Linaro 13.10 Release with Linux Kernel 3.12 and Android 4.3

Linaro has just posted a blog entry to announced Linaro 13.10 was available for download. This is normally supposed to occur on the last Thursday of the month, but it’s possible the release occurred on scheduled, and the blog post was late, or it may have been delayed because of Linaro Connect US 2013. You can access a summary of the event together with slides and videos of the sessions and keynotes when available.

This release includes the Linux Kernel 3.12-rc5 (staging), Kernel 3.10.14 (LSK), Android 4.3.1, and Ubuntu Linaro 13.10 (still based on Raring). Android has been ported and updated to 4.3.1 from AOSP, and the OS can now boot using UEFI. More work has been done on ARM 64-bit (aka ARMv8 or Aarch64) for Android, the Linux kernel, and tools such as uprobes, o-profile, and ftrace. Some new hardware platforms I may have missed before have popped up in LAVA: Applied Micro X-Gene dev board (Mustang), HiSilicon hi3716cv200 boards, and Entropic xi3 an STB based on Entropic TSC188 dual core Cortex A9 SoC. There’s also Amarillo, Linaro Networking Group (LNG) reference platform. I could not find much details, but it could be related to the latest LSI Axxia 5500 16 ARM Cortex-A15 SoC destined to be used in devices like cellular base stations.

Here are the highlights of this release:

Android Engineering
- Porting and Upgraded to Android Jelly Bean 4.3.1_r1 Google AOSP release.
- Updated Linux Kernel to Linaro 3.12-rc4
- This release is validated on the all new FVP (Fixed Virtual Platforms) Base model version FVP_Base_AEMv8A_0.8_5108
- Android now boots using UEFI EDK II as boot loader
Builds and Baselines
- Linaro Stable Kernel 3.10.16-2013.10 released
  - big.LITTLE support – ARM MP patch set and IKS
  - vexpress TC2 support
  - Power efficient workqueue support
  - Android v3.10 experimental patch set from AOSP
  - Interactive scheduler enhancements for big.LITTLE
  - GATOR support
- Linux Linaro 3.12-rc5-2013.10 released
  - new topic to support k3v2 board from Hisilicon LT
  - updated big endian topic
  - updated Versatile Express patches from ARM LT
  - updated arndale/exynos patches from Samsung LT
  - vexpress64 support (both RTSM and Foundation model)
  - Several config fragments changes: more netfilter configs for the ltp networking iptable test added to distribution.conf, hugepage config fragment created, config fragments for Hisilicon Hi36xx/Hi37xx based boards created, CONFIG_HIGHMEM and CONFIG_HIGHPTE are enabled in highbank.conf to fix 1G limit, and USB3503 HSIC driver is enabled for Arndale
- Linaro Toolchain Binaries 2013.10 released
  - Include latest Linaro GCC 4.8-2013.10 and Linaro GDB 7.6.1-2013.10
  - The sample configurations no longer require the LSB tools (Linux Standard Base)
- Linaro OpenEmbedded baseline updates
  - Update to Linaro GCC 4.8-2013.10 release
  - Update to Linaro Binutils 2.23.2-2013.10-4 release
  - Update to Linaro EGLIBC 2.18-2013.10 release
  - Initial support for genericarmv8b machine
  - Remove meta-java layer
  - Track git HEAD for QEMU builds
  - Add opengl to DISTRO features
  - LEG: remove OpenJDK 7, OpenJDK 8 now builds both client and server hotspot compilers
  - LNG: enable QEMU
  - Add Gator daemon to LAMP image
  - Add openssh-sftp-server to lamp/alip images
  - Fix auto-getty hardcodes device names
- Linaro Ubuntu baseline updates – packages updates: gator, powertop, openssl (improve decrypt performance), added linux-linaro-midway kernel package
- Linaro Android baseline updates –
  - Upgraded baseline to Android 4.3.1_r1.
  - Android builds updated to latest Linaro toolchain 4.8-2013.10
  - Blackbox tests have been enabled back in Android 4.3.
Kernel
- Android upstreaming – Android RAM console implementation has been accepted in AOSP after we delivered it for mainline kernel
- ARM32 maintenance
  - GPIOLib used on all ARM32 machines
  - removed <mach/gpio.h> from the PXA and MMP sub-architectures, and SA1100 (StrongARM) machines
  - converted mach-ixp4 and mach-iop to GPIOlib
  - ARM32 probes – patch v3 has been posted
- ARM64
  - ARM64 kprobes/uprobes
    - got working ARMv8 debug exception handler hook for kprobes breakpoint
    - got kprobes working on 32-bit ARM variant
    - listed ARM v8-A instructions which are unsafe to probe, PC-relative, use exclusive monitors, and having other side-effects
    - implemented kernel text patching for ARM64
    - got the AArch64 Software Single Step working in kernel mode (EL1)
    - analysis of AArch64 instruction encoding and ARMv8 Debug specification completed
    - completed the implementation for Aarch64 kprobes
  - ARM64 ftrace was tested with 13.10 pre-release tarball Linaro toolchain
  - ARM64 Cortex strings – Implemented stand-alone, tested, benchmarked and verified. Integration in kernel started
  - ARM64 Oprofile work started – design for implementation complete
  - ARM64 kexec and crashdump – progressed with implementation, found a bug in device tree handling, currently stuck on late shutdown debug output not coming out of Foundation models

LAVA
- Support added for new ARM fastmodels
- Improved handling of test dependencies in LAVA
- Amarillo (LNG reference plaform) integrated in LAVA using new NFS capabilities in LAVA
- Initial LNG rack online
- LAVA consolidation reduced LAVA project complexity to 3 main projects (lava-tool, lava-server, lava-dispatcher) completed
- New devices integrated into the LAVA lab; Mustang prototyped (Applied Micro X-Gene dev board), HiSilicon hi3716cv200 and Entropic xi3 (STB based on TSC188 SoC)
- Over 31 bugs with fix-committed or released,

LEG
- OpenJDK 8 now builds both client and server hotspot compilers
- perf unwind on ARMv8 – Updated wiki documentation.

LNG
- Update to 3.10.14 RT-9.
- Amarillo progressed
- UDHCP lab issues addressed for Arndale

Power Management
- Linaro PowerTOP 2.2-2013.10 released – Fix to show correct frequency stats

QA
- 2013.10 release testing done
- Automated result reporting for Fujitsu AA9 tests
- Test cases for new FVP model features executed
- Missing benchmarks added to LSK workload automation
- Linaro Test Suites released.

Toolchain
- Linaro GCC 4.8-2013.10 released, based off the latest GCC 4.8.1+svn203510 release
  - Improved AArch64 support (CRC extension, improved intrinsics, gprof support)
  - Improved Aarch32 support (bug fixes, better code generation, improved multilib)
  - Backports for bug fixes (PR58578)
- Linaro GCC 4.7-2013.10 released, based off the latest GCC 4.7.4+svn203509 release
- Linaro binutils 2.23.2-2013.10-4 released – Bug fix for AArch64 GOT layout, Fixed source tarball structure
- Linaro eglibc 2.18-2013.10 released – Fix for integer overflows in memalign/pvalloc/valloc
- Linaro GDB 7.6.1-2013.10 released – Further fix for debugging on AArch64 with hardware breakpoints.

Visit https://wiki.linaro.org/Cycles/1310/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.