Press release
First Linaro Connect Event Enhances Device Tree Support to Accelerate Development of Linux on ARM
CAMBRIDGE, UK- August 23rd, 2011- More than 150 Linux engineers gathered in Cambridge this month to collaborate on the development of Linux on ARM at the first quarterly LinaroTM Connect event.
Linaro, the not-for-profit open source software engineering company founded by ARM, IBM, TI, Samsung, Freescale and ST-Ericsson is working on consolidation and optimization of Linux on ARM SoCs. Device Tree, a mechanism for describing hardware configuration for the Linux kernel, was among the many topics covered at the recent Linaro Connect event. Members of the ARM Linux community set out to simplify porting of the Linux kernel to the diverse platforms developed by ARM silicon vendors and ODMs. By the end of the weeklong event many patches had been produced that will be queued up for the Linux 3.2 release kernel tree including:
● Device drivers for Freescale iMX converted to use Device Tree-based discovery.
● Code developed to bridge between the Device Tree model and TI OMAP's HWMOD, used to describe complex power and clock domains.
● Initial support for Device Tree added to Samsung Exynos, Qualcomm MSM86 and Atmel AT91 boards, including a serial console described by the Device Tree.
● Initial skeleton work for Device Tree implemented for the ARM Versatile board.
"We have seen some pretty amazing output from the Linaro Connect," said Christian Reis, Vice President of Engineering at Linaro. "Not only around the Device Tree work, but also including major progress on the Continuous Memory Allocator, DMA mapping and buffer sharing frameworks in collaboration with the ARM kernel maintainers."
"Linaro has come a long way since a year ago when I first attended a Linaro event in Prague," said Paul McKenney, distinguished engineer at IBM Linux Technology Center and IBM representative on the Linaro Technical Steering Committee. "The question in 2010 was ‘can Linaro become relevant?' The answer in 2011 is obvious as you look at the large number of Linaro patches upstream in a number of projects, the number of users of Linaro's tool chain, the number of attendees, including many developers who are not Linaro assignees, as well as the level of energy in the sessions."
Linaro Connect is a quarterly, week-long engineering event which brings together the Linaro engineering team, Linaro members, and others in the ARM Open Source community to work on the future of Linux on ARM. The events are a mixture of presentations, topic-based summits and software engineering sessions.
The first Linaro Connect was held from 1-5 August in Cambourne, UK. Over 150 engineers from more than 25 companies attended. "We have been delighted by the participation in Linaro Connect", said Stephen Doel, COO Linaro. "There is no other industry event that offers a deep focus on delivering Open Source engineering for Linux on ARM devices."
Looking forward, Linaro plans to co-locate many of the quarterly Linaro Connect events with other major industry conferences.
"We're pleased to see Linaro Connect co-locating with the Embedded Linux Conference and the Android Builders Summit," said Jennifer Cloer, director of communications and community at The Linux Foundation. "The Linux on ARM community is an important one and we look forward to fruitful collaboration between Linaro and the broader community of embedded Linux developers who attend our conferences."
Linaro announced the dates of future Linaro Connect events:
● October 31 - November 4, 2011 in Orlando, Florida, co-located with the Ubuntu Developer Summit
● February 6 - 10, 2012 in San Francisco, California, co-located with Embedded Linux Conference and Android Builders Summit to be held the following week
● May 7 - 11, 2012, co-located with Ubuntu Developer Summit
