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Posts Tagged ‘openembedded’

Yocto Project 1.4 “Dylan” Release

April 27th, 2013 4 comments

The Yocto Project Release 1.4 has just been announced. This release codenamed “Dylan” and based on Poky 9.0.0 is the sixth release of the project. The Yocto Project is a framework that creates embedded Linux distributions, and has been getting more and more traction with silicon vendors such as Intel, Freescale and Texas Instruments.

Yocto Project 1.4 bring the following new features and updates:

  • Major performance improvements – The overall build time has been reduced by more than 10%. Kernel build time is reduced by about 25%. With rm_work enabled, 40% less storage will be used for the tmp directory.
  • Smart, a replacement for zypper
  • Support for read-only rootfs
  • Wayland support, an X replacement.
  • Systemd support, a replacement for the system V init daemon.
  • Usability improvements to HOB, bitbake, yocto-bsp and other tools, including UI improvements, new features and bug fixes.
  • Documentation improvement/update and a new kernel development manual and profiling manual.
  • A complete rewrite of the yocto-autobuilder to allow for easier configuration, faster build times, and easier to maintain code
  • Support for postinstall scripts to run at roofs creation time, which will reduce image boot time.
  • Support for both the Linux 3.8 kernel and LTSI (3.4) kernel
  • Over 400 bugs fixed

You can download The Yocto Project 1.4 to give it a try. Alternatively, you can also retrieve the code via git:

git clone -b dylan git://git.yoctoproject.org/poky.git

For further details, you can  visit Yocto Project 1.4 Features page.

The next version (The Yocto Project 1.5) will be released in October 2013, as the project follows a 6-month release schedule. Yocto Project 1.5 Features page is still work in progress, but the next release will focus on improving developer experience, validation automation, and further performance improvement. A list of bugs and enhancements is also available.

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Linaro 13.04 Release With Linux Kernel 3.9 and Android 4.2.2

April 26th, 2013 2 comments

Linaro 13.04 has just been released. It features Linux Kernel 3.9-rc7 and Android 4.2.2.

A lot of work has been done on ARMv8 (Cortex A53) with further work on OpenEmbedded, more testing, and updates to the GCC toolchain. Calxeda EnergyCore server has been added to LAVA, Origen Quad now gets hardware video acceleration in Android Jelly Bean. Still more cleanup has been done on the kernel side with regards to Samsung and ST SoC, and a big.LITTLE porting guide is now available (linaro login required).

Here are the highlights of this release:

  • LAVA

    • Prototype of a new publishing system is used to overcome performance problems with android-build.linaro.org.
    • Calxeda EnergyCore support is merged in LAVA, and an isolated system has been set up for web benchmarking.
    • Fedora support is merged in LAVA. A user can submit LAVA jobs using a Fedora pre-built image.
    • Boot commands are untangled from LAVA dispatcher. They’re now read from images.
    • Nexus implementation in LAVA is generalized and reusable for other devices that support fastboot/adb.
    • Linaro Image Tools 2013.04 released
    • More xml-rpc APIs available in lava dashboard to make life easy.
    • Test Definitions now available in lava dashboard. Accumulation of meta-data via test definitions started.
  • Builds and Baselines
    • Dalvik VM unit test has been automated.
    • Accelerated video playback support on Android was added for Origen Quad.
    • Skia and 0xbench tests were added into lava-test-shell.
    • Test suite builder has been set up to provide test suite binaries as an overlay for Android.
    • Toolchain integration
      • Native toolchain on Android updated to 4.8.
      • Binaries for GCC 4.7 and 4.8 based toolchains released.
      • Android tree updated to compile with 4.8 based toolchains, all related changes upstreamed.
    • ARMv7 KVM enabled kernels and images are daily built and tested in Linaro’s CI loop.
    • OpenEmbedded ARMv8 engineering build provides 64bit HipHop VM requirements for porting and optimization purposes.
    • OpenEmbedded test cases (https://wiki.linaro.org/Platform/QA/TestCases/OpenEmbedded) have been automated. See https://git.linaro.org/gitweb?p=qa/test-definitions.git;a=tree;f=openembedded for current list.
    • Linux Linaro 3.9 2013.04 released
      • updated Versatile Express patches from ARM LT
      • updated arndale/exynos patches from Samsung LT
      • a patch to enable perf in Android by Bernhard Rosenkraenzer
      • vexpress64 support (both RTSM and Foundation model)
      • panda-fix-usb topic to make USB and on-board Ethernet to work on Panda with Device Tree enabled (cherry-pick / forward port of some of the dev.omapzoom.org commits)
      • a few fixes for MMC on Snowball from STE Landing Team
      • patch from ARM LT to fix lockups/crashes seen when enabling function tracer on TC2 with the not yet mainlined cpuidle driver
    • New or updated packages available from Linaro’s Overlay PPA: edk2-uefi, gator-daemon, gator, openssl and powerdebug.
  • Graphics
    • dma-buf – (upstream) debugfs support released, accepted for 3.10
    • AV playback bringup on Jelly Bean on Origen Quad complete and released to android team
    • kernel – (upstream) patches to adds common FIMD device node for all Exynos4 SoCs.
    • piglit – gles2-all and android support released via git. opencl-arm established with fixes specifically for ARM
    • audio – Channel swap for panda has been fixed in 3.9 and 3.8 as well.
    • opencl – Proof of Concept SNU CPU only OpenCL lib investigated and ported to armhf, available via git
  • Kernel
    • Refactor EHCI controller code
    • Depopulate the Exynos <mach-exynos/include-mach> directory
    • Expanded Binder Unit Test – Implement base ioctl unit tests
    • Depopulate the ux500 and plat-nomadik <mach/*> and <plat/*>
    • Improve eMMC Power Management Support – Merge patches to add a skeleton for doing background operations at idle time, based on runtime PM
    • Port some of the simpler platforms to multi-platform support
      • integrator: get to a state where DT is working fully as a prerequisite
      • pci: fix PCI device tree problems when resolving IRQs
      • SPEAr
      • Finalize Nomadik DT transition by moving the clocks to DT
      • Convert u300 to DT as a prerequisite
    • Android upstreaming: ashmem
    • Android alarm-dev compat_ioctl support
    • Implement and upstream ARM 32 bit uprobes (userspace probes) support
  • Power Management
    • Porting guide for big.LITTLE switcher is available (https://wiki.linaro.org/Internal/Projects/Big.Little.Switcher/Docs/porting-guide).
    • cpuidle : consolidate ARM drivers
    • DVFS for the Common Clock Framework
    • thermal: Powertop Integration – Add basic RFC patch and send for review
    • Linaro PM QA 0.4.1 2013.04 released. Fixed in this release:
    • Linaro Powerdebug 0.6.3 2013-04 released. Fixed in this release:
  • QA
    • Tests to cover big.LITTLE cluster init and shutdown have been added to the big.LITTLE core test suite
    • big.LITTLE extended test case scenarios have been implemented.
    • Functional and regression tests for scheduler from ARM have been integrated, covering HMP patches.
  • Toolchain
    • Linaro GCC 4.8 2013.04 released, based off the latest GCC 4.8.0+svn197294 release.
      • Initial optimized support for Cortex-A53 for arm*-*-* targets.
      • Improved support for new ARMv8-A instructions for arm*-*-* and aarch64*-*-* targets.
      • Backport of optimizations concerning whether to use Neon for 64-bit bitops for arm*-*-* targets.
    • Linaro GCC 4.7 2013.04 released, based off the latest GCC 4.7.2+svn197188 release.
      • Includes arm/aarch64-4.7-branch up to svn revision 196381.
      • Backport vectorizer cost model.
      • Turn off 64-bit Bitops in Neon.
    • Linaro GCC 4.6 2013.04 released, based off the latest GCC 4.6.3+svn197511 release. It’s the last monthly release of 4.6 series.
    • Linaro Toolchain Binaries 2013.04 released, updated to Linaro GCC 4.7 2013.04 and Linaro GCC 4.8 2013.04
  • LEG
    • Linaro UEFI 2013.04 released – bugfix
    • OpenSSL optimisations
    • SCT (Self-Certification Test)is now running without any crashes.
    • ACPI topic branch is being prepared for inclusion into linux-linaro tree.

Visit https://wiki.linaro.org/Cycles/1304/Release for a list of known issues and further release details about the LEB, Android, Kernel, Graphics, Landing Team,  Platform, Power management and Toolchain (GCC / Qemu) components.

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Linaro 13.03 Release with Linux Kernel 3.9 and Android 4.2.2

March 29th, 2013 No comments

Linaro 13.03 is now available, and features Linux Kernel 3.9-rc3 and Android 4.2.2.

This month, Linaro has released their first Origen Quad Android image, as well as Tiny Android build for Arndale. The ALIP image listed in the download page is still based on Ubuntu 12.11, but as doc Bormental noticed earlier this month, the latest ALIP Quantal 13.03 image is available for download at https://releases.linaro.org/latest/ubuntu/quantal-images/alip. Some development tools (gcc, g++, vi, make..) are now included in Android, so you can develop and build natively from your Android device. Linaro has kept on cleaning the Linux kernel ARM tree for Exynos and ST Ericson SoCs. More work has been done on big.LITTLE for both IKS and HMP, as well as ARMv8 OpenEmbedded, and an initial GRUB port on ARM UEFI is now available.

Here are the highlights of this release:

  • Automation and Validation
    • A simple CLI tool for communicating with the CI dashboard has been developed
    • LAVA supports Arndale booting with UEFI. The bootloader configuration is done on the fly
    • Snowballs coming back online
  • Builds and Baselines
    • linux-linaro-arndale Bringup with Tiny Android build for Arndale setup, and Android with GUI  planned for the next cycle.
    • Origen-Quad Member build
    • Native Toolchain on Android
      • The toolchain is now available natively inside Linaro Android builds.
      • The builds now include gcc, g++, vim, make, a terminal emulator and a vi-friendly keyboard.
    • Unified manifest – Details on how to work with common manifest can be found on https://wiki.linaro.org/Platform/Android/WorkWithCommonManifest
    • Restructure release toolchain – Released toolchains are checked into a prebuilts/ git repository and pulled in by the manifest as opposed to being downloaded as separate tarballs.This is the approach taken by AOSP to distribute the toolchain.
    • CTS Support in LAVA
      • CTS support for 4.2 reworked for better stability.
      • CTS has been enabled for the Engineering builds.
      • Investigations to be done next cycle on tests that are not getting executed.
    • Linux Linaro 3.9 2013.03 released
      • based off linux-linaro-core-tracking tree, llct-20130321.0 tag:
      • updated Versatile Express patches from ARM LT
      • updated arndale/exynos patches from Samsung LT
      • a patch to enable perf in Android by Bernhard Rosenkraenzer
      • vexpress64 support (both RTSM and Foundation model)
      • panda-fix-usb topic to make USB and on-board ethernet to work on Panda with Device Tree enabled (cherry-pick / forward port of some of the dev.omapzoom.org commits)
      • a few fixes for MMC on Snowball from STE Landing Team
    • Enable 64bit HipHop VM development in OpenEmbedded
    • Improve Ubuntu engineering build CI loop
    • ARMv7 KVM CI Bringup
    • Merge ARMv8 support into OpenEmbedded
    • CI bring up: Calxeda EnergyCore ECX-1000 (highbank)
      • Added hwpack configurations for ECX-1000 (highbank)
      • Set up CI job for ECX-1000 (highbank) hwpack daily builds
    • Adapt core LAVA tests from Ubuntu/Android to OpenEmbedded engineering build
  • Graphics
    • upstream: Version 10 of CMA-ION patches released by Benjamin Gaignard. ION is a new memory allocator for Android. CMA stands with Continuous Memory Allocator. Click here for details.
    • upstream: Android piglit enablement patches for OpenGL ES 2 updated and released by Tom Gall
    • upstream: Version 1 of variable-index-* shader-tests extended for Android and Linux released by Tom Gall
    • upstream: Version 1 of debugfs support for dma-buf released by Sumit Semwal
    • upstream: Version 9 of DRM FIMD DT support for Exynos4 DT machine released by Vikas Sajjan
  • Kernel
    • Depopulate the Exynos <mach-exynos/include-mach> directory
    • Convert UX500 to common clk
    • Refactor EHCI controller code – Separated ehci_tegra host controller driver from ehci-hcd into its own driver
    • Depopulate the ux500 and plat-nomadik <mach/*> and <plat/*>
    • Android alarm-dev compat_ioctl support
    • Android keyreset driver upstreaming
    • Improve eMMC Power Management Support
    • Android Sync infrastructure Upstreaming
  • Power Management
    • Dynamic timer irq affinity: set up the timer irq affinity to the cpu concerned by the first timer expiration – This patch was upstreamed.
    • cpufreq driver for IKS has been optimized
    • Analysis of HMP scheduler optimizations using bbench and their applicability to A15 SMP systems is completed: No performance regressions were seen.
    • sched: modified timer and workqueue framework to allow migration to non-idle cpus
    • Powerdebug is ported to Android platform and available in builds
    • Thermal manager: Powertop Integration.
  • Toolchain
    • Linaro GCC 4.7 2013.03 released, based off the latest GCC 4.7.2+svn195745 release
    • Linaro GCC 4.6 2013.03 released, based off the latest GCC 4.6.3+svn196247 release
    • Linaro QEMU 2013.03 released, based off upstream (trunk) QEMU. This release has been updated to be based on upstream’s recent 1.4.0 release. It also includes ARM KVM support patches which are in sync with the ABI as committed to the upstream Linux kernel for 3.9. This feature is still under development but will no longer be subject to kernel-vs-userspace ABI breaks.
    • Linaro Toolchain Binaries 2013.03 released, updated to Linaro GCC 4.7 2013.03
    • Updated GCC’s ARM backend to use new vectorizer cost model infrastructure
  • LEG
Visit https://wiki.linaro.org/Cycles/1303/Release for a list of known issues and further release details about the LEB, Android, Kernel, Graphics, Landing Team,  Platform, Power management and Toolchain (GCC / Qemu) components.
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Linaro 13.02 Release with Linux Kernel 3.8 and Android 4.2.2

March 1st, 2013 2 comments

Linaro 13.02 is now available, and features Linux Kernel 3.8 and Android 4.2.2.

The biggest news this month is probably the first release of a preliminary ARM64 Debian/Ubuntu Raring image. Other noticeable items include work on ARMv7 KVM, more improvements to OpenEmbedded ARMv8 implementation, as well as big.LITTLE MP implementation, and some modifications to the toolchain for Cortex A7 support. Origen images are not available for download this month, and there’s still no ALIP images since they have disappeared since Linaro upgraded to Ubuntu Quantal.

Here are the highlights of this release:

  • Android
    • AOSP master build for Galaxy Nexus has been setup
    • All the platforms have been updated to 4.2.2
    • Support for lava-test-shell has been added to linaro-android-build-tools.
  • Developer Platform
    • CI bring up: ARMv7 KVM – Add Arndale hypervisor patch to u-boot-linaro.
    • CI bring up: Arndale – Add Arndale image reports to LAVA, Enable and verify UEFI support in the hwpack.
    • Linux Linaro 3.8 2013.02 released
    • OpenEmbedded based SDK is able to build HipHopVM
    • OpenEmbedded ARMv8 build has been updated
    • ARM64 Debian/Ubuntu (Raring) port image available.
    • Several new packages available from Linaro’s Overlay PPA – acpica-unix, acpi-abat, fwts, libhugetlbfs and numactl
    • Support LEG engineering to ramp-up on LAVA
  • Infrastructure
    • OpenEmbedded CI builds now use persistent builders, which drastically reduces the build time.
  • Kernel
    • AB8500 driver has been updated with pinctrl patches
    • Ux500 now uses sparse IRQs
    • Depopulate the Exynos <mach-exynos/include-mach> directory – Convert all users of gpio to pinctrl and remove gpio.h for Exynos4
    • Depopulate the ux500 and plat-nomadik <mach/*> and <plat/*>
    • Research impact on kernel size for multi-platform configs
    • Android keyreset driver upstreaming
    • android upstreaming: Lowmem
    • Improve eMMC Power Management Support
    • Refactor EHCI controller code
    • Android alarm-dev compat_ioctl support
  • Power Management
    • Small task packing by scheduler (Power-aware scheduler) – Implement or update patches based on HMP and upstream workshop
    • Integration tree to bring together big.LITTLE MP related work (V15 branch of big LITTLE MP tree)
    • DVFS for the Common Clock Framework
    • Cpufreq cleanups with a view to more consolidation and simpler drivers
    • Port Adaptive NOHZ patchset to ARM
    • Update devfreq core
    • cpuidle: Tracks all miscellaneous changes to upstream cpuidle
    • Refactor the acpi cpuidle driver
    • Linaro Powerdebug 0.6.2-2013.02 released
  • Toolchain
    • Linaro GCC 4.7-2013.02-01
    • Linaro GCC 4.6 2013.02
    • Linaro Toolchain Binaries 2013.02 released
    • Backport Cortex-A7 support to -mcpu=native
    • Backport improvements for Cortex-A7
    • Backport AArch64 patches from Cavium
  • LAVA
    • Linaro CI jobs are converted to lava-test-shell
    • Galaxy Nexus device is deployed into LAVA
    • Calxeda and TC2-Hackbox servers are deployed in the lab
    • Support ARM engineering to deploy LAVA in-house
    • ARM Energy Probe deployed in LAVA lab
    • SSD Added to Calxeda server for hadoop testing
  • LEG
    • Linaro UEFI 2013.02 released with bug fixes for Arndale board.
    • ARM support merged in libhugetlbfs next branch (package available from Linaro’s Overlay PPA)

Visit https://wiki.linaro.org/Cycles/1302/Release for a list of known issues and further release details about the LEB, Android, Kernel, Graphics, Landing Team,  Platform, Power management and Toolchain (GCC / Qemu) components.

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SILICA Pengwyn Low Cost Open Industrial Development Platform Powered by Sitara AM3354 Processor

February 20th, 2013 No comments

At the end of January, SILICA, an Avnet subsidiary, announced the Pengwyn, a single board computer based on Texas Instruments Sitara AM3354 Cortex A8 processor. The board targets industrial customers, and the company promotes it as “an open platform to develop applications under Linux or Windows Embedded operating systems”.

Pengwyn Board

Here are the specifications of the Pengwyn board:

  • Texas Instruments Sitara AM 3354 ARM Cortex-A8 MCU @ 720 MHz
  • System Memory – 256 MB DDR3
  • Storage – 1 GB Nand Flash, 32 MB SPI Flash Memory, and microSD slot (if not used with Wi-Fi/Bt modules)
  • Connectivity and expandability
    • USB Host and Device Ports
    • RJ-45 Ethernet Port
    • Connector for optional 1 GB Ethernet Port
    • 2x connectors for generic expansions modules
    • SDIO/MMC Port (can be used for optional WI-FI/bluetooth modules)
    • DVI Display Port
Pengwyn Board Block Diagram

Pengwyn Board Block Diagram

Silica will provide Linux (Arago Project, an OpenEmbedded based Distribution) and Windows Embedded Compact 7 BSP and images, as well as a TI Liunx Ez SDK in a Virtualbox VM. BoM and Schematics are also available for download in PDF format, but I assume they’ll also release the gerber files, and proper schematics (i.e. in original format), since they claim the board can be used as a reference design, and be freely copied.

The company will also manufacture “Plug n Play” expansion boards:

  • LSR Wifi5 WiFi Module – Wifi, Bt 2.1+EDR and Bt 4.0 (BLE)
  • 4.3″ TFT resistive display
  • Gigabit Ethernet expansion

Those boards are said to be plug n play because they can just be plugged into the board, and kernel modules will be loaded at startup, so there’s no setup needed.

Compared to the Beaglebone, the company explains Pengwyn targets industrial applications instead of the development community, there’s no issue with third party expansion boards conflicting with each others, Pengwyn uses cheaper DDR3 (vs DDR2 for Beaglebone), and power supply design is simpler since there is no need to handle deep sleep mode in industrial applications.

Pengwyn and modules will be available at SILICA and Avnet Express in Q1 2013. The board will be priced at 69 Euros. You can find more information on SILICA Pengwyn page.

Thanks to Guillaume!

[Update: On a separate, but related note, AVNET is now selling Texas Instruments AM335X development kits with a 25% discount]

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Atmel Introduces SAMA5D3 Cortex A5 Embedded MPUs and Evaluation Kits

February 5th, 2013 1 comment

Atmel has recently announced the Atmel SAMA5D3 series, a family of high performance, low-power microprocessor units (MPUs) based on ARM Cortex-A5 core. The SAMA5D3 series is designed for embedded applications in the industrial space, including factory and building automation, smart grid, medical and handheld terminals, as well as consumer applications such as smart watches, outdoor GPS, and DECT phones.

SAMA5D3 family has the following characteristics:Atmel_SAMA5D3

  • ARM Cortex-A5 core up to 536MHz (850DMIPS).
  • Floating point unit (FPU) with up to 3 times the performance of Cortex A8 FPU.
  • 166MHz bus speed delivering up to 1328MB/s bandwidth.
  • Power consumption:
    • <200mW in active mode at 536MHz with all peripherals activated
    • 0.5mW in low-power mode with SRAM, registers retention and <0.5ms wake-up time
    • ~1.2µA in backup mode with RTC running
  • Connectivity:
    • Dual Ethernet and dual CAN ports (Only one model has both)
      • Gigabit Ethernet MAC with IEEE1588 and 10/100 MAC
      • Two CAN controllers
    • 3x HS USB ports that can be configured as three host or two host and one device port
    • 3x SDIO/SD/MMC ports, up to 7x UARTs, 2x SPIs, 3x TWIs, soft modem, CMOS sensor interface, 12-bit ADC, 32-bit timers, etc…
  • Display and Camera Support:
    • Graphic LCD controller (For most models)
    • Resistive touchscreen interface
    • CMOS sensor interface
    • 2x Synchronous Serial Controller (SSC) interfaces
  • Security – Secure boot,  AES/Triple DES encryption engine, Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA) and True Random Number Generator (TRNG)
Atmel SAMA5D3 Block Diagram (Click to Enlarge)

Atmel SAMA5D3 Block Diagram (Click to Enlarge)

There are 4 MPUs in this series each with specific features:

  • SAMA5D31 – LCD Controller (LCDC), RMII 10/100 Mbit Ethernet (EMAC), High Speed Multimedia Card Interface (HSMCI2), and UART0/1
  • SAMA5D33 – LCD Controller (LCDC), and Gigabit Ethernet (GMAC)
  • SAMA5D34 – LCD Controller (LCDC), Gigabit Ethernet (GMAC), CAN0/1, and High Speed Multimedia Card Interface (HSMCI2)
  • SAMA5D35 – Gigabit Ethernet (GMAC), RMII 10/100 Mbit Ethernet (EMAC), CAN0/1, High Speed Multimedia Card Interface (HSMCI2), UART0/1 and TC1 (Timer Counter 1)

Atmel provides evaluation kits for each MPUs:

  • Atmel SAMA5D31-EK – $595
  • Atmel SAMA5D33-EK – $595
  • Atmel SAMA5D34-EK – $595
  • Atmel SAMA5D35-EK – $445
SAMA5D31-EK

SAMA5D31-EK

They all comes with 4Gb DDR2, 2Gb NAND Flash, 128Mb NOR , 32Mb SPI Serial DataFlash, 512Kb EEPROM, and lots of connectors. SAMA5D35-EK is cheaper because it does not include a 5.0” WVGA resistive TFT LCD module. Debugging is done with J-Link and CDC on-board, and an optional JTAG test access port is available. The kits comes preloaded with Linux demonstration software and a graphical user interface (GUI) based on Qt.

As with SAM9 processors, Atmel provides 3 bootloaders (AT91Bootstrap, U-Boot and Barebox), Linux distributions, and Buildroot and OpenEmbedded/Yocto support via linux4sam.com, and an Android 4.0 port will be available at www.at91.com/android4sam in March. The If you don’t plan to use an OS for your application, the company also offers a  C-language software package (softpack). Development can be done in Windows or some Linux distributions (Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora and openSUSE). You can also access full documentation, and download the design and manufacturing Files (including schematics, gerbers, test programs…) for all 4 evaluation kits (Select “Other Documents”).

The Atmel SAMA5D3 is in mass production now, and pricing starts below $7 US for 1,000-pcs quantities. You can get more information on SAMA5D3 series microsite, and find out more about (or buy) SAMA5D3 evaluation kits on Atmel e-Store.

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Linaro 13.01 Release with Linux Kernel 3.8 and Android 4.2.1

February 1st, 2013 2 comments

Linaro has just announced release 13.01 which includes Linux Kernel 3.8-rc4 and Android 4.2.1.

A lot of work seems to have gone in Arndale board and OpenEmbedded ARMv8. It’s the first time an Ubuntu image is released for Arndale Cortex A15 development board. One the kernel side some Android upstreaming work has been done, as well as some fixes for eMMC, and code for ST Ericsson Novathor 8500 SoC has been reorganized. Version 14 of the big.LITTLE MP (Multi Processing) has been released. The LEG has done further work on Linaro UEFI and GRUB.

Here are the highlights of this release:

  • Android
    • Platform Work
      • The first step of the android-build front-end update for new build program has been landed.
      • Origen and Versatile Express manifests have been consolidated into a single manifest.
      • linaro-android-tools were developed to improve development time for kernel developers. See Kernel Update Tools for details.
      • The android-build scripts have been cleaned up and should work from Ubuntu 10.04 and work for restricted builds as well.
      • busybox was upgraded to 1.21
    • Enablement
      • Audio Playback for panda is fixed.
      • External sdcard issue on pandaboard and origen quad was fixed.
    • LAVA/Testing
      • Third party benchmark suite is updated to use the uiautomator testing framework.
  • Developer Platform
    • CI bring up: Arndale
      • Add binary pre-bootloader package for Arndale (BL1)
      • Include Arndale support into Linaro U-Boot
      • Update u-boot-linaro source package to build a binary package for Arndale
      • Update edk2-uefi source package to build a binary package for Arndale
      • Pulls Arndale support into Linux Linaro
      • Add linaro-image-tools support for Arndale
      • Add package-and-publish linux linaro CI job for Arndale
      • Add hwpack configurations for Arndale
      • Setup CI job for Arndale hwpack daily builds
      • Create a pre-built image for Arndale
    • Enable 64-bit HipHop VM development in OpenEmbedded
      • Build dwarfutils, libmcrypt, libmemcached, memcached, onig, google-glog and libevent 1.4.14b with Facebook patch
      • Mark libdwarf and libunwind and google-perftools as optional (JIT requirement)
      • Create meta-toolchain-hhvm
    • Porting userspace applications for ARMv8: fuse ,libaio, xserver-xorg, cmake, nspr …
    • Merge ARMv8 support into OpenEmbedded
      • Merged slang, libffi, libart-lgpl, ghostscript, cmake, linux-libc-headers, libav, oprofile, python-numpy, xserver-xorg, gmp, attr, libaio, fuse and nspr changes into OE (and upstream if applicable)
    • Create Toolchain validation setup
      • Add options to jenkins-setup scripts to pass architecture and GCC version
      • Add ARMv7a gcc-4.7 and gcc-4.6 LAMP builds to ci.linaro.org
      • Update CI jobs publishing to snapshots.linaro.org
      • Merge changes in toolchain-layer
    • Linux Linaro 3.8-rc4 2013.01 released
      • Based off linux-linaro-core-tracking tree, llct-20130123.0 tag
        • Based off v3.8-rc4
        • Updated linaro-android-3.8 topic by John Stultz
        • Gator version 5.13
        • big.LITTLE MP version master-v14
        • eMMC patches from Kernel WG
      • Updated Versatile Express patches from ARM LT
      • Updated patches from Samsung LT: Arndale support added
      • Ethernet fixes for Snowball: ethernet works OK now
      • A patch to enable perf in Android by Bernhard Rosenkraenzer
      • Ashmem patch by Serban Constantinescu
      • VExpress64 support (both RTSM and Foundation models)
    • Linaro U-Boot 2013.01.1 released
      • LP #1103004 [Arndale] u-boot-linaro lacks pxeboot support
    • OpenEmbedded ARMv8 build has been updated
      • Toolchain updated to Linaro GCC 4.7 2013.01
      • Kernel updated to Linux Linaro 3.8-rc4
      • Various bug fixes
  • Graphics
  • Infrastructure
  • Kernel
    • Android upstreaming
      • Mempressure cgroup got an lwn article: https://lwn.net/Articles/531077
      • keyreset work got an initial patch queued with the input driver for 3.9
      • alarm-dev compat_ioctl support for 32-app on 64bit-kernel is queued for 3.9
      • First pass implementation of extended ashmem unit test completed
      • ashmem compat_ioctl support reworked to include feedback from lkml
    • ux500
      • conversion to common clock got several patchsets merged upstream by Torvalds
      • now uses sparse IRQs and accepted in ARM SoC
    • EHCI refactoring separated mxc, spear, orion and tegra host controller driver from ehci-hcd into its own driver modules
    • Research impact on kernel size for multi-platform configs
      • Gather kernel image and runtime size data for i.MX platform with multiplatform config support
    • AB8500 GPIO shape-up
    • Android upstreaming: Ashmem
      • Review Minchan’s v5 vma based approach
    • Android keyreset driver upstreaming
    • Android upstreaming: Lowmem
      • Anton sent out non RFC version of mempressure cgroup patchset, got ack from Kirill A. Shutemov
      • Anton’s work was written up in an lwn article https://lwn.net/Articles/531077/
    • Depopulate the ux500 and plat-nomadik <mach/*> and <plat/*>
    • Refactor USB Host Drivers
      • Write Orine host controller driver to separate from ehci-hcd host code into its own driver module
    • Android alarm-dev compat_ioctl support
    • Refactor EHCI controller code
      • Separate the mxc,spear,orion and tegra host controller driver from ehci-hcd into its own driver modules
    • Improve eMMC Power Management Support
      • Prepare patches for fixup I/O voltage switch in protocol layer
      • Prepare patches for adapt sdhci host driver to new sequence for how I/O voltage switch is done
    • Support for EMMC 4.5 and UFS
      • Submit /integrate patches for fixing Power Off Notify issues
  • Power Management
    • Integration tree to bring together big.LITTLE MP related work (V14 branch)
    • DVFS for the Common Clock Framework
      • improve re-parenting in clk_set_rate
      • create new clk-next branch based on 3.8-rcN
      • brainstorm alternative locking mechanism
    • Thermal framework enhancements for non-ACPI platforms
      • Get feedback from thermal tests PM-QA for all platforms and enable by default in LAVA
    • sched: modify timer and workqueue framework to allow migration
      • Get patches reviewed and accepted in mainline
      • Analyse users of workqueue subsystem to check which drivers would break by migrating work to other cpus, total of 1200 drivers found
      • Implement queue_work_on_any_cpu() type interfaces
    • Upstream stericsson u8500 suspend driver
      • Get clear the kernel requirements/constrains about suspend codes
      • Check the issue of rtc alarm doesn’t work
    • cpuidle: testsuite in PM-QA
      • Understand the existing tests
    • Upstream stericsson ab8500 thermal driver using new thermal framework
      • Keep reviewing and tracking patches for new thermal framework
      • Send out patches for upstreaming
    • Linaro PM QA 0.4.0 released
  • Toolchain
    • Linaro GCC 4.7 2013.01 released, based off GCC 4.7.2+svn194772
      • Includes arm/aarch64-4.7-branch up to svn revision 194808
      • Support for the rev16 and revsh instructions
      • A15 Neon pipeline backported from trunk
      • FMA intrinsic backported from trunk
      • Better extending core to NEON transfers
      • Fused multiply-add support
    • Linaro GCC 4.6 2013.01 released, based off GCC 4.6.3+svn194771
    • AArch64 Boehm GC port upstreamed
    • Multimedia filters in WebP submitted for upstream approval.
    • Linaro Toolchain Binaries 2013.01 released, updated to latest Linaro GCC 4.7 2013.01
  • LAVA
    • Filters now support a “compare” feature that allows comparing the results of two different jobs.
    • Filters results can now be downloaded as JSON data so people can generate their own custom reports.
    • Galaxy Nexus support added
    • pre-built CI images converted to use lava-test-shell
  • LEG
    • Linaro UEFI 2013.01 released. Highlights include fixes for native building of UEFI on ARM platforms and improvements to flashing images on Arndale boards.
      • imgburn.sh: add parameters and defaults
      • panda: Enable native building for Pandaboard
      • LP #1091447 UEFI: A9 crashes on boot with ATAGS
    • Linaro GRUB 2013.01 released.
      • Merge in latest upstream changes, including nested function removal.
      • Add cache line size probing for clean/invalidate operations
      • Fix a bug in D-cache clean operation.
      • Made code, especially Linux loader, more generic.

Visit https://wiki.linaro.org/Cycles/1301/Release for a list of known issues and further release details about the LEB, Android, Kernel, Graphics, Landing Team,  Platform, Power management and Toolchain (GCC / Qemu) components.

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