kernel

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments on Linaro 15.05 Release with Linux 4.1 and Android 5.1

Linaro 15.05 Release with Linux 4.1 and Android 5.1

Linaro 15.04 has been released with Linux 4.1-rc4, Linux 3.10.79 and 3.14.42 (LSK), and Android 5.1_r3. The Ubuntu image is now based on Vivid instead of Utopic. Android and Debian builds/images have been released for Hikey’s 96boards, Ubuntu Vivid and Android builds have been setup for Qualcomm’s Dragonboard 410c. A new platform, Socionext M8M, has also show in Linaro changelog. I could not find details about M8M, but Socionext is a “new company that designs, develops and delivers System-on-Chip products” and focuses on “imaging, networking and other dynamic technologies”. Their latest press release mentions a 4K media processor with build-in HDMI 2.0 Tx and Rx, so maybe M8M is based on that processor, but I can’t know for sure as they have several chips. Highlights of this release: Linux Linaro 4.1-rc4-2015.05 GATOR updated to version 5.21.1 updated integration-linaro-vexpress64 topic by ARM LT: PCI support added – for Juno r1. Linaro […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on Linaro 15.04 Release with Linux 4.0 and Android 5.1

Linaro 15.04 Release with Linux 4.0 and Android 5.1

Linaro 15.04 has been released with Linux 4.0 (baseline), Linux 3.10.74 and 3.14.39 (LSK), and Android 5.1.1. Other noticeable changes include support for the new DragonBoard 410c 96boards compliant board, the addition of A80 Optimusboard (Allwinner A80) to Android Kitkat build, Hisilicon D01 support added to the Debian installer, and support for Ubuntu ARM64 Gnome rootfs. Highlights of the release: Linux Linaro 4.0-2015.04 updated linaro-android topic: aosp/android-3.18 branch has been merged GATOR topic: version 5.20.1 updated integration-linaro-vexpress64 topic by ARM LT (FVP Base and Foundation models, and Juno support) updated topic from Qualcomm LT (IFC6410 and DB410c boards support): Resource Power Manager (RPM) – MSM Shared Memory Driver (SMD) driver quite some changes under drivers/gpu/drm/ related to adv7511 and adv7533 support ASoC support for QCOM platforms external Connector Class (extcon) support (used for USB VBUS and ID detection) Linaro builds of AOSP 15.04 baseline updated to android-5.1.1_r1 updated Nexus 10 […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments on Linux 4.0 Release – Main Changes, ARM and MIPS Architectures

Linux 4.0 Release – Main Changes, ARM and MIPS Architectures

Linus Torvalds “Ima Sheep” released Linux Kernel 4.0 on Sunday: So I decided to release 4.0 as per the normal schedule, because there really weren’t any known issues, and while I’ll be traveling during the end of the upcoming week due to a college visit, I’m hoping that won’t affect the merge window very much. We’ll see. Linux 4.0 was a pretty small release both in linux-next and in final size, although obviously “small” is all relative. It’s still over 10k non-merge commits. But we’ve definitely had bigger releases (and judging by linux-next v4.1 is going to be one of the bigger ones). Which is all good. It definitely matches the “v4.0 is supposed to be a_stable_ release”, and very much not about new experimental features etc. I’m personally so much happier with time-based releases than the bad old days when we had feature-based releases. That said, there’s a few […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on Linaro 15.03 Release with Linux 4.0 and Android 5.1

Linaro 15.03 Release with Linux 4.0 and Android 5.1

Linaro has just announced their 15.03 release with Linux 4.0-rc4 (baseline), Linux 3.10.72 and 3.14.36 (LSK), and Android 5.1. The organization has worked on hardware platforms from members namely Qualcomm, ARM, HiSilicon, Samsung, and STMicro, including the recently announced 96Boards boards, and other ARMv8 platforms. Highlights of the release: Linux Linaro 4.0-rc4-2015.03 updated linaro-android topic added a few build/boot fixes for Arndale (llct-misc-fixes topic) GATOR topic: version 5.20.1 updated integration-linaro-vexpress64 topic by ARM LT (FVP Base and Foundation models, and Juno support) updated topic from Qualcomm LT (ifc6410 board support) simple EEPROM framework (via Qualcomm LT’s topic) updated topic from HiSilicon LT (Hi36xx, HiP04, and X5HD2 families support) rebased “ILP32 patch set v3” onto 4.0-rc2 Linaro builds of AOSP 15.03 updated all the baselines to AOSP 5.1 added commit based trigger feature to CI builds Linaro OpenEmbedded 2015.03 integrated Linaro GCC 4.9-2015.03 dismantled meta-aarch64 layer created meta-ilp32 layer cleaned out […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments on How to Install Ubuntu 14.04 on Acer Aspire E5 Laptop

How to Install Ubuntu 14.04 on Acer Aspire E5 Laptop

I’ve been owning an Acer Aspire One D255E netbook with a 10″ display, an Intel Atom N455 processor and 1GB RAM that served me well during my travels, but as I’ve become older and less patient, I felt I needed to upgrade it. I planned to spend around 10,000 Baht (~$300), wanted a 14″ display, one of the low power CPU such as Intel Bay Trail-M or AMD Mullins / Beema processors, at least 500GB storage, 4GB RAM, and the ability to install Ubuntu. Finally, after going through several products at my local shop, I had to chose between Acer Aspire E5-411-P3CL with a 7.5W TDP Intel Atom N3540 and Acer Aspire E5-421G-45L0 with a 15W TDP AMD A4-6210 processor that both sell for 11,900 Baht ($365). Despite my preference for processor with lower TDP, I still went with the AMD system, since the performance is a little better, the […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments on (Most of) FOSDEM 2015 Videos Are Now Online

(Most of) FOSDEM 2015 Videos Are Now Online

FOSDEM 2015 took place on between the 31st of January and 1st of February, and while some sessions were not recorded on videos, most of them were, and the organizers are now slowly processing and uploading 402 videos to their server. So far 210 videos have been uploaded, including the Embedded Devroom. You can follow the upload status to check out when your preferred track/devroom sessions are uploaded. For example, “internet of things” videos have not been uploaded so far, so you’d need to be a bit more patient for this topic. One of such videos is “Upstream Allwinner ARM SoC (A10 / sunxi) support status”  by Hans de Goede, which includes the slides on the left and video of the right. This makes the presentation easy to follow (despite the slides being cropped), but probably explains why it takes so long to process the videos. http://video.fosdem.org/2015/devroom-embedded/allwinner_upstream__CROPPED_PRES.mp4 You can also […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments on How to Build a Single Kernel Module (Driver) in Ubuntu

How to Build a Single Kernel Module (Driver) in Ubuntu

When I bought UNI-T UT61E digital multimeter,  I planned to to use the open source tool Sigrok to capture voltage, current or resistance data with my Ubuntu 14.04 machine. Unfortunately, it was just not working for me and I kept getting some “Invalid function byte” error messages, so I asked on Sigrok mailing list, and since it worked for others, I was in big troubles. It turned out the RS-232 to USB dongle I used:

was most likely to culprit, so I decided to buy another random USB to serial dongle on eBay, and after a few weeks I received it only to find out it had the exact same VID:PID, so I was out of luck. Finally, I gave up on Sigrok on Linux, and tested the power consumption of some Rockchip RK3288 & Amlogic S802 devices in a Windows 7 virtual machine running in my Ubuntu 14.04 […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 17 Comments on ARM Releases Kernel Drivers for Mali-T880 / T860 GPUs, User Space Drivers for Mali-T76x GPUs

ARM Releases Kernel Drivers for Mali-T880 / T860 GPUs, User Space Drivers for Mali-T76x GPUs

ARM Mali GPU drivers includes both open source kernel drivers, and binary userspace drivers supporting framebuffer and/ior X11 implementation. The former is rarely an issue and is quickly released, but the latter requires porting and testing for a specific hardware platform, as well legal work, which greatly delay the releases. Mali-T880 GPU was announced at the beginning of the month together with ARM Cortex A72, and on February 17, 2015, ARM released an update to their Mali-T600 series, Mali-T700 series & Mali-T860/T880 GPU kernel device drivers with revision r5p1-00rel0 that adds supports to Mali-T860 and Mali-T880 GPU. These open source drivers are available for Android and Linux, and also support early Mali-T700 and T600 GPUs. Separately, the company has also released Mali-T76X GPU drivers for Firefly board powered by Rockchip RK3288 quad core Cortex A17 processor featuring a Mali-T764 GPU. The first release only supports the framebuffer driver, but ARM […]