expand the Dragonboard ecosystem by providing an affordable, accessible and flexible way via snappy Ubuntu Core for developers to create new IoT solutions using the low-cost, high-performance DragonBoard 410c as a reference platform in an ARM 64-bit environment,” said Tia Cassett, senior director, product management, Qualcomm Technologies.

Small, But Powerful

The Dragonboard 410c is a tiny motherboard, and was originally designed for IoT developers by offering both a high performance and affordable option.

Its tiny footprint packs a lot of tech onboard, including a quad-core 1.2Ghz Snapdragon 410 processor, 1GB RAM, 8GB SanDisk e.MMC storage, on-board WLAN, GPS, and Bluetooth.

“Adopting the DragonBoard 410c as our ARM 64-bit reference platform is proof of our commitment to the open platform community surrounding the board,” said Jon Melamut, VP Commercial Devices Operations at Canonical. “Via snappy Ubuntu Core and the DragonBoard 410c, developers will have an affordable, accessible and flexible way to create new IoT solutions”.

It is worth remembering that Snappy Ubuntu Core was first announced back in December 2014. Essentially it is a minimal version of Ubuntu. Indeed, Snappy was initially positioned as a technology for the cloud, but is now being brought to embedded devices. Canonical believes the Snappy Ubuntu Core offers developers a “non compromised environment” that is both affordable and powerful.

The DragonBoard 410c is available for the purchase price of $75 (£54) here.

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