Unity is strength... when there is teamwork and collaboration, wonderful things can be achieved. ~Mattie Stepanek

The Linaro 13.04 release is now available for download!

The 13.04 Linaro release highlights the focused efforts 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, Ubuntu and OpenEmbedded during this release cycle.

The 13.04 release cycle has been one of the busiest and most productive cycles to date. There were 7 individual team releases during this cycle all of which help build the foundation of the Linaro 13.04 release. It is through the teamwork and collaboration between Linaro, its members and community that the achievements of each are unified in these monthly releases and continue to build the future of Linux on ARM.

Quality builds continue to be the foundation on which the future of Linux on ARM is being built, this quality is ensured through our testing and validation teams. Fedora support has been merged in LAVA and users can now submit LAVA jobs using a Fedora pre-built image. The QA Team announced that tests to cover big.LITTLE cluster init and shutdown have been added to the big.LITTLE core test suite and big.LITTLE extended test case scenarios have been implemented.

Our Builds and Baselines teams are the footers that support this foundation of collaboration and during the 13.04 release front, Dalvik VM unit test has now been automated and the native toolchain on Android has been updated to Linaro GCC 4.8. The Android tree has been updated to compile with GCC 4.8 based toolchains and all related changes have been upstreamed. The ARMv7 KVM enabled kernels intergrated into our pre-built images are now built daily and tested in Linaro's CI loop. The OpenEmbedded ARMv8 engineering build now provides 64bit HipHop VM requirements for porting and optimization purposes. The OpenEmbedded test cases have been automated and a current list of these tests can be found at: https://git.linaro.org/gitweb?p=qa/test-definitions.git%3Ba=tree%3Bf=openemb...

The Linaro Kernel WG focused on the following areas during this release cycle: refactor EHCI controller code, depopulate Exynos/ux500/plat-nomadik, expand binder unit test, improve eMMC power management support, port some of the platforms to multi-platform support, Android upstreaming effort, and much more.

Additional highlights include the release of a big.LITTLE porting guide by the Power Management WG and Linaro GCC 4.8 by the Linaro Toolchain WG.

We encourage everybody to use the 13.04 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:

== LAVA ==

* Prototype of a new publishing system is used to overcome performance problems with android-build.linaro.org. * Calxeda EnergyCore support is merged in LAVA. A user can submit LAVA jobs to highbank device type. * An isolated system has been set up in LAVA lab for web benchmarking on Calxeda EnergyCore servers. * Fedora support is merged in LAVA. A user can submit LAVA jobs using a Fedora pre-built image. * Boot commands are untangled from LAVA dispatcher. They're now read from images. * Additional PandaBoard-ES (OMAP4460) have been deploy for LAVA and Toolchain WG. * lava-test-shell supports waiting for homescreen in Android images. * Nexus implementation in LAVA is generalized and reusable for other devices that support fastboot/adb. * Versatile Express A5 is back online in LAVA. * Linaro Image Tools 2013.04 released. * Highbank (Calxeda) support is added. * Automatically disable automount, and enable it at exit. * Fixed MMC option for Snowball board when using eMMC. * Various PEP8 fixes. * More xml-rpc APIs available in LAVA dashboard to make life easy. * Test Definitions now available in LAVA dashboard. Accumulation of meta-data via test definitions started.

== Builds and Baselines ==

* Dalvik VM unit test has been automated. * Accelerated video playback support on Android was added for Origen Quad. * Skia and 0xbench tests were added into lava-test-shell. * Test suite builder has been set up to provide test suite binaries as an overlay for Android. * Toolchain integration * Native toolchain on Android updated to 4.8. * Binaries for GCC 4.7 and 4.8 based toolchains released. * Android tree updated to compile with 4.8 based toolchains, all related changes upstreamed. * ARMv7 KVM enabled kernels and images are daily built and tested in Linaro's CI loop. * OpenEmbedded ARMv8 engineering build provides 64bit HipHop VM requirements for porting and optimization purposes. * OpenEmbedded test cases have been automated. See current list on https://git.linaro.org/gitweb?p=qa/test-definitions.git * Linux Linaro 3.9 2013.04 released * based on linux-linaro-core-tracking tree, llct-20130417.0 tag: * based on v3.9-rc7 * numa patches moved from Samsung LT's topic into a separate llct topic branch * updated linaro-android-3.9 topic by John Stultz * updated config fragments for vexpress, vexpress64, omap4, u8500 * updated kvm-arm-configs topic * gator version 5.14 (new version) * big-LITTLE-MP version master-v16 * armdroid-ashmem and armdroid-binder topics by Serban Constantinescu * tb-ethernet topic for Snowball from STE Landing Team to fix the on-board ethernet * fixes for Bug:1160968 and Bug:1166707 * updated Versatile Express patches from ARM LT * updated arndale/exynos patches from Samsung LT * a patch to enable perf in Android by Bernhard Rosenkraenzer * vexpress64 support (both RTSM and Foundation model) * panda-fix-usb topic to make USB and on-board ethernet to work on Panda with Device Tree enabled (cherry-pick/forward port of some of dev.omapzoom.org commits) * a few fixes for MMC on Snowball from STE Landing Team * patch from ARM LT to fix lockups/crashes seen when enabling function tracer on TC2 with the not yet mainlined cpuidle driver * fixes for Bug:1161037, Bug:1166892, Bug:1166707 and Bug:1169324 * New or updated packages available from Linaro's Overlay PPA * edk2-uefi, gator-daemon, gator, openssl and powerdebug.

== Graphics ==

* dma-buf * (upstream) debugfs support released, accepted for 3.10 * AV playback bringup on Jelly Bean on Origen Quad complete and released to Android Team * kernel * (upstream) patches to adds common FIMD device node for all Exynos4 SoCs. * piglit * gles2-all refreshed and released via git * android support refreshed and released via git * opencl-arm established with fixes specifically for ARM, released via git. * (upstream) variable-index read and write ported to support GL SL ES 1.00 released as patches * (upstream) non lvalue generated tests for the glslparser tests ported to GLSL ES 1.00 released as patches * audio * channel swap for panda has been fixed in 3.9 and 3.8 as well. * opencl * PoC SNU CPU only OpenCL lib investigated and ported to armhf, available via git

== Kernel ==

* Refactor EHCI controller code * Prepared V3 version patches depending upon V2 review comments * Submitted V4 version ehci orion,msm,spear,s5p and atmel for upstream * Splitted Tegra patch into two separate patches one is general patch (changes required for tegra patch) and other one is tegra changes * Depopulate the Exynos <mach-exynos/include-mach> directory * Convert all users of gpio to pinctrl and remove gpio.h for Exynos5 * Add device tree support for cpufreq driver and remove regs-cpufreq.h file * Remove includes from spi-s3c64xx * Remove includes from usb-ehci-s5p * Remove includes from usb-ohci-exynos * Remove regs-usb-phy.h file * Remove sysmmu.h file * Remove timex.h file * Remove includes from rtc-s3c * Remove includes from fb-s3c * Expanded Binder Unit Test * Implement base ioctl unit tests * Depopulate the ux500 and plat-nomadik <mach/*> and <plat/*> * Iterate patches and collect ACKs so they can be merged * Obtain the last ACK from MFD subsystem maintainer * Send pull request to ARM SoC maintainers * Log commit URL to arm-soc tree to wrap it up * Improve eMMC Power Management Support * Merge patches to add a skeleton for doing background operations at idle time, based on runtime PM * Port some of the simpler platforms to multiplatform support * integrator: get to a state where DT is working fully as a prerequisite * pci: fix PCI device tree problems when resolving IRQs * SPEAr * Finalize Nomadik DT transition by moving the clocks to DT * Convert u300 to DT as a prerequisite * Android upstreaming: ashmem * First pass to make Minchan's non-vma based approach work for files sent to LKML * Got madvise style interface working on mmaped file pages as well * Prep for lsf-mm discussion * Sent background information for lsf-mm http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel.mm/98676 * Presented at lsf-mm. Summary is available on http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel.mm/98848 * Android upstreaming: ram-console * Review and push pstore enhancements from AOSP usptream (Queued by Anton for 3.10) * Android upstreaming: keyreset driver * Address Arve's comments * Get timer functionality queued for 3.10 * Added filesystem sync before rebooting the system - patch sent upstream for review * Android alarm-dev compat_ioctl support * Investigate the failure (log e.g. here http://validation.linaro.org/lava-server/dashboard/attachment/263791/view) * Patch test as needed * Integrate workaround to stop system_services to make the tests pass in linux-linaro Android * Check that tests pass on Juice-aosp with the system services shutdown workaround * Implement and upstream ARM 32 bit uprobes support * Review existing uprobes patches * Uplevel and test existing patches

== Power Management ==

* Porting guide for big.LITTLE switcher is available (internal only) https://wiki.linaro.org/Internal/Projects/Big.Little.Switcher/Docs/porting-g... * cpuidle : consolidate ARM drivers * Upstream broadcast timer logic in the cpuidle framework * Upstream imx6, u8500, OMAP4 use this framework * Fix OMAP3 time keeping flag * Fix shmobile init sections * Fix shmobile enter function * Fix device count initialization for tegra2 * Fix davinci enter function * Fix powerpc time keeping * Upstream these patches * Write a register cpuidle function with the common code * Take into account this function inside the different drivers * OMAP3 remove wrap enter function usage * Remove time keeping flag from the cpuidle framework * Cleanup SH cpuidle driver * DVFS for the Common Clock Framework * Merge reentrancy patch for 3.10 * Beautify Kconfig and Makefile * thermal: Powertop Integration * Add basic RFC patch and send for review * Linaro PM QA 0.4.1 2013.04 released. Fixed in this release: * Bug:1156614 Intermediate results should not use pass/fail, it confuses LAVA * Bug:1156610 Android distribution of pm-qa test assets are in a read-only filesystem folder that causes tests to fail * test for cpu topology attributes * test to check cpuidle statistics * removed the obsolete sched_mc tests * Linaro Powerdebug 0.6.3 2013-04 released. Fixed in this release: * Bug:827828 handle SIGWINCH signals * Bug:1014667 "not enough memory to allocate regulators info" when started on AMD Geode LX (x86)

== QA ==

* Tests to cover big.LITTLE cluster init and shutdown have been added to the big.LITTLE core test suite. * big.LITTLE extended test case scenarios have been implemented. * Functional and regression tests for scheduler from ARM have been integrated, covering HMP patches.

== Toolchain ==

* Linaro GCC 4.8 2013.04 released, based off the latest GCC 4.8.0+svn197294 release. * Initial optimized support for Cortex-A53 for arm*-*-* targets. * Improved support for new ARMv8-A instructions for arm*-*-* and aarch64*-*-* targets. * Backport of optimizations concerning whether to use Neon for 64-bit bitops for arm*-*-* targets. * Linaro GCC 4.7 2013.04 released, based off the latest GCC 4.7.2+svn197188 release. * Includes arm/aarch64-4.7-branch up to svn revision 196381. * Backport vectorizer cost model. * Turn off 64-bit Bitops in Neon. * Linaro GCC 4.6 2013.04 released, based off the latest GCC 4.6.3+svn197511 release. It's the last monthly release of 4.6 series. * Linaro Toolchain Binaries 2013.04 released, updated to Linaro GCC 4.7 2013.04 and Linaro GCC 4.8 2013.04 * GCC is updated to 4.8 (in the 4.8 builds) * RPC support in eglibc is re-enabled * Version reported by ARMv7 and AArch64 cross toolchains has been unified

== LEG ==

* Linaro UEFI 2013.04 released - bugfix * Bug:1091447 - UEFI: A9 crashes on boot with ATAGS * Bug:1067784 - UEFI: A9 crashes on boot with Device Tree * Bug:1058013 - "device-tree" test failed on vexpress A9 ubuntu * OpenSSL optimisations * CTR and CBC decrypt modes have been accepted upstream. XTS mode is still needs to be done. * OpenSSL AES code (for CTR and CBC decrypt modes) has been accepted upstream. * package available from Linaro's Overlay PPA. * SCT is now running without any crashes. * ACPI topic branch is being prepared for inclusion into linux-linaro tree.

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

http://wiki.linaro.org/Cycles/1304/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/1304/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 Release Manager | Builds and Baselines Engineering Linaro.org | Open source software for ARM SoCs