Linaro 13.02 Release with Linux Kernel 3.8 and Android 4.2.2

Linaro 13.02 is now available, and features Linux Kernel 3.8 and Android 4.2.2.

The biggest news this month is probably the first release of a preliminary ARM64 Debian/Ubuntu Raring image. Other noticeable items include work on ARMv7 KVM, more improvements to OpenEmbedded ARMv8 implementation, as well as big.LITTLE MP implementation, and some modifications to the toolchain for Cortex A7 support. Origen images are not available for download this month, and there’s still no ALIP images since they have disappeared since Linaro upgraded to Ubuntu Quantal.

Here are the highlights of this release:

Android
- AOSP master build for Galaxy Nexus has been setup
- All the platforms have been updated to 4.2.2
- Support for lava-test-shell has been added to linaro-android-build-tools.
Developer Platform
- CI bring up: ARMv7 KVM – Add Arndale hypervisor patch to u-boot-linaro.
- CI bring up: Arndale – Add Arndale image reports to LAVA, Enable and verify UEFI support in the hwpack.
- Linux Linaro 3.8 2013.02 released
- OpenEmbedded based SDK is able to build HipHopVM
- OpenEmbedded ARMv8 build has been updated
- ARM64 Debian/Ubuntu (Raring) port image available.
- Several new packages available from Linaro’s Overlay PPA – acpica-unix, acpi-abat, fwts, libhugetlbfs and numactl
- Support LEG engineering to ramp-up on LAVA
Infrastructure
- OpenEmbedded CI builds now use persistent builders, which drastically reduces the build time.
Kernel
- AB8500 driver has been updated with pinctrl patches
- Ux500 now uses sparse IRQs
- Depopulate the Exynos <mach-exynos/include-mach> directory – Convert all users of gpio to pinctrl and remove gpio.h for Exynos4
- Depopulate the ux500 and plat-nomadik <mach/*> and <plat/*>
- Research impact on kernel size for multi-platform configs
- Android keyreset driver upstreaming
- android upstreaming: Lowmem
- Improve eMMC Power Management Support
- Refactor EHCI controller code
- Android alarm-dev compat_ioctl support
Power Management
- Small task packing by scheduler (Power-aware scheduler) – Implement or update patches based on HMP and upstream workshop
- Integration tree to bring together big.LITTLE MP related work (V15 branch of big LITTLE MP tree)
- DVFS for the Common Clock Framework
- Cpufreq cleanups with a view to more consolidation and simpler drivers
- Port Adaptive NOHZ patchset to ARM
- Update devfreq core
- cpuidle: Tracks all miscellaneous changes to upstream cpuidle
- Refactor the acpi cpuidle driver
- Linaro Powerdebug 0.6.2-2013.02 released
Toolchain
- Linaro GCC 4.7-2013.02-01
- Linaro GCC 4.6 2013.02
- Linaro Toolchain Binaries 2013.02 released
- Backport Cortex-A7 support to -mcpu=native
- Backport improvements for Cortex-A7
- Backport AArch64 patches from Cavium
LAVA
- Linaro CI jobs are converted to lava-test-shell
- Galaxy Nexus device is deployed into LAVA
- Calxeda and TC2-Hackbox servers are deployed in the lab
- Support ARM engineering to deploy LAVA in-house
- ARM Energy Probe deployed in LAVA lab
- SSD Added to Calxeda server for hadoop testing
LEG
- Linaro UEFI 2013.02 released with bug fixes for Arndale board.
- ARM support merged in libhugetlbfs next branch (package available from Linaro’s Overlay PPA)

Visit https://wiki.linaro.org/Cycles/1302/Release for a list of known issues and 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.