Linaro 12.02 Release with Kernel 3.3-rc

Linaro has just released version 12.02 based on Linux Kernel 3.3-rc and Android 4.0.3.

Among the key points, they have started to work on Freescale i.MX6 SabreLite board, included libav 0.8 to Ubuntu images which provides up to 160% performance improvement while playing real-media videos and XBMC is available via PPA.

Here are the highlights of the release:

Android
- Linaro Android can now be built with current GCC 4.7 snapshots. A 4.7 based toolchain build preview is also available.
- Linaro Android can boot on iMX6 Sabrelite boards.
- All test result spreadsheets have been streamlined and are now easier to use.
- Bluetooth enablement have been completed for the Origen board.
- A Prototype of using camera on Snowball was made.
- Presentations Given by Linaro Android Team this cycle
  - “Binary Blobs Attack!!!” – Embedded Linux Conference.
  - “What Android and Embedded Linux can learn from each other” – Embedded Linux Conference.
  - “Integrating Projects Using Their Own Build System into the Android Build System” – Android Builders Summit.
  - “Painless debugging of native code in Android-based devices.(using DS-5) – Android Builders Summit.
Developer Platform
- A reproducible cross build daemon, with instructions and scripts to easily enable cross build support with multi-arch for debian/ubuntu are now available and can be found at: http://people.linaro.org/~wookey/buildd/ and https://wiki.linaro.org/Platform/DevPlatform/CrossBuildd
- Wifi, Bluetooth and Basic Graphicis enablement tests were intergrated are now available at lava-tests, and enabled by default at the daily images.
- The Ubuntu LEB now delivers support for Unity 5.0, with improvements at the interface and performance, enabling the first 5.0 based release available from Ubuntu DX team.
- An updated XBMC package, based on 11.0 Eden Beta 3, is now available at the Overlay PPA (and part of the Linaro-TV-XBMC image available in the community build download section
- LTTng pre-2.0 release is now integrated at the Overlay PPA, and part of the developer image with the final release to be included in the 12.03 release.
- libav 0.8 is now available at the Ubuntu LEB images, resulting on a speedup of up to 160% with NEON and 150% for non-NEON systems for realvideo files. The benchmark can be found here.
Infrastructure
- Android build configurations can now be stored in a git repository and allowing for version-control. Note: Any build job can be configured to take a build config from git repository and the ability to specify build config directly in the frontend is retained.
- Linaro Infrastructure now uses a scalable HTTP git hosting solution for its default read-only access.
- Android Build service now allows developers to use arbitrary tools (e.g. toolchains of different versions) in a build.
Graphics
- Glmark2 (a benchmark for OpenGL (ES) 2.0) was enhanced so that it can handle command-line-like options on Android, using an option file and extra intent keys. On top of that glmark2 was further developed so that it can facilitate performing demos with it – new demo features work on both X11 and Android, for example:
  - Implementing per-scene FPS display and customization
  - Implementing per-scene arbitrary text display and customization
  - Evaluating performance impact of ways to integrate demo functionality into main loop
  - Supporting indefinite benchmark loops
  - Implementing a draw class that handles drawing and keeps benchmarking state – and refactoring X11 and Android main loops to use this new drawing class.
- libmatrix, a small C++ template library that provides management and transformation of matrices, matrix stacks and vectors of 2, 3 and 4 dimensions, has been enhanced with support for ShaderSource. A shader source management object for reading GLSL shaders from files, adding constants/uniforms/attributes, handling basic string substitution and emitting the resultant shader for compilation (presumably using the Program and Shader objects). Since libmatrix is used in glcompbench and glmark2, those components were also updated to reflect the new version of libmatrix used.
- The X11 and Android glmark2 main loops have been consolidated to ease code development and maintenance.
- For glproxy (a library intended for the runtime selection of OpenGL or OpenGL ES 2.0 backends) its initialisation API was improved and the ability to query what backends are present was added.
Linux-Linaro
- Update to 3.3-rc3; this update marks our first -rc based kernel as movement toward a new process which provides early access to more bleeding edge features on member-supported LEBs has begun.
Multimedia
- Patched alsa-lib and pulseaudio with UCM related patches. Patches include fixed alsa-lib bugs causing multiple enable/disable devices/modifiers, added basic HiFi UCM support for i.mx53 and Panda/PandaES, and enabled support for jack detection in UCM for pulseaudio
- NEON optimisation work for realvideo in libav completed–radically increasing the speed for the codec on ARM with benchmarking tests integrated into LAVA infrastructure
- Released libjpeg-turbo 1.2 version, with benchmarking tests integrated into LAVA infrastructure
Power Management
- Common Clock
  - Work continues on changing the code; which is based on feedback from v2-v4 submission, and includes code change for v5.
- Thermal Management
  - Submitted the rebased version of samsung cpuidle code.
  - Submitted the new version of cpu cooling patchset.
  - Submitted V4 of i.MX thermal driver.
  - Developed scripts that generate heat for Thermal Management testing.
- Cpuidle
  - Working continues on cpuidle consolidation reviewing v3 and v4 to update and submit for kernel 3.4 merge
- Sched_mc
  - Prepared and hosted the scheduler mini-summit at Connect. New roadmap cards based on the discussion to improve the scheduler for power savings are being planned.
Toolchain
- A Windows installer for the toolchain pre-built binaries has been added.
- Linaro GCC 4.5 2012.02 release, based off the FSF GCC 4.5.3+svn183785
- Linaro GCC 4.6 2012.02 release, based off the FSF GCC 4.6.2+svn183786
  - Add ARM’s initial Cortex-A7 support. Enables -mcpu=cortex-a7 with very basic tuning.
  - Backport Cortex-A15 tuning improvements from upstream (conditional execution and branch costs patch)
  - Backport improvements to 64 bit unsigned comparisons. Changes a sequence of eor’s into two compares,
- Linaro GDB 7.4 2012.02 is the first release in the 7.4 series, based off the latest GDB 7.4. The “info proc” and “generate-core-file” commands will now also work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
Validation
- Increased enablement testing is now possible in the Linaro validation lab thanks to instrumentation for WIFI and Bluetooth connections
- Devices in LAVA now keep information on all of the state transitions and offline boards store information on the reason for the board being offline
- Kernel CI results view has been redesigned and now shows results by board type, or build results for all configs
- LAVA Android test now includes support for skia_bench, v8, and gnogo test suites
- The scheduler is able to submit the results of a job to a private bundle stream
- Additional documentation on deploying LAVA has been added to http://lava.readthedocs.org
- A new view was added to highlight the status of Android benchmarking efforts

Here are the known issues for this release (Mainly related to Android):

Snowball: Bluetooth Turn ON Fails. (Android)
Android Audio doesn’t work on snowball
Suspend does not work on Samsung Origen (Android)
Hardware accelerated Audio support missing on Snowball (Android)
Hardware accelerated Video playback support missing on Snowball (Android)
Panda: Audio record and audio playback fails (Android)
DVI out port is not working with staging-panda or tracking-panda (Android)
vexpress-a9: No sound in Android
vexpress-a9: ADB over USB doesn’t work (Android)
[regression] no audio on i.MX53 QSB with Ubuntu 11.11
[regression] No DVI output on the PandaBoard with kernel 3.1.0-1402-linaro-lt-omap (Ubuntu)
[regression] desktop performance with i.MX 53 QSB is a lot worse with Ubuntu 11.11
Unable to play youtube videos on Pandaboard (Android ICS)
SD card not accessible on Pandaboard (Android – checked via Gallery app)
BT doesn’t work on ICS on Pandaboard
Camera App does not work on ICS
Messaging crashes if try to use it (Android)
vexpress-a9: ICS: Suspend-Resume doesn’t work (Android)
[regression] Origen: HDMI doesn’t work with 3.2 kernel (Ubuntu)
Panda: Resume failing on tracking-panda build (Android)
Intermittent: cg2900 fails to start on snowball (Android)
USB SD card export not working (Android)
[regression] playbin can’t play video using sw decode after enabling TI specific patches (Ubuntu – Pandaboard)
Tracking-Panda: Video Recording using camera app fails, Camera app crashes (Android – Pandaboard)
Wifi does not always work on Samsung Origen (Android)
“powertop” command doesn’t work for i.MX53 (Android)
Can’t install multiple linux-header packages (Ubuntu)

Go to https://wiki.linaro.org/Cycles/1202/Release for further release details about the LEB, 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.