Linaro 11.12 Release with Kernel 3.1.5

Linaro has just released version 11.12 based on Linux Kernel 3.1.5 and further support for Android 4.0 including graphics hardware acceleration on Snowball and Origen development boards.

Here are the highlights of the release:

Android
- Linaro ICS is built with the Linaro toolchain.
- Linaro ICS is running on all supported boards.
- DS-5 with Gator is supported in all Linaro Andoid ICS builds.
- The latest version of libpng (1.5.7) has been integrated in Linaro ICS.
- An AOSP master build is now available from linaro.
- ARM® Mali™ Hardware Accelerated Graphics is supported on Origen and Snowball.
- libjpeg-turbo has been integrated into all Andoid ICS builds.
Developer Platform
- The linux-linaro and lt-panda kernel packages are now automatically generated by the CI build scripts
- DS-5 with Gator is supported in all Ubuntu LEB builds.
- XBMC packages, with Gstreamer and OpenGLES support, are now available at the Ubuntu Overlay (supporting only Panda initially)
- U-Boot-Linaro is now based on the latest upstream release v2011.12
- Ubuntu Precise (12.04) based images are now available (beta). This includes nano, developer, linaro-server, xfce-desktop, and ubuntu-desktop.
- Alsa UCM support is now enabled in Pulseaudio, and configured properly for both i.MX53 and Pandaboard.
- The Overlay PPA now provides debug packages for all linaro-specific packages available at the Ubuntu LEB images.
- Ubuntu LEB now includes Linaro branding as part of the experience.
- Chromium Browser can now be cross-built using multiarch.
- Origen now fully supports the Unity-2D interface, besides adding wlan and bluetooth support.
Infrastructure
- There are graphs to visualize work item progress towards the individual roadmap cards and lanes (quarters). The Linaro roadmap has been made the start page for status.linaro.org.
- We allow registration for Connect through connect.linaro.org directly using Launchpad as the SSO provider.
- Images built by android-build and ubuntu-build can contain vendor-provided binary overlays for hardware acceleration, and are published in a way which requires click through license acceptance before being downloaded.
- Android build artifacts are now published to snapshots.linaro.org, which allows us to publish accelerated builds for boards which require license acceptance before download.
- Android Build system can now use source overlays from snapshots.linaro.org/binaries/ to supplement the build with proprietary binaries that need user click through.
- Syncing with AOSP and other upstream projects is now automated.
Graphics
- Implemented a glmark2 benchmark for performing bilinear filtering manually in shaders – bilinear filtering is texture filtering method used to smooth textures when displayed larger or smaller than they actually are
- Added support for glproxy in glcompbench – this allows choosing the backend (OpenGL or OpenGL ES2) at runtime instead of building a different executable for each backend. In the process of doing that there was added EGL virtualization support to glproxy, enabling Glproxy to virtualize EGL as it does GLX, so applications can decide on using one or the other at run-time, depending on availability.
- Also for glcompbench : sharing some neat glmark2 objects for managing GLSL (and GLSL ES) shader source prior to compilation and linking. These are sort of a preprocessor for the strings read out of the files on disk and allow for dynamic generation of precision declarations, constants, and other symbols (or even whole sections of code) at either global or local scope. Objects shared from glmark2 were: Util, ShaderSource, CompositeTestBase – update to use ShaderSource. Also updated shaders to use ShaderSource, and derived GL-based test classes to configure shaders using ShaderSource
- Enabled apitrace, which provides a tracer and retracer executable, to work on systems having only EGL/GLES2 libraries
- Also started the study on power management for GPUs – check the preliminary information put together in https://wiki.linaro.org/WorkingGroups/Middleware/Graphics/Projects/GpuPowerManagement
- For Memory Management work: posted v3 of dma-buf object patches, with review comments addressed
  - As a reference for the repositories available please note the following list
    - git://git.linaro.org/people/jessebarker/linaro-mm-sig/linux.git contains (for the moment) 6 branches:
      - master == unadulterated v3.2-rc5 from git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git
      - linaro == unadulterated v3.2-rc4 from git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git
      - cma-v17 == linaro + cma v17 patchset
      - dma-mapping-v4 == linaro + dma-mapping v4 patchset
      - android-cma-v17 == john stultz’s androidization tree based upon unadulterated v3.2-rc4 + cma v17 patchset
      - android-dma-mapping-v4 == john stultz’s androidization tree based upon unadulterated v3.2-rc4 + dma-mapping v4 patchset
Kernel
- Update to 3.1.5 stable kernel
- Initial thermal framework support
- Fixes to ARM perf support
- Improvements to ARM OOM killer support
Multimedia
- Updated the realvideo codec implementation in libav, with NEON optimisations
- Speex for Android with NEON optimisation patches was released
- UCM for pulseaudio: Updated pulseaudio ucm branch, update alsa-lib ucm patches, alsa-ucm-pa tests to check if the pulseaudio ucm works as expected
- Created a prototype application for unattended end-to-end testing of the audio stack for Ubuntu. Works for Intel/Ubuntu git repository is http://git.linaro.org/gitweb?p=people/kurt-r-taylor/e2eaudiotest.git
- For memory management: Development of dri2proto, updating libdri2 to support dri2video and dri2video test app, updating mesa and implement the core functionality in xserver against xf86-video-nouveau and xf86-video-omap. Added trace events and debugfs support for CMA, started making CMA testing available for snowball boards in LAVA. The multimedia contributed code for memory management will also be available (as topic branches) from git://git.linaro.org/people/jessebarker/linaro-mm-sig/linux.git
OCTO
- Ubuntu ARMHF: Made progress with Ubuntu, more than 50% of the archive built – see http://qa.ubuntuwire.org/ftbfs/primary-precise-armhf.html for a list of failed packages
- Debian ARMHF: more than 70% of the archive is now built (https://buildd.debian.org/stats/graph-week-big.png), see the status of packages being built in https://buildd.debian.org/status/architecture.php?a=armhf&suite=sid
Power Management
- Common Clock
  - Submitted patches v4 , including support for OMAP4
- Common ARM cpuidle driver
  - Submitted v2 of common cpuidle driver along with i.MX platform cpuidle driver
- Cpuidle
  - Did a simple cpuidle driver for the snowball on top of linux-next with WFI
  - Submitted v4 patches for exynos4210 cpuidle support with Russell fixes.
- Sched_mc for ARM
  - Integrated into linaro-kernel
  - Checked availabilty of sched_mc patches on android LEB, patches are available but config are not set by default.
- Thermal Management
  - Tested that temperature is reduced in production using the current solution-done on Origen board.
  - Added an posted the patch for a generic processor cooling devices(non ACPI based, for ACPI already exists): Currently CPU cooling devices based on freq scaling and cpu hotplug.
  - Added and posted the patch for a new trip type needed for cooling devices like cpufreq.
Toolchain
- Linaro GCC includes support for 64 bit sync primitives, unaligned block moves on ARMv7, and backports the Cortex-A15 pipeline description from the ongoing upstream A15 work. The vectoriser has a round of improvements to the straight line vectoriser, including supporting operations with an arbitrary number of operands, vectorising conditions, and improved pattern recognition support.
- GDB now supports single stepping over atomic operations. QEMU has been rebased on the new upstream 1.0 release. Congratulations to the QEMU project on hitting this milestone!
Validation
- Samsung Origen boards are now supported in LAVA.
- QEMU is now supported as a client type in LAVA.
- LAVA deployment tool assists with the deployment of LAVA components. It is suitable for production deployments as well as development/evaluation environments.
- Improvements to the job details page in the scheduler.
- Consistent menus in the web UI.

Here are the known issues for this release (mainly related to Android 4.0):

Bluetooth does not work on Origen (Android)
ADB over USB doesn’t work on i.MX53
Lava boot test for panda has failed since Android build 314
iMX53: Resume Fails after device enters Suspend mode(ICS)
Unable to play Angrybirds game on Snowball (ICS), App opens but does not show proper game menu.
No HW Gfx on Upstream Panda Build
Audio doesn’t work on snowball
Suspend does not work on Samsung Origen (Android)
Audio doesn’t work on iMX53 (Android)
HW graphics acceleration does not work on iMX53 (Android)
Panda: lack of hw video decoding support on Ubuntu
SD card writing very slow on Snowball
Origen : Tethering over Bluetooth/WiFi/USB missing in 11.10 RC (Android)
iMX53 : Hardware accelerated Audio support missing (Android)
Snowball : Hardware accelerated Video playback support missing (Android)
Beagle/Panda : Hardware accelerated Video Playback support missing (Android)
iMX53 : Hardware accelerated Video support missing (Android)
Sound doesn’t work on panda on ICS
Panda: Audio record and audio playback fails (Android)
DVI out port is not working with staging-panda or tracking-panda (Android)
The display messed up when using USB camera (Android/Origen)
vexpress-a9: No sound in Android
gatord does not start on upstream panda (Android)
No gatord on ICS
vexpress-a9: ADB over USB doesn’t work
vexpress-a9: USB mass storage doesn’t work (Android)
[regression] no audio on quickstart with 11.11 (Ubuntu)
[regression] sound not working on panda with lt-omap at 11.11 (Ubuntu)
[regression] No DVI output on the PandaBoard with kernel 3.1.0-1402-linaro-lt-omap (Ubuntu)
SGX driver failing on ICS on tracking-panda (Android)
No 0xbench on ICS
No Ethernet Communication Manager on ICS
Unable to play youtube videos(ICS) on PandaBoard
SD card not accessible(checked via Gallery app) in Pandaboard
Camera, Messaging and Dialler missing on ICS in PandaBoard
USB mass storage functionality missing on Android with PandaBoard
Snowball needs HDMIservice (Android)
Wifi doesn’t work on ICS on Panda & Origen
BT doesn’t work on ICS on Panda
GLMark2 not available on ICS
Camera App does not work on ICS
gator driver fails to compile on 3.2 rc kernel (Android)
Kernel panic on staging-origen build 83 (Android)
Android Kernels compiled from 4.6-2011.12 toolchain fails to boot
The kernel on staging-panda does not boot with the 11.12 released toolchain (Android)
Samsung Origen board hangs on the “ANDROID” string with staging-origen build 90
snowball: ADB over USB doesn’t work (Android)
VGA on the iMX53 11.12 final RC doesn’t work on a BenQ FP73G LCD monitor (Android)
landing-panda build doesn’t suspend (Android)
Messaging crashes if try to use it (Android)
Snowball: Failed to play video on youtube (Android)
Snowball: Need to configure ethernet manually (Android)
vexpress-a9: ICS: Suspend-Resume doesn’t work
vexpress-a9: ICS: Angry Birds doesn’t work
Gallery app does not show thumbnail on panda
vexpress-a9: ICS: No thumbnails in gallery application
Snowball: Menu in lower right corner does not work on landing snowball (Android)
[regression] USB SPL Booting is broken in 2011.12.1 (Ubuntu)
[regression] Origen: HDMI doesn’t work with 3.2 kernel (Ubuntu)

Go to https://wiki.linaro.org/Cycles/1112/Release for further release details about the LEB, Android, Kernel, Graphics, Landing Team, Platform, Power management and Toolchain (GCC / Qemu) components.

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.