"One way to keep momentum going is to have constantly greater goals." ~Michael Korda

The Linaro 12.11 release is now available!

The Linaro 12.11 release cycle highlights the determination and hard work of all the Linaro Teams – Working Groups, Landing Teams and Platform Teams – who have provided all the updates and new features that are integrated on top of Android and Ubuntu during this development cycle. The 12.11 release is another example of how Linaro works together with its members, partners and community to continue to build the future of Linux on ARM.

Looking over the higlights from the 12.11 release cycle, it's easy to see how the momemtum and energy from LCE12-Copenhagen carries over and our teams consistantly meet and exceed the goals set in the Linaro Connect sessions. Our Android team has updated the platform to AOSP 4.2 on all our supported boards, and Android evdev is now upstreamed and used in AOSP 4.2.

As we look over improvements to the Linaro toolchain, it is notable that Linaro GCC now includes the arm/aarch64-4.7-branch (ARMv8). The Developer Platform team reports that the initial GRUB support for ARM is now available, provided by our Linaro Enterprise Group and marking its first component.

The Power Management Working Group continues its progress on big.LITTLE MP by delivering the v11 and v12 branches, as the Graphics Working Group notes that there is a new GLMark2 release which demonstrates shadow mapping. Additionally our LAVA team reports that the NI Battery Simulator is now available in the lab and can now be accessed remotely.

We encourage everybody to use the 12.11 release. The download links for all images and components are available on our downloads page:

http://www.linaro.org/downloads/

See the detailed highlights of this release to get an overview of what has been accomplished by the Working Groups, Landing Teams and Platform Teams:

* Android * Platform Enablement * Android upgraded from 4.1.2 to 4.2 to all the platforms * Android builds are available for Origen 4412 board setup * Improvements to click-through license infrastructure * MP3 playback enabled for ARM Versatile Express and Samsung Origen (4210 and 4412) * Fixed riff USB issue on newer laptops * Testing/LAVA * Re-enabled Android CTS testing * Integrated the new Methanol browser test * Upstreaming * Perf patch was pushed to linux-linaro

* Developer Platform * Package and components for the big.LITTLE project were updated based on the requirements for the 12.11 development cycle * Linux Linaro tree updated with the latest kernel development topics provided by Linaro, and also against the v3.7-rc6 upstream snapshot * based on linux-linaro-core-tracking tree, llct-20121120.1 tag: * based on v3.7-rc6 * config fragments: updated config-core-tracking topic, new basic-board-configs topic added * emmc patches from Kernel WG * linaro-android-3.7 topic by Anton Vorontsov * gator version 5.12 * big-LITTLE-MP version master-v12 * devfreq topic from Rajagopal Venkat * ubuntu-sauce topic dropped * "KBuild: Allow scripts/* to be cross compiled" patch included. This is all that remains from the ubuntu-sauce topic. * patch to enable perf in Android by Bernhard Rosenkraenzer * updated Versatile Express patches from ARM LT * updated Origen patches from Samsung LT * Linux Linaro tracking tree updated * v3.4 based * updated tilt-3.4 topic from TI LT; now includes the 3.4.19 stable release * Kernel packages updated to reflect the latest development trees from Linux Linaro and the Landing Teams * An engineering build using Ubuntu Precise baseline, that contains a LAMP stack is re-introduced * Versatile Express hardware pack includes now Linaro GRUB, enabled for U-Boot platform on ARM architecture * A local mirror is set up to speed up Linaro Ubuntu images build (the build time is now 2h30 instead of 4h)

* Infrastructure * Developed a UI demonstrating the desired workflow and experience of CI dashboard users in building, testing, publishing and downloading their code * Initial research and prototyping for using lava-dispatcher for doing native toolchain build in LAVA were done * GRUB on U-Boot is built daily on CI for both Linaro branch and upstream branch to verify their buildability

* Graphics and Multimedia * A new state object that encapsulates EGL interactions for glmark2 * A new GLMark2 demonstrating shadow mapping

* Kernel * DT bindings for OMAP IOMMU driver is created. * Android evdev is upstreamed. As of Android 4.2 userland, this is being used (See frameworks/base/services/input/EventHub.cpp). * Research the impact on kernel size for multi-platform configs * Identified appropriate defconfig file: u8500_defconfig, omap2plus_defconfig, vexpress_defconfig * Identified kernel version for verification: 3.7-rc5 * Depopulate the Exynos <mach/*> and <plat/*> * Add device tree support for mct controller and remove regs-mct.h file (v2, http://www.mail-archive.com/linux-samsung-soc@vger.kernel.org/msg13894.html) * Remove dwmci.h file (v1, http://www.mail-archive.com/linux-samsung-soc@vger.kernel.org/msg13925.html) * Remove regs-mem. file (v1, http://www.mail-archive.com/linux-samsung-soc@vger.kernel.org/msg13926.html) * Android keyreset driver upstreaming * Implemented and sent __weak symbol implementation to mailing list * Received new implementation fron Dmitry - found bug in his code * Android lowmem upstreaming * Slim down the vmevent API, get rid of raw nr_pages attributes * Discussed all the cgroups-specific work * Validated/fixed stock OOM killer for Android usage (according to Android folks patch exists and posted somewhere) * vmeventfd/vmstat accuracy improvements (fixes KOSAKI's comments) * Depopulate the ux500 and plat-nomadik <mach/*> and <plat/*> * Investigate ux500 cpufreq to make smooth transition * MMC-4.5 data TAG support * Rebase on top on 3.4.0 rc4 * Internal review * Publish to EXT4 and FSDEVEL community * Convert Exynos to common clk * Develop generic common clock helpers for all Samsung platforms (v3) * Develop common clock support for Exynos 4 platforms (v3) * Storage EXT4 journal in enhanced area of eMMC * Enable enhanced area on eMMC

* Power Management * Integration tree to bring together big.LITTLE MP related work * Released v11 and v12 of big LITTLE MP tree * Enhance the scheduler workload recording/replaying subsystem based on perf tool * Integrated perf improvement into linux-linaro * Devfreq core changes for use by GPU * Get Mali driver patches accepted to Linaro tree * Thermal driver for ST-E accepted by maintainer for 3.8 * Support for multiple cpuidle drivers accepted for 3.8 merge * Allows separate big and LITTLE cpuidle drivers

* Toolchain * Linaro GCC 4.7 2012.11 released, updated to GCC 4.7.2+svn193200 * Included arm/aarch64-4.7-branch up to svn revision 193328. * LP: #1065122 - kumofs ftbfs on armhf (gcc ICE) * LP: #1065559 - [regression] cone ftbfs on armel/armhf using GCC 4.7 * LP: #1067760 - Backport split all insns before pool placement fix to 4.7 * Linaro GCC 4.6 2012.11 released, updated to GCC 4.6.3+svn193199 * Linaro Toolchain Binaries 2012.11 released, updated to latest Linaro GCC 4.7 2012.11

* LAVA * QA services have manual access to TC2 hackbox for IKS/MP validation * Initial work on test case management has begun * LAVA dispatcher includes generic support for external measurement sources * Better UI for users when accessing a restricted resource * NI Battery Simulator is connected in the lab and provide remote access via Windows RDP * Test Results now support attachments * Master images in LAVA now available as pre-built images * LAVA presentation was given to ARM: https://docs.google.com/a/linaro.org/presentation/d/1_9lRd-RDG9vw7kFhZXliMHW...

The release details are linked from the “Details” column for each released artifact on the release information:

http://wiki.linaro.org/Cycles/1211/Release#Release_Information

Using the Android-based images =======================

The Android-based images come in three parts: system, userdata and boot. These need to be combined to form a complete Android install. For an explanation of how to do this please see:

http://wiki.linaro.org/Platform/Android/ImageInstallation

If you are interested in getting the source and building these images yourself please see the following pages:

http://wiki.linaro.org/Platform/Android/GetSource http://wiki.linaro.org/Platform/Android/BuildSource

Using the Ubuntu-based images =======================

The Ubuntu-based images consist of two parts. The first part is a hardware pack, which can be found under the hwpacks directory and contains hardware specific packages (such as the kernel and bootloader). The second part is the rootfs, which is combined with the hardware pack to create a complete image. For more information on how to create an image please see:

http://wiki.linaro.org/Platform/DevPlatform/Ubuntu/ImageInstallation

Getting involved ============

More information on Linaro can be found on our websites:

* Homepage: http://www.linaro.org * Wiki: http://wiki.linaro.org

Also subscribe to the important Linaro mailing lists and join our IRC channels to stay on top of Linaro developments:

* Announcements: http://lists.linaro.org/mailman/listinfo/linaro-announce

* Development: http://lists.linaro.org/mailman/listinfo/linaro-dev

* IRC: #linaro on irc.linaro.org or irc.freenode.net #linaro-android irc.linaro.org or irc.freenode.net

Known issues with this release =====================

For any errata issues, please see:

http://wiki.linaro.org/Cycles/1211/Release#Known_Issues

Bug reports for this release should be filed in Launchpad against the individual packages that are affected. If a suitable package cannot be identified, feel free to assign them to:

http://www.launchpad.net/linaro

-- Fathi Boudra, on behalf of the Release Team Linaro Release Manager | LAVA Project Manager Linaro.org | Open source software for ARM SoCs