Android 4.0 Source Code is Now Available

Google has just released Android 4.0.1 source code in AOSP. There are 3 main branches: android-4.0.1_r1: the release branch, ITL41D, that is expected to ship on Galaxy Nexus. That’s the one you want to be using to port to devices. ics-mr0: ICS development branch. It contains a few changes that aren’t in the release branch, so it might not be as stable. That’s the one you want to use if you plan to contribute to CTS. master: usual master branch, it contains all of ics-mr0 plus a few extra changes. That’s the branch that you should use if you want to contribute to the platform. The release and development branch require the “classic” host configurations (Ubuntu 10.04, or MacOS 10.6 with XCode 3). The master branch had a few tweaks to make it work better on newer systems  (Ubuntu 11.10, Mac OS 10.7 with XCode 4.2) but it’s not 100% […]

Online Petition Requesting to Allow Linux Installation on Windows 8 Devices

Back in September, some concerns emerged about UEFI secure boot requirement for Windows 8 and its possible consequences on Linux and other open source operating systems: it may be impossible to install such systems on computers or devices shipped with Windows 8, either by replacing Windows 8 or in a dual boot installation as the bootloader (UEFI) would prevent such installation for security reasons. Microsoft has already replied to those concerns and stated that: At the end of the day, the customer is in control of their PC. … We work with our OEM ecosystem to provide customers with this flexibility. The security that UEFI has to offer with secure boot means that most customers will have their systems protected against boot loader attacks. For the enthusiast who wants to run older operating systems, the option is there to allow you to make that decision. So there should be an […]

Archos G9 GPL Source Code

Archos has released the GPL source code for the Archos G9 Tablets on their Gitorious account. This is obviously the same source code for Archos 80 G9 and Archos 101 G9. There are two git repositories for the G9: archos-gpl-gen9 – Archos generation 9 GPL release archos-gpl-gen9-kernel – Archos generation 9 GPL linux kernel 2.6 release The GPL “userspace” source code is divided into 4 directories: buildroot – Buildroot to generate a cross-compilation toolchain, a root filesystem, a kernel image and a bootloader image. hardware – Direcotory containing hardware related source: WL1283 “Wlan” Driver (WiLink 7.0 single-chip WLAN, GPS, Bluetooth and FM solution) packages: libf2m – Library to convert flash videos (FLV) to AVI, MOV or MP4 libmms – Library for streaming video/audio with mmst / mmsh protocols external- Utilities and libraries (Bold indicates external sw not released/used with Archos G8 Source Code) alsa-lib – Audio library alsa-utils – Audio […]

Open Source Licenses Overview: GPL, LGPL, Apache, BSD,…

The great thing about open source code is the large amount of high quality code that is available and many embedded projects use FOSS code as it really speeds up development time. What is not often taken into account are the licenses for the code. Many companies often simply ignore licenses issues and some even go one step further by obfuscating the code to work around dual license issues or to hide the use of a particular open source library. Even though history shows that few companies get sued due to open source license infringements and release of open source code modified in commercial projects often requires the community involvement, open source licenses should still be taken into consideration as the risk still exists. I’ll give an overview of open source licenses in this blog post, as well as recommendation on how to keep your proprietary code closed. Definition of […]

Embedded MasterClass Conference Schedule in Cambridge, UK

Embeded MasterClass will take place in Cambridge on the 5th of October 2011. This conference will give you the chance to meet with embedded systems engineers from many of the world’s leading vendors and you’ll be able to attend presentations and workshops free of charge. Here’s the presentations’ schedule for the event: Time Stream 1 Stream 2 8.30 – 9.30 Tea/Coffee – Meet the Exhibitors 9.30 – 10.15 1: Leveraging the Performance of Intel® Architectures in low power, fan-less solutions with the latest Intel® Atom™ processor-based platform. Regis Cheval CEng MIET, Intel® Atom™ Platform Application Engineer – Intel 10.30 – 11.15 2: Proving your code quality. Barry Lock – Lauterbach 3: Developing reliable embedded systems using COTS and custom processors. Michael Pont, CEO – TTE Systems 11.15 – 11.45 Coffee and Exhibition 11.45 – 12.30 4: Strategic Research Agenda. Helen Finch – Artemis and Infineon 5: Safely from Conception to […]

First ARM-Based Arduino Board with Atmel SAM3U

Arduino announced Arduino Due board with a 32bit Cortex-M3 ARM processor on their blog before Maker Faire. The SAM3U processor from ATMEL runs at 96MHz with 256Kb of Flash, 50Kb of SRAM, 5 SPI buses, 2 I2C interfaces, 5 UARTS, 16 Analog Inputs at 12Bit resolution and more. Contrary to previous hardware release, they intend to open the process to the community early on and they plan to to be demo the board and give away some boards to a selected group of developers who will be invited to shape the platform while it’s been created. After Maker Faire,  a small batch of Developer Edition boards on the Arduino store will be sold to members of the community who want to join the development effort.  The final board will be released by the end of 2011. If you can’t wait there are some other Arduino-like projects with Cortex-M3 support based […]

Free Linux Tutorials by the Linux Foundation

Yet another software development tutorial resource this week… The Linux Foundation regularly offers paid tutorials about Linux either online or onsite, but they also have free Linux training videos on their website. There are now 7 free tutorials namely: How to Work with the Linux Community by LWN.net editor and kernel developer Jon Corbet (28:43) . Introduction to Embedded Linux by author Jerry Cooperstein (26:28). Linux Administration 101: Introduction to Vim by author Joe “Zonker” Brockmeier (Length unknown, video not working at the time). Introduction to Git by kernel developer James Bottomley (29:57). Introduction to Btrfs by kernel developer Chris Mason (26:48). Linux Virtualization Using KVM by kernel developer Christoph Hellwig (23:58). Six Tips For Getting Started With Open Source Compliance by Philip Koltun (16:22). I’ve been looking for the presentation slides of these tutorials, but they do not seem to be publicly available. They may also add more free Linux tutorials in the […]

LinuxCon 2011 Presentation: Embedded Systems

The fourth presentation entitled  “Embedded Systems” was presented by Tim Harder, developer at OSUOSL (Oregon State University Open Source Lab) on the 16th of August 2011 at LinuxCon 2011. Abstract: This presentation deals with software development for Embedded Systems especially focusing on Linux and open source.  It describes current software development challenges such as fast software life cycle and memory footprint issues, lists several open hardware projects (Beagleboard, Pandaboard, Bug Labs, Gumstix),  microcontrollers (Arduino and TI MSP430), different operating systems (Android, Meego) and toolchain build tools (Buildroot, Yocto) for embedded systems. It also explains specific challenges to embedded software development such a the numerous number of hardware platforms and software & hardware  tools. Finally, it deals with the cross-compilers, emulators (e.g. qemu) and debugging tools (gdb, jtag, serial console, etc…). If you want to download the presentation slides, please go to Embedded Systems and use the download button on top of […]