linaro News - Page 21 of 27 - CNX Software

March 30, 2012March 30, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Linaro 12.03 Release with Kernel 3.3-rc3

Linaro has just released version 12.03 based on Linux Kernel 3.3-rc3 and Android 4.0.3. Among the key points, hardware video decode in now supported in Origen (Android), Android runs in A15/A7 platforms, libav AAC optimization provides about 2x performance improvement and QEMU supports Samsung Exynos 4240 and Calxeda Highbank (work done upstream). Here are the highlights of the release: Android Linaro Android has support for DS-5 version 5.9. Hardware accelerated Multimedia is now integrated on Origen. EEMBC, denbench and coremark have been ported to Android and are running in LAVA. android.net ConnectivityManager unit tests have been built and integrated in all builds. Hardware decode of H264 and MPEG4, 1080P and 30 FPS is enabled on Origen. Origen now has 1080p HDMI Graphics and Video Support. Android runs on A15, A7 and A15/A7 fast models. ARM’s big.LITTLE has been tested running Android using a set of unit tests. Kernels of prebuilt […]

March 29, 2012September 30, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

ARM Releases Ne10: An Open Source Library with NEON Optimized Functions

The Advanced SIMD extension (aka NEON or “MPE” Media Processing Engine) is a combined 64- and 128-bit single instruction multiple data (SIMD) instruction set that provides standardized acceleration for media and signal processing applications for ARM Cortex-A (ARMv7) processors and the goal of these instructions is similar to MMX, SSE, and 3DNow! extensions for x86 processors. Starting early 2011, ARM has been working internally on a project codenamed Snappy to develop common functions accelerated by NEON. They have now released the first version of Snappy, now called the Ne10 library, which is available on GitHub at https://github.com/projectNe10/Ne10 . The code has been developed in C and Assembler and tested on Ubuntu on ARM (Linaro). A Makefile is also included to build it for Android (AOSP). The current functions include vector and matrix operations accelerated by NEON instructions. Since the library is open source, ARM hopes developers will make use of the Ne10 […]

March 27, 2012March 27, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

Cross-compiling the ARM Linux Kernel in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS

Yesterday I installed Ubuntu 12.04 ‘Precise’ Beta 1 in Virtual Box to give it a try (I could not manage to have HUD working btw), and today, I’ve noticed an article entitled “Ubuntu 12.04 ‘precise’ and cross compilation of ARM kernels” explaining how to build Linaro ARM kernel in Ubuntu 12.04. So I’ve decided to give it a try, especially it seems straightforward. I followed the instructions in the aforementioned link, it basically worked except I had to install dpkg-dev package that also installed the build essentials (gcc, g++, etc…) and use sudo for some commands. You’ll notice the name change for the ARM gcc toolchain as it now uses hard-float by default which seems to provide quite a boost in performance for the Pandaboard. Here are the steps I followed: Install the ARM GCC cross compiler and the development package of dpkg:

sudo apt-get install gcc-arm-linux-gnueabihf dpkg-dev

1	sudo apt-get install gcc-arm-linux-gnueabihf dpkg-dev

Retrieve the kernel source:

apt-get source linux-source-3.2.0

1	apt-get source linux-source-3.2.0

Install […]

February 27, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

LAVA Project Update – ELC 2012

Paul Larson of Linaro gives a LAVA Project update at Embedded Linux Conference 2012. Abstract: The Linaro Automated Validation Architecture (LAVA) is an open source framework used at Linaro for running automated tests on Ubuntu and Android based images, kernels, and more. I introduced LAVA at ELC a year ago. Since that time, considerable progress has been made on the project, and many new components have been added to it. This talk will briefly re-introduce the project to those who may not have heard about it, as well as introduce the new developments. You can download the presentation slides at elinux.org. 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. www.cnx-software.com

February 27, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Comparing Power Saving Techniques For Multicore ARM Platforms – ELC 2012

Vincent Guittot, ST Ericsson and Linaro, compares power saving techniques for multicore ARM plaforms at Embedded Linux Conference 2012. Abstract: CPU hotplug is used on ARM platform as a power management feature for aggressive low power use cases. It has not been initially designed for that purpose, which implies some constraints on its use but the same power consumption level can’t be reached with the scheduler load balance and/or additional features like cpuset up to now. This presentation will discuss how CPU hotplug matches the low power use case requirements and how we can get closer to this behavior with sched_mc. Then we will also show what prevents the scheduler to reach the same power consumption level as CPU hotplug and how we can solve some of these issues. This presentation is aimed at anybody who is interested to understand why ARM platforms still use CPU hotplug and what should […]

February 26, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Ubuntu on ARM: Improvements and Optimizations Done by Linaro – ELCE 2012

Ricardo Salveti de Araujo, developer platform lead for Linaro, displays the improvements Linaro have added to Ubuntu on ARM. Abstract: Since Linaro’s start, there was a need to have a supported platform for ARM, that could use the Linaro changes, to improve the ARM experience in general and to show the results of the work done by Linaro. In this session, it’ll be presented why Ubuntu was selected as the base platform for Linaro, describing the benefits and the areas Linaro is continuously investing to improve it. It’ll also be described the current state of the platform, showing some of Linaro’s achievements and also how we’re working to support the main SoC boards available, like Panda, Beagle, Origen, iMX53 and Snowball with the latest development by Ubuntu and Canonical, like Ubuntu TV, Phone and Tablet. You can also download the presentation slides. Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 […]

February 25, 2012February 25, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Binary Blobs Attack – ELC 2012

Zach Pfeffer, Android Platform Lead at Linaro, talks about (GPU) Binary Blobs and the problems they cause at Embedded Linux Conference 2012. Abstract: Binary Blobs Attack!!! Most SoC vendors distribute binary blobs with Linux kernel shims. These binary blobs enable graphics engines, DSPs and other cores on ARM and other architecture SoCs. These binary blobs tend to be tied to specific kernel versions which limits unreadability and hackability and complicates device manufactures, which slows down innovation and the introduction of new and unique computing devices. Here’s what I noted from this presentation: Most of the issues at Linaro come from (GPU) Binary blobs, they delay projects and cause projects to cost more as FAE and more engineers must be involved in solving problems. Blobs are here to stay mostly due to legal reasons (patents). Binary Blob are usually OS independent, e.g. the same binary is used in Windows and Linux, […]

February 24, 2012June 4, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 18 Comments

Low Cost Freescale iMX6 Quad Sabre Lite Development Board

i.MX6q SABRE Lite Board is a low-cost development platform based on Freescale Quad Core Cortex A9 i.MX 6Quad Application Processor. This will probably be the first low cost ARM quad-core development board to hit the market. Nvidia has previously announced the CARMA Tegra 3 CUDA Development Kit, but the price has not been announced and when I look at the picture of the board and the specs, “low cost” does not come to mind. Here are the technical specifications for the Sabre Lite board: Quad-Core ARM® Cortex A9 processor at 1GHz per core 1GB DDR3 @ 532MHz 3 display ports (RGB, LVDS, and HDMI 1.4a) Two camera ports (1xParallel, 1x MIPI CSI-2) Multi-stream-capable HD video engine delivering H.264 1080p60 decode,1080p30 encode and 3-D video playback in HD Triple Play Graphics system consisting of a Quad-shader 3D unit, and a separate 2-D and separate OpenVG Vertex acceleration engine for superior 3D, […]