Linaro 11.11 Release with Kernel 3.1.1 and Android 4.0.1 Support

Linaro has just released version 11.11 based on Linux Kernel 3.1.1 and with support for Android ICS.

The Android 4.0.1 Preview build for all low cost development boards supported by Linaro are available at http://releases.linaro.org/11.11/android/images-ics-preview/.

Here are the highlights of the release:

Android
- Linaro’s baseline has now been upgraded to 2.3.7.
- The first Versatile Express Android build has been completed.
- Pandaboard and Vexpress has been upgraded to kernel 3.1.1.
- A preview of Ice Cream Sandwich is released and running on Snowball, Origen, iMX53 and on Pandaboard with Linaro kernels.
- A NEON-optimized libpng has been itegrated in all builds.
- Preliminary DS-5 support has been integrated.
- Preliminary WiFi support on Android Origen.
- Kernel config for each build is available on android-build page.
- USB Ethernet works on Origen.
- Camera recording function works on Pandaboard.
- USB camera can be hotplugged on Pandaboard.
Developer Platform
- Firefox can now be cross-built using multiarch. Instructions are available from http://wiki.linaro.org/Platform/DevPlatform/CrossCompile/FirefoxCrossCompile.
- Updated ARM DS-5 packages, based on the 5.8 release, are now available for the Oneiric Ubuntu LEBs.
- PandaBoard ES support (OMAP 4460).
- USB booting support on PandaBoard with U-Boot USB-SPL.
- gcc-linaro (cross) and gcc-linaro (native) are now built automatically by Continuous Integration.
- Source and debug packages for all the kernel flavors (including the ones from the Landing Teams) supported by the Ubuntu LEB are now available at the Overlay PPA.
Infrastructure
- status.linaro.org is now able to show some information about Linaro’s roadmap.
- An evaluation of the experimental Android platform build using seed tarball of repository has been created.
Graphics
- glmark2 has now a new benchmark added for bump-mapping using height map – benchmark runs successfully as part of default benchmarks on panda-leb Ubuntu and Android. Bump-mapping is a technique for simulating bumps and wrinkles on the surface of an object.
- Improved LAVA support for glmark2: in 11.11 it has been ensured that the default benchmarks have proper validation support.
- Memory management work: dma-buf v1.0 of the code is updated and available from http://git.linaro.org/gitweb?p=people/sumitsemwal/linux-3.x.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/tags/v4l2-dmabuf-adaptation. Also changes were implemented in V4L2 core and videobuf2 framework to adapt as dma-buf users
Kernel
- Released Linaro kernel 3.1-2011.11, main changes from the 2011.10 kernel: Rebase to v3.1.1 stable kernel, LPAE support, Samsung Exynos cpuidle , sched_mc optimization, fix for mmap greater than 2GB
- Released linux-linaro-3.1-2011.11-0-android-1, enabled eCryptFS in Linaro+Android kernel defconfigs
- Pinctrl subssystem was pulled into Linux v3.2. Sent out v2 of the pinctrl config patch set.
- Started work on pinctrl support for Exynos and OMAP platforms
- Rebased static IO mappings and removing mach/vmalloc.h to v3.2-rc1.
- Continued work on Device tree support: Submitted Regulator core Device Tree patches, posted initial patches for omap hsmmc, submitted rebased version of Samsung’s sdhci driver, reworked omap-serial DT on top of latest serial runtime adaptation patches (rebased on 3.2-rc1), imx5 board level DT series hit v3.2-rc1, imx6 with DT support hit v3.2-rc1.
- Migration of imx6 to common struct clk
Multimedia
- Speex was released on Linaro Ubuntu evaluation build with NEON optimisation patches from upstream mailing list – version 1.2~rc1+git20090708+a6d05eb-1linaro1 is based on 1.2rc1
- libpng v1.5 was released with additional patches to allow NEON autodetection (was being detected manually before)
- A first experimental release of Alsa-UCM for Pulseaudio was done. The patch for pulseaudio alsa-module can be used to provide pulseaudio profiles and ports by alsa ucm configurations, and switch profile/port by pactl tools. Any settings could result in alsa mixer update, which can be checked by alsamixer.
- Libjpeg-turbo now includes compatibility for libjpeg8. Also collected performance measurements between libjpeg8 and libjpeg-turbo with libjpeg8 compatibility using tjbench on both intel and arm hardware
- DirectFB was released by ARM-China with NEON optimisations – DirectFB (www.directfb.org) is a complete hardware abstraction layer with software fallbacks for every graphics operation that is not supported by the underlying hardware. Many 2D operations (such as blending, Color format conversion, Blitting and so on ) have been accelerated by NEON technology by this release
- Memory management work: Development of dri2proto, updating libdri2 to support dri2video and dri2video test app, updating mesa and implementing the core functionality in xserver against xf86-video-nouveau – patches upstream, also available from https://github.com/robclark. The patches can also be checked via http://patches.linaro.org/team/linaro-multimedia-wg/
  - Also for memory management – CMA debugfs and tracing patches have also been sent upstream – they can be accessed via http://git.linaro.org/gitweb?p=people/bgaignard/linux-snowball-cma-test.git;a=summary
OCTO
- ARMHF port has now a reserved space in the debian archive – ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/sid/main/binary-armhf/
- Official ARMHF Debian builds are now pending to start building
Power Management
- Resolved all issues for common clock framework, Panda is 100% converted to use Common Clock Framework, working on submitting v3
- Released new version of power-qa with basic tests for cpuidle.
- Submitted V3 of the exynos4 cpuidle patches to Linaro-kernel, following to include it in mainline.
- Continued work on thermal driver for i.MX6, started work on i.MX6 cpufreq driver needed by thermal.
- Continued work on sched_mc, added time weighted for load balance for each task, included sched_mc optimization into Linaro-kernel.
Toolchain
- In GCC, two new flags were added; one that picks the best tuning for the machine the compiler is running on and another that tunes for a blend of Cortex-A processors. In the backend, GCC now uses the ARMv7 unaligned access support when reading and writing unaligned variables.
- The vectoriser includes a number of improvements when vectorising straight line code such as manually unrolled loops common in signal processing routines. Modulo scheduling now supports scheduling register moves.
- For QEMU, the ARM vexpress-a9, versatilepb, versatileab and realview-* boards now have audio support. The new Cortex-A15 instructions for hardware divide and fused multiply-add have been added to the user mode emulation.
Validation
- Documentation for LAVA is built into the source tree and has been improved for several components. It is linked from the LAVA menu, or can be found directly by visiting: http://lava.readthedocs.org.
- Improvements have been made to the LAVA User Interface and navigation with new Linaro theming added.
- Client type is now a configuration option for devices in LAVA.
- Android CI runs now show monkey results as a pass, and report details on tests such as the time that monkey ran for before exiting.
- Infrastructure improvements have been made to the Validation farm including network improvements, OS upgrades, and extra memory for the server.
- LAVA now supports Django 1.3.
- Support added for adding action plugins to lava-dispatcher.

Here are the known issues for this release:

Ubuntu image – icons and parts of screen disappear with Origen
[compiz] broken window decorator with unity-window-decorator
Android LEB fails to mount system and user partition interminttently
perf failure on panda (omap4)
Bluetooth does not work on Origen
Audio recording works only once on panda
HW accelerated graphics doesn’t work on snowball
Audio doesn’t work on snowball
Suspend does not work on Samsung Origen
Origen: wireless driver, ath6kl, is not loaded automatically
When iMX53 boots up I see “SD card safe to remove”
Panda: lack of hw video decoding support
Quickstart oneiric totem video playback is very poor: lack of hw video decoder
imx53 oneiric compiz fails to run: lack of gles drivers
SD card writing very slow
Audio on HDMI is not working on trackin-panda
staging-panda and tracking-panda do not come up with the right resolution
[regression] no audio on quickstart with 11.11
[regression] sound not working on panda with lt-omap at 11.11
Poor graphics with 2011.11 lt-panda hwpack
[regression] TI LT kernel only sees 638MB of RAM out of 1GB on the PandaBoard with device tree
[regression] No DVI output on the PandaBoard with kernel 3.1.0-1402-linaro-lt-omap

Go to https://wiki.linaro.org/Cycles/1111/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.