Linux on ARM

In the previous two posts I wrote about SUSE Linux and Fedora/Manjaro ARM/Ubuntu MATE for the Raspberry Pi 2 and 3. The results were mixed, at best.This time I'm taking on even more of a challenge because I'm going to be looking at the original Raspberry Pi Model B and B+, and the Raspberry Pi Zero. These models all have much more limited CPU power and memory than the Pi 2 and 3, so it will be interesting to see what can be done with them.

We all knew Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3 were about to be launched soon, as the Raspberry Pi foundation announced a partnership with NEC displays last October, and the datasheet for two version of the Broadcom BCM2837 based system-on-module, CM3 and CM3L (Light), was released shortly after.

Only three days after announcing the release of the third maintenance update to the Linux 4.9 kernel series, renowned kernel maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman is now informing us about the availability of Linux kernel 4.9.4.

Only three days after announcing the release of Linux kernel 4.4.41 LTS, renowned kernel maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman is informing us today, January 12, 2017, about the immediate availability of the Linux 4.4.42 LTS kernel.

SUSE supports a lot of architectures and runs on everything from IBM mainframe to x86 machines, and more. With ARM’s push in the data center, it made even more sense for SUSE to work closely with ARM to support yet another platform.

CentOS developer Jim Perrin reports on January 4, 2017, on the release and general availability of the CentOS Linux 7.3 (1611) operating system for AArch64/ARM64 machines.

Banana Pi BPI-R1 board was launched in 2014 with 5 Gigabit Ethernet ports, SATA interfaces, and powered by Allwinner A20 board. SinoVoip his now about to launch an updated version – Banana Pi BPI-R2 – powered by Mediatek MT7623A quad core Cortex A7 processor with 2GB RAM, 8GB flash, 5 Gigabit Ethernet ports, up to 2 SATA connectors, mPCIe, USB 3.0, and more.

Most operating systems, like Windows 10 or macOS, are designed to do multiple things. After all, many people want their computers to serve many tasks, such as productivity, media, and gaming. Some operating systems, however, are targeted at a single use to minimize the overhead and maximize the power of the hardware. Not to mention, it can create a more immersive experience.

Allwinner A13 – repackaged as Allwinner R8 – single core Cortex A8 processor is used in $9 C.H.I.P board with 512MB, 4GB storage, WiFi and Bluetooth, and I/Os. Now a Chinese company has created a new Allwinner A13 board called Lichee Pi that appears especially suited to drive LCD displays thanks to its 40-pin LCD RGB connector, but it also comes with WiFi & Bluetooth, a micro SD slot, and some I/Os.

Acer Chromebook R13 is the most powered ARM Chromebook so far thanks to its Mediatek MT8173 quad core processor combining two ARM Cortex A72 cores and Cortex A53 cores, as well as a PowerVR GX6250 GPU, 4GB RAM and a 13.3″ touchscreen display.

AArch64 (ARM64) hardware architectures are now supported - Today, December 22, 2016, Alpine Linux creator Natanael Copa was proud to announce the general availability of the first stable release in the 3.5 series of the independently-developed GNU/Linux distribution.

We have released a special edition of the recent Mozila Firefox, version 50, webbrowser for ARM architecture. It's specifically compiled and optimized for Raspberry Pi boards processors, nonetheless this Firefox Release runs smoothly on any device equipped with ARM hard-float processor, for example Chromebooks, tablets, embedded ARM devices and more.

Here is a look at the new features so far of the Linux 4.10 kernel, less than one week into the two-week merge window process. There is a lot of great improvements and additions to Linux 4.10, but we'll see if it ends up being a bigger release than Linux 4.9.

The big batch of ARM changes for the Linux 4.10 kernel have been submitted, including some new ARM platform support and early code for NVIDIA's next-generation Tegra SoC. Some of the highlights for the ARM code sent out today include:

Today, December 14, 2016, CentOS developer Fabian Arrotin was extremely happy to announce the release and general availability of the CentOS Linux 7 (1611) images for ARM (armhfp) hardware architectures.