Linaro 13.08 Release With Linux Kernel 3.11 and Android 4.3

Linaro 13.08 has been released with Linux Kernel 3.11-rc6 (stating), Kernel 3.10.9 (LSK – beta), and Android 4.3.

This month is the first release based on Android 4.3, which was only pushed to AOSP at the end of last month. I can also see work on new SoCs/hardware this month with Texas Instruments Keystone II ARM Cortex A15+DSP SoC and Fujitsu AA9 board (Which processor?, I could not find out). A lot of work also appears to have gone in OpenEmbedded, further optimizations have gone into NEON optimized AES encryption in OpenSSL, and more. It’s also the first time I can see a Ubuntu Raring engineering build image for HighBank (Calxeda Energycore).

Here are the highlights of this release:

Android Engineering
- Android stack was tuned to achieve 100% CTS pass result on Android 4.3
- Analyzing the UEFI EDK II boot loader for Android completed, implementation of fastboot application and USB drivers in progress.

Builds and Baselines
- Linaro Stable Kernel (beta) 3.10.9-2013.08 released
- Linux Linaro 3.11-rc6-2013.08 released (updated arndale/exynos patches from Samsung LT, vexpress64 support (both RTSM and Foundation model), and more)
- Linaro Toolchain Binaries 2013.08 released (includes latest Linaro GCC 4.8 2013.08 release with Aarch64 improvements)
- Linaro Android baseline updates:
  - Android Baselines updated to Android 4.3 for all the Engineering and Member builds
  - Android builds updated to build with Linaro GCC 4.8 2013.08 release
  - Helper scripts developed to boot Android over NFS
  - Fujitsu member build is set up with complete CI loop
  - Android NDK (Native Development Kit) based on Linaro Toolchain is delivered
- Linaro OpenEmbedded baseline updates:
  - Update to Linaro GCC 4.8-2013.08 release
  - Remove meta-openembedded/toolchain layer
  - Add meta-bigendian to default layers
  - Add meta-filesystems layer
  - Whitelist non-commercial license on all images
  - Add Fedora support and clean up dependencies based on Yocto Project Reference Manual
  - New leg-java images have builds of openjdk-7 and openjdk-8
  - Python (2.7.3) available in LAMP image
  - Engineering builds for Networking (big endian and little endian) are built daily
- Linaro Ubuntu baseline updates:
  - CI loop has been improved: packages can be cross-built and uploaded to repo.linaro.org.
  - Calxeda EnergyCore (Highbank) CI loop is completed
  - Fujitsu member build is set up with complete CI loop
  - package updates: libvirt updated to 1.1.1; openssl (include support for ARM NEON based bit sliced AES in XTS mode, contributed from LEG)
Kernel
- Started making progress on kexec 64 support
- Posted uprobes32 code for public review
- Started testing of randconfig on ARM32 to find random build issues
- Device Tree bindings for Android keyreset merged for 3.12
- option to log time spent in suspend delivered in 3.11
- fixed vfat get volume id ioctl and delivered in 3.11 mainline

LAVA
- LAVA Lab – LNG isolated performance test rack starting to come together
- LAVA Core
  - Improved complete-log view (added links for Line/Section #s)
  - Interactive bootloader commands working on all devices – Added support for Android platforms
  - New action: deploy_linaro_image has been added – Allows provisioning of kernel, ramdisk, dtb, bootloader, firmware, and rootfs using TFTP, adds support for KVM/QEMU…
  - TI Keystone II integrated into LAVA
  - Fujitsu AA9 integrated into LAVA
  - Automated functional LAVA testing – Checks for regressions by running common LAVA jobs
  - Multi-Node support in final days of staging verification.
  - Review feedback and start a plan to revamp the LAVA documentation
  - Added capability to integrate LAVA instance with Google Analytics
- Linaro Infrastructure
  - Beta staging git services released to improve Linaro git services
  - Output manifest from Android builds now includes repository/branch descriptions.

LEG (Linaro Enterprise Group)
- XTS chaining mode for the NEON accelerated AES in OpenSSL was released. Refer to https://wiki.linaro.org/Internal/People/ArdBiesheuvel/BitSlicedAESEncryption for more details on the NEON work done for AES, using bit slicing.
- The CI loop for openJDK is now in place – work remains to get all the tests passing and to amplify the range of the test suites used.

LNG (Linaro Networking Group)
- The real time patch set for 3.10.6 + rt3 became available and LNG moved its stable kernels to 3.10.6 and 3.10.6 + rt3
- The CONFIG_NO_HZ_FULL config fragment resulted in bug 1215507 in the preempt rt image, and so NO_HZ has been disabled
- The CI loop now runs the LTP and LTP real-time regression test suites against the LNG Kernels
- LNG image based on Linaro OpenEmbedded baseline boots on Arndale
- Building with the debug flags enabled resulted in a bug 215471 – deadlock when CONFIG_KEYBOARD_GPIO is enabled with debug on.
- meta-bigendian layer has been merged in Linaro OpenEmbedded baseline

Power Management
- Linaro Powerdebug 0.7.0-2013.08 released (add gpio modification function)
- Linaro Powertop 2.2-2013.08 released
- Linaro PM QA 0.4.3-2013.08 released

QA
- Successfully completed 13.08 release testing on Android (linux-linaro and LSK), Ubuntu and OpenEmbedded builds. Test results and bug reports have been shared.
- Manual PXE on UEFI testing was performed on Versatile Express A9 board.
- Test planning completed for LSK and Networking Group (LNG)

Toolchain
- Linaro GCC 4.8 2013.08 released with multiple optimizations (shrink-wrapping, tail-calls), improved AArch64 support, and bug fixes
- Linaro GCC 4.7 2013.08 released, based off the latest GCC 4.7.3+svn201655 release.
- Updated for GCC and LLVM

Virtualization
- Final version of HYP mode switching support for ARMv7-A is ready and went upstream. (cnxsoft: Not directly related to Linaro work, but you can check the following presentation for an overview of virtualization on Cortex A15).
- ARMv7 Guest Migration (same HW/SW) functionality implementation is ready and now is being upstreamed.
- hackbench is configured in LAVA for testing KVM; also added to CI loop.

Visit https://wiki.linaro.org/Cycles/1308/Release for a list of known issues, and further release details about the LEB and community builds, Android, Kernel, Graphics, Multimedia, 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.