Linux 6.8 release – Notable changes, Arm, RISC-V, and MIPS architectures

Linux 6.8 release

Linus Torvalds has just announced the release of Linux 6.8 on the Linux kernel mailing list: So it took a bit longer for the commit counts to come down this release than I tend to prefer, but a lot of that seemed to be about various selftest updates (networking in particular) rather than any actual real sign of problems. And the last two weeks have been pretty quiet, so I feel there’s no real reason to delay 6.8. We always have some straggling work, and we’ll end up having some of it pushed to stable rather than hold up the new code. Nothing worrisome enough to keep the regular release schedule from happening. As usual, the shortlog below is just for the last week since rc7, the overall changes in 6.8 are obviously much much bigger. This is not the historically big release that 6.7 was – we seem to […]

Industrial OpenWrt gateway features MediaTek MT7628 SoC, WiFi, LTE, and GNSS connectivity

Atreyo AG-702 industrial OpenWrt gateway

Atreyo AG-702 is an industrial OpenWrt gateway based on the MT7628 processor with dual Ethernet and WiFi connectivity as well as a built-in LTE and GNSS modem supporting two SIM cards. The gateway is equipped with isolated RS485 and RS232 interfaces, two digital isolated inputs, one relay output, and a USB host port that can be used to connect a flash drive or USB converters to various other interfaces. It is housed in an anodized aluminum enclosure and supports a wide 14-60V DC input range suitable for industrial settings. Atreyo AG-702 specifications: SoC – MediaTek MT7628 MIPS processor at 580MHz System Memory – 256MB Storage – 32MB eMMC flash + 512MB NAND flash with ExtRoot support (overlay) Networking 100Mbps Ethernet WAN port 100Mbps Ethernet LAN port LTE/GPRS with dual SIM, 1x external antenna 2.4 GHz WiFi with 1x external antenna GNSS with active antenna support USB – 1x USB 2.0 […]

Linux 6.7 release – Main changes, Arm, RISC-V, and MIPS architectures

Linux 6.7 release

Linus Torvalds has just announced the release of Linux 6.7, following Linux 6.6 LTS a little over two months ago: So we had a little bit more going on last week compared to the holiday week before that, but certainly not enough to make me think we’d want to delay this any further. End result: 6.7 is (in number of commits: over 17k non-merge commits, with 1k+ merges) one of the largest kernel releases we’ve ever had, but the extra rc8 week was purely due to timing with the holidays, not about any difficulties with the larger release. The main changes this last week were a few DRM updates (mainly fixes for new hw enablement in this version – both amd and nouveau), some more bcachefs fixes (and bcachefs is obviously new to 6.7 and one of the reasons for the large number of commits), and then a few random […]

Linux 6.6 LTS release – Highlights, Arm, RISC-V and MIPS architectures

Linux 6.6 release

The Linux 6.6 release has just been announced by Linus Torvalds on the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML): So this last week has been pretty calm, and I have absolutely no excuses to delay the v6.6 release any more, so here it is. There’s a random smattering of fixes all over, and apart from some bigger fixes to the r8152 driver, it’s all fairly small. Below is the shortlog for last week for anybody who really wants to get a flavor of the details. It’s short enough to scroll through. This obviously means that the merge window for 6.7 opens tomorrow, and I appreciate how many early pull requests I have lined up, with 40+ ready to go. That will make it a bit easier for me to deal with it, since I’ll be on the road for the first week of the merge window. Linus About two months ago, […]

Mixtile Cluster Box supports four Rockchip RK3588 SBCs connected over PCIe

Mixtile Cluster Box

The Mixtile Cluster Box is comprised of four Mixtile Blade 3 Pico-ITX single board computers each powered by a Rockchip RK3588 processor and connected over a 4-lane PCIe Gen3 interface through a U.2 to PCIe/SATA breakout board. We mentioned the Cluster Box last year, but Mixtile had few details about it at the time. The company has now released more technical information, worked on the software, and just launched the box for $339 (without the SBCs). Mixtile Cluster Box specifications: Supported SBCs – Up to 4x Mixtile Blade 3 with Rockchip RK3588, up to 32GB LPDDR4 each, up to 256GB eMMC flash each Control board running OpenWrt 22.03 SoC – MediaTek MT7620A MIPS processor @ 580 MHz System Memory 256 MB DDR2 Storage – 16 MB SPI Flash PCIe Switch – ASMedia ASM2824 with four PCIe 3.0 4-lane ports Storage interfaces via 4x U.2 breakout boards 4x NVMe M.2 M-Key […]

Linux 6.5 release – Notable changes, Arm, RISC-V and MIPS architectures

Linux 6.5 release

Linus Torvalds has just announced the release of Linux 6.5 on the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML): So nothing particularly odd or scary happened this last week, so there is no excuse to delay the 6.5 release. I still have this nagging feeling that a lot of people are on vacation and that things have been quiet partly due to that. But this release has been going smoothly, so that’s probably just me being paranoid. The biggest patches this last week were literally just to our selftests. The shortlog below is obviously not the 6.5 release log, it’s purely just the last week since rc7. Anyway, this obviously means that the merge window for 6.6 starts tomorrow. I already have ~20 pull requests pending and ready to go, but before we start the next merge frenzy, please give this final release one last round of testing, ok? Linus The earlier […]

Sudomaker LoShark L1 LoRa USB dongle runs Linux on Ingenic X1501 MIPS processor

LoShark L1 LoRa Linux USB dongle

Sudomaker LoShark L1 is a USB dongle with Semtech SX1262/SX1268 LoRa transceiver and a Linux-capable Ingenic X1501 MIPS processor with 8MB on-chip memory that serves as a LoRa debug tool that can use a JavaScript interface to access to all SX126x chip registers. The LoShark L1 USB key offers both LoRa connectivity and debugging capabilities such as packet capture (hence the reference to WireShark) and can operate either independently (standalone) or in conjunction with a PC as shown below with a mini laptop.     LoShark L1 specifications: SoC – Ingenic X1501 MIPS processor @ 1 GHz with 8MB DRAM, 2200+ CoreMark, Memory – Optional 8MB PSRAM (Lyontek LY68L6400SLIT) Storage – 4GB MLC or 256 MB SLC NAND flash Wireless connectivity HJSIP HJ-68LR LoRa module based on Semtech SX1262/SX1268 with TCXO Support for 433 MHz, 868 MHz, and 915 MHz bands SMA-F antenna connector USB – 1x USB Type-A male […]

Linux 6.4 release – Main changes, Arm, RISC-V and MIPS architectures

Linux 6.4 release

Linux 6.4 has just been released by Linus Torvalds on the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML): Hmm. Final week of 6.4 is done, and we’ve mainly got some netfilter fixes, some mm reverts, and a few tracing updates. There’s random small changes elsewhere: the usual architecture noise, a number of selftest updates, some filesystem fixes (btrfs, ksmb), etc. Most of the stuff in my mailbox the last week has been about upcoming things for 6.5, and I already have 15 pull requests pending. I appreciate all you proactive people. But that’s for tomorrow. Today we’re all busy build-testing the newest kernel release, and checking that it’s all good. Right? Released around two months ago, Linux 6.3 brought us AMD’s “automatic IBRS” Spectre defense mechanism, additional progress on the Rust front with User-mode Linux support (on x86-64 systems only), the NFS filesystem (both the client and server sides) gained support for […]

Memfault IoT and embedded debugging platform