With its low cost, open source flexibility, and extensive I/O, Arduino is popular among educators, embedded prototypers, and other hardware hackers building everything from sensor networks to robots. But adding WiFi to the boards requires expensive shields, and can be difficult to set up. Third-party, WiFi-enabled clone boards like the new Spark Core can help, but they’re often expensive, and compatibility can be an issue. In any case, with the Arduino’s limited memory support and lack of an advanced operating system, building web services on the WiFi link is even more challenging.
To make up for this deficit, Arduino, the Italian-based project that designs the official line of Arduino boards, has announced the Arduino Yún. The Yún (“cloud” in Chinese) is the first in a series of WiFi-enabled Arduino boards, and the first to run Linux. It’s intended as a general-purpose prototyping board for any Arduino creation that requires an Internet connection.
Developed with a Boston-based automation development firm called Dog Hunter, the Arduino Yún single board computer (SBC) was announced at Maker Faire Bay Area last weekend. It will be available in late June for $69, compared to about $25 for the Yún’s underyling “classic” Arduino Leonardo board. Like the Leonardo, the Yún is equipped with a 32-bit ATmega32u4 microcontroller, a 16MHz crystal oscillator, and 14 GPIO pins. However, it also adds an Atheros AR9331 WiFi system-on-chip (SoC) from Qualcomm built around a 400MHz MIPS 24k processor.
The Atheros SOC runs Linino, a custom version of OpenWRT Linux, a lightweight distribution popular on low-power embedded devices. As the diagram below indicates, the Linux-based Linino part of the board is kept separate from the Arduino side. The former includes Ethernet and USB host connection in addition to WiFi, while the Leonardo circuitry has a micro-USB connection for programming via an attached PC.
Arduino’s new Bridge library delegates network connections and HTTP transaction processing to the Linino computer running on the Atheros SOC. Developers can program the device via WiFi or the board’s USB port.
To a linked computer, the Arduino Yún automatically appears as a WiFi access point. Developers can access the Linux computer to launch applications and scripts, and pass along parameters for processing, such as sensor readings. Python and Shell scripts are supported out of the box, as well as SSH sessions for customizing the device. Users can add other open source tools and apps, as well.
Arduino provides built-in support for Temboo’s full collection of more than 100 cloud-based APIs and databases. The Temboo APIs let developers “mix and match data coming from multiple platforms,” including Twitter and PayPal, says Arduino.
The Arduino Yún is well-suited for robots, but it can be used for everything from WiFi-enabled home automation systems to 3D printers. (At the Maker Faire, Arduino also announced a new, non-Linux Arduino Robot kit billed as “the first official Arduino on wheels.”)
The Arduino Yún appears to be a response to the trend of building WiFi-enabled robots and other often motorized gear by integrating Arduino boards with low-cost, open source Linux development boards. Typically, the projects start with a Raspberry Pi, but the BeagleBone is also a popular option.
Compared to an Arduino, the Raspberry Pi offers advantages like a faster processor, Linux networking smarts, and an HDMI port. However, it lacks much of the Arduino’s I/O for motor control and sensor acquisition. This is one reason why you see so many hybrid Pi/Arduino robot projects, such as the Arduino/Pi Robot or the Telemus.
In addition, several open source, mostly robotics-focused SBCs have appeared on KickStarter that pre-integrate Raspberry Pi and Arduino functionality. These include the BrickPi, as well as the UDOO and RIO boards.
The Arduino Yún offers a more Arduino-centric solution that may well prove ideal for many Arduino developers who want WiFi and web services, but are not ready to jump headlong into Linux. Here, Linux is clearly meant to be a step-child to Arduino, with its duties primarily limited to network management. Considering all the emerging designs where Arduino is a step-child to a Linux computer, this seems to be a fitting response. Yet, assuming hackers become comfortable with this arm’s length approach to Linux development, some interesting new applications could emerge through Linino, even with the modest MIPs chip.
It will be interesting to see which way Arduino goes with its next Linux/WiFi-based design. Presumably, it will add Linux and WiFi to the more powerful Arduino Due board, but any number of interesting possibilities could emerge.
LinkSmart’s audience and link management platform for publishers was built with big data at its core. So when management decided to migrate the cloud-based application to their own hardware, there was no question it would be completely powered by Linux.
Linux-based infrastructure allows the 3-year-old startup to cut costs, both by avoiding the licensing fees of proprietary systems and by tapping the community’s collective knowledge base instead of paying for expensive support contracts, said CTO Manny Puentes.
“Linux is the operating system really helping to propel a lot of the startup community and innovation,” Puentes said.
LinkSmart uses mostly open source software, including Hadoop, to mine terabytes of audience-related data for digital publishers. Using information such as how long visitors stay on-site and what they’re interested in, LinkSmart’s platform can then steer a publisher’s content decisions as well as strategically insert links that drive more pageviews and sales.
Because much of the open source software they use embraces the Linux environment, it’s easier to find developers who are accustomed to working on Linux, Puentes said. They can also contribute back to upstream projects important to their business, he said.
“That’s how we surface important information to our publishers at a low cost to the business,” Puentes said.
LinkSmart’s core data platform is the MapR Hadoop distribution running on 10 Intel Xeon processors with 64GB memory and four 2-terabyte SAS drives installed with Ubuntu 12.04. Other tools include Kafka, Cassandra and mySQL for storage.
Key to the company’s IT cost savings is MapR’s NFS mount, Puentes said. The feature allows systems administrators to directly access the Hadoop cluster using standard Linux commands. They can run sort to change the order of how data is presented, for example, or tail a long-running batch job as it’s running.
“In other distributions, a developer has to wait until the program completes before viewing results,” said Jack Norris, chief marketing officer at MapR. “If it is a long-running job — and many Hadoop jobs can execute for hours — this causes delays in determining if there are problems with output that can be detected much earlier through a tail command.”
For a small company like LinkSmart, with only 20 employees, MapR’s Linux integration means the IT staff can maintain the distributed file system like it manages all their other file systems. And developers save time by accessing the stack directly instead of writing a special script to pull data.
“It’s not just a cool feature; it plays an economic role,” Puentes said. “I was able to put in a Hadoop cluster and I have one IT guy managing the file system and all other Linux file systems. For a startup, that’s incredible.”
MapR has intentionally worked over the past two years to better integrate with enterprise operating systems including Linux, Norris said. As a result, their distribution now supports Linux commands across distros from Red Hat, CentOS, Ubuntu, SUSE and OpenStack.
“It’s about defining the new stack for enterprises in terms of how they’re going to drive the applications of the future,” Norris said. “It’s a much simplified stack and at the foundation is Linux.”
