Linaro 11.10 Release with Linux Kernel 3.1

Linaro has just released version 11.10 based on Linux Kernel 3.1.

Here are the highlights of the release:

Android
- Audio playback and recording works on LEB-panda.
- TJBench into all Android builds benchmarked against the original Android libjpeg implementation: TomGall/LibJpegTurbo
- All strict-aliasing violations in 2.3.5 have been fixed and sent to AOSP. (for build optimization)
- Linaro Gerrit is integrated with Android Build Service for change verification as part of Continuous Integration effort.
- Tip toolchain tracked and released against all targets for 11.10.
- iMX53 will now boot with a 3.0 or later Android Kernel.
- The multimedia test application has been extended to cover encoding and give better benchmark results.
- Linaro’s Android distribution can now base builds off a tip toolchain build.
- Linaro’s 11.09 toolchain has been benchmarked.
- USB camera (UVC) now works on linaro-android builds.
Developer Platform
- The Linux Linaro packages are now generated and validated in a continuous integration loop.
- New Unity 3D has been integrated and is available at the Oneiric Ubuntu LEBs, with full GLES support.
- All linaro images for 11.10 are now based on oneiric. This includes ALIP, developer, linaro-server, and ubuntu-desktop.
- LTTng 2.0 prerelease for ARM has been validated using distinct test cases.
- Systemtap for ARM has been validated using distinct test cases.
- Updated ARM DS5 packages, based on the 5.7 release, are now available for both Natty and Oneiric Ubuntu LEBs.
- There is now partial Cross Build support of the Linaro Natty Nano image, with current status available at wiki.linaro.org and all bugs reported upstream.
- Perf for ARM has been validated using distinct test cases.
- PXE boot support has been added to Beagle XM, FSL Quickstart and IGEPv2.
- Linaro GLEW is properly packaged and available at the Overlay. Able to test by installing it at the lt-panda-x11/ubuntu-desktop image and running against the SGX GLES driver.
Infrastructure
- Jenkins and EC2 plug-in are now updated to the latest stable build.
- Pull requests can now be validated once across many defconfigs and boards.
- status.linaro.org is now able to show some information about Linaro’s roadmap.
Graphics
- Compiz and Compiz Plugins Main synced with and compatible with Oneiric. Unity and Nux also synched.
- glmark2 – new benchmarks enabled: window shadow effect, comparative benchmarking of glMapBuffer vs glBufferSubData, added non-default option to allow usage of large models
- glcompbench contains a new test scenario to simulate the fade in/out effect of many window managers
- glproxy first release – removed support for GL extensions – in glproxy they are redundant and create problems managing EGL contexts
- Release of libmatrix and GLEW latest upstream version as part of the Ubuntu LEB
Kernel –
- Pinctrl core and pinmux are now in linux-next. currently, answering late review comments and merging smaller patches.
- Continued to implement Device Tree support for Linaro member platforms, focusing on changes to drivers and subsystems inlcuding IRQ controllers, GPIO, serial devices, MMC devices, and regulators across various SOCs. All i.MX basic drivers are ready, audio and usb are still big missing pieces. omap-hsmmc dt conversion completed. Prepared single device tree enabled board file for smdkv310 and Origen boards and tested device tree support for the following modules: UART, SDHCI, Keypad, GPIO keys, DMA, RTC, I2C, WDT, GPIO, IRQ.
- Continued with SoC Tree maintenance, code review, merging and verifying patches
- Continued work on fixes and changes to the config fragment merge_config.sh script, resubmitted merge_config.sh script to lkml.
- Continued the cleanup and consolidation of various kernel headers that will allow for building of a single kernel across multiple SOCs the work included: patches to rework the low level UART debugging code on OMAP1, OMAP2 and Davinci, patches for mach/memory.h removal, patches for appending of a device tree binary to the kernel zImage and patches for removing all instances of mach/vmalloc.h.
Multimedia
- libpng v1.5 released for Ubuntu LEB: PNG is the standard format for non-photographic images on the web. This release contains optimisations which allow faster rendering of web pages using less power.
- Test content release as a package – also available through samplemedia.linaro.org. This release provides short version test contents(3-5s) for sanity testing use.
OCTO
- ARMHF benchmarks were carried out in parallel to the effort of porting Debian packages to hardfloat. The results of the work are now in https://wiki.linaro.org/OfficeofCTO/HardFloat/Benchmarks. The wiki will still receive an update with the benchmarking results for gtkperf for armel efika, but otherwise it is quite complete and shows what hardfloat can do
Power Management
- Thermal management is working on Samsumg platform. However, the code is not pushed to mainline yet.
- OMAP Thermal management integrated and delivered to TI. But, still under testing and not completely working.
- PM QA testsuite now includes tests for hotplug integrated with LAVA, studying LAVA test runs for accuracy.
Toolchain
- Linaro GCC includes many improvements when vectorising straight-line code such as picking the best vector width and improvements in data analysis. It also includes performance improvements by doubling the default vector size to quad word, improving extraction of double vectors from quad vectors, supporting auto-increment addresses in software pipelining (SMS), and supporting the VADB vector absolute difference instruction.
- QEMU now has networking support in OMAP3 models like the BeagleBoard, and adds the new Cortex-A15 instructions to user mode. Planning is done for future QEMU Cortex-A15 work.
- This release is a significant milestone for GDB as cross-debugging with gdbserver now has all the features of native debugging.
Validation
- Linaro Validation farm is running daily tests of Oneiric based images.
- LAVA is running tests on Snowball boards.
- LAVA contains a report showing the status of the kernel continuous integration (CI) testing. Build, test results and configurations tested across all kernels in the kernel CI system can be viewed.
- LAVA server received improvements for linking reports to the main page easily.
- Users can configure manual testing efforts.
- Documentation for the results bundle format can be viewed from linaro-dashboard-bundle.readthedocs.org.
- Documentation for lava-dispatcher is available from lava-dispatcher.readthedocs.org.
- Default test options for tests running in LAVA can be overridden by the requester of the test.
- The insanity multimedia tests can run in lava-test.
- The Toolchain WG can use a build farm, hosted in the Validation farm.
- Bootchart results can be visualized graphically on LAVA under “LAVA >> Dashboard >> Reports”.
- The jobs listed in the LAVA scheduler include the name or the description of each job.

Here are the known issues for this release:

Ubuntu image – icons and parts of screen disappear with Origen
i.MX51 randomly truncates serial input at 31 characters
Snowball USB not working
[mx51evk] root not found and boot failed to initramfs shell
Android LEB fails to mount system and user partition intermittently
Make available source and debug packages corresponding to Linaro binary images
mx51evk can’t find rootfs by UUID, LABEL or device node, then drop to initramfs
perf failure on panda (omap4)
Unable to create a hwpack with latest l-i-t and Oneiric as a host

Go to https://wiki.linaro.org/Cycles/1110/Release for further release details about the LBE, 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.