"I like Kit-Kat, unless I'm with four or more people." ~Mitch Hedberg

The Linaro 13.11 release is now available for download!

This month's cycle includes significant developments from Linaro Connect USA 2013 (LCU13). All the Linaro engineering groups got together in Santa Clara at the end of October to discuss work for the next engineering cycle and progress critical projects face to face and this has benefited the releases from each of the groups. In this cycle, three items stand out as particularly significant:

* The long-awaited Android 4.4 "Kit-Kat" was released and this is now included in Linaro Android. As with previous cycles, the team had this up and running on member devices very soon after the official release and there are several videos showing this work, for example:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYQK1hT9iTk

* LAVA documentation took a giant leap forward following a week of concentrated effort at LCU13. The latest version of the source code for this is included in the repository, with a navigable version regularly updated at http://validation.linaro.org/static/docs/.

* Linaro GDB, including improved ARMv8 AArch64 support, has now been added to Linaro's layer and is available in the Linaro OpenEmbedded baseline.

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 Engineering ==

* updated to 4.4 KitKat * ran it through full validation cycle and collected test report * updated kernel * updated test plan for Power management testing * investigated regressions * created Fastboot app design

== Builds and Baselines ==

* Linaro Stable Kernel 3.10.20-2013.11 released * Based on 3.10.20 stable tree * Includes an updated big.LITTLE MP patchset * Linux Linaro 3.12-2013.11 released * based on linux-linaro-core-tracking tree, llct-20131112.0 tag: * based on v3.12 release * gator version 5.16 (same version as in 13.10 release) * updated linaro-android-3.12 topic by John Stultz * updated big-LITTLE-pmu, iks, iks-cpufreq, and interactive-gov-updates topics from ARM LT * updated basic Capri board support from Broadcom LT (generic phy support for USB, watchdog, updated bcm_defconfig) * updated big endian topic * updated topic to support K3V2 board from Hisilicon LT * updated Versatile Express patches from ARM LT * vexpress64 support (updated FVP Base model files, added support for FVP Foundation models) * config fragments changes: * configs: add network namespace and virtual ethernet * distribution.conf: add more netfilter configs for the ltp networking iptable test * created multi_v7.conf and hi3xxx.conf config fragments for Hisilicon K3V2 board * Linaro Toolchain Binaries 2013.11 released * Binaries now ship with a Fortran compiler * Updates to GCC 4.8.2+svn204657 * Fixes for bugs LP #1243656, #1243022 * Backport fix for PR/58423 * AArch64: added support for tiny model GOT access. * Improved AArch32 A-profile multilibs support (--with-multilib-list option) * Newlib was updated * Linaro OpenEmbedded baseline updates * Update to Linaro GCC 4.8-2013.11 release * Add Linaro GDB 7.6.1-2013.10 release * Adds support for the new Foundation FVP Models from ARM * Includes ARM Trusted Firmware binaries, built from the latest open source repository * Shrink openjdk-8 install by a few hundred MiB * Add jtreg support to openjdk-8 builds * Linaro Ubuntu baseline updates * packages updates: acpica-unix, edk2-uefi, fvp-pre-boot, * added sbsigntool package with ARM and Aarch64 support * added xen-tools to developer rootfs * Linaro Android baseline updates * Upgraded baseline to Android 4.4 * Android builds updated to latest Linaro toolchain 4.8-2013.11

== Kernel ==

* eMMC power mangement upstreamed * Suspend watchdow upstreamed * Driver wakelock usage using wakeup_sources upstreamed * ARM32 uprobes * created V2 uprobes patches based on public review and comments from Tixy * got comments on v2 patchset and implemented changes for most of them * replace "usermode" parameter with "emulate" * use regs[pc] instead of passing addr as an argument * move thumb reorg into its own patch * remove unnecessary opcode variable * Conversion PATCH_PHYS_VIRT && AUTO_ZRELADDR * enabled PATCH_PHYS_VIRT and AUTO_ZRELADDR on Exynos * enabled PATCH_PHYS_VIRT on clps7xx * ARM32 maintenance - Updated arm32 machines table for 3.12 release * ION * Fixed ION compat_ioctl issues * ION build issues in 3.10 were fixed * MMC patches * mmc deferred resume * already resolved patches cleanup * mmc wakelocks * Audit * support in userspace improved * added seccomp support in kernel * audit support prototyped * ftrace * function tracer implemented * v2 patches posted for review * kprobes and uprobes * verified if ARM64 kprobes and hw breakpoints does conflict each other * v2 BUG: kretprobe wrong $return value at register 'x0' was fixed * kgdb - prototyped functional implementation * Cortex strings * went through few review rounds * measured and published benchmark results * published code in git tree * Oprofile - implementation has been successfully prototyped * Kexec * found and fixed a bug in the memory management code of the arm64 Linux kernel * fixed a few bugs in kexec assembly routines

== LAVA ==

* Rest API for Results * LAVA Documentation - Creation of initial LAVA manual * Ability to Annotate Test Results * New LAVA tool released with new guided job submission capabilities * LAVA packaging refactored to install all necessary files in FHS compliant paths to support easier packaging. * Updated django-tables support implemented in lava-server * Integrated support in lava for imx6q for testing * All lava-tool commands accept multinode job ids. * LAVA updated to continue job after a lava-test-shell action fails * updated initrd for ARMv7 booting to enable 14 second boot tests with zImage support (was ~ 3 minutes at best before) * NFS root file system support * Added support for auto-login, username/password provided in deployment schema

== LEG ==

* UEFI 2013.11 released * Includes support for the new Foundation FVP models * Fixes booting problems due to no initrd in OpenEmbedded images * As part of the ongoing work for authenticated boot with the Security WG there is now a minimal working authenticated boot for the Foundation Model with instructions in the commitlog * klibc port to ARM64 was merged upstream * libvirt patch to support machvirt machine model with virtio devices accepted upstream; also a libvirt CI loop has been setup: https://ci.linaro.org/jenkins/view/components/job/libvirt/

== LNG ==

* Linux Linaro LNG 3.10.18-2013.11 released * based on Linux 3.10.18 kernel * PREEMPT_RT patchset rt14

== Power Management ==

* Linaro PM-QA 0.4.5-2013.11 released * Fix thermal header include

== QA ==

* 2013.11 release testing done * Comparison between linux-stable and LSK done (available in LAVA) * 1st version of Virtualization test plan completed

== Toolchain ==

* Linaro GCC 4.8-2013.11 released, based off the latest GCC 4.8.2 +svn204657 release * Updates to GCC 4.8.2+svn204657 * Fixes for bugs LP #1243656, #1243022 * Backport fix for PR/58423 * AArch64: added support for tiny model GOT access. * Improved AArch32 A-profile multilibs support (--with-multilib-list option) * Linaro GCC 4.7-2013.11 released, based off the latest GCC 4.7.4 +svn204656 release * Linaro newlib 2.0.0-2013.11 released * Resync with upstream newlib trunk * Improved support for Cortex-A and AArch64 baremetal systems * Improve code generation for AArch64 when 'frame grows downwards' * Added Support in the ARM backend for LRA * Improved ifcombine phase. * Patches under-review for reversible debugging in GDB for ARM. * Syscall support * Thumb instruction support

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

http://wiki.linaro.org/Cycles/1311/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 OpenEmbedded-based images =======================

With the Linaro provided downloads and with ARM’s Fast Models virtual platform, you can boot a virtual ARMv8 system and run 64-bit binaries.

For more information please see:

http://www.linaro.org/engineering/armv8

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/1311/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

On behalf of the release team,

Koen Kooi Builds and Baselines | Release Manager Linaro.org | Open source software for ARM SoCs