Linux on ARM

• SoC
• raspberrypi
• COM
• suse
• compatibility

Subscriptions for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for Arm and SUSE Manager Lifecycle for Arm are now available directly to customers through the Corporate price list or through the SUSE Shop https://www.suse.com/shop/

• ubuntu
• benchmark
• nvidia
• development
• versus

Since receiving the powerful NVIDIA Jetson AGX Xavier with its ARMv8 Carmel cores on this Tegra194 SoC a while back, it's been quite a fun developer board for benchmarking and various Linux tests. One of the areas I was curious about was whether GCC or Clang would generate faster code for this high performance ARM SoC, so here are some benchmarks.

• arch
• other_linux
• raspberrypi
• versus

The last time that I wrote about non-Raspbian Linux on the Raspberry Pi, I overlooked Manjaro because I thought their ARM project had been shut down. This error was pointed out to me in a comment to that post, and I subsequently found the Manjaro ARM re-launch announcement from last spring. 

• android
• debian
• other_linux
• netbook
• smartphone

In recent years, we’ve started to see Windows 10 mini laptops with 6″ to 8″ display and a foldable keyboard coming to market thanks to products such as GPD Pocket 2 or One Mix 2 Yoga. They offer a full Windows 10 experience in an ultra-small form factor, but you’d still need to carry your phone around with you for things like calls or SMS.

• development

Back in November is when ARM Holdings posted their GCC compiler support for "Ares", their forthcoming new ARMv8 core design intended for HPC/server SoCs. Ares continues inching closer to launch while now the GNU Assembler has picked up support for recognizing Ares.

• driver
• compatibility
• kernel

Open-source driver developer Tomeu Vizoso of Collabora has taken to some Panfrost driver work for greatly enhancing the viability of this open-source, reverse-engineered ARM Mali Linux graphics driver.

• SoC
• compatibility
• kernel

A few days back there was the main ARM pull request for Linux 4.21 with new SoC and board support. A second ARM pull request has been submitted now during the final moments of the 4.21 kernel merge window and it offers up some new features, most notably the initial i.MX8 SoC support.

• server
• mips

Wave, a startup developing hardware for deep learning in data centers, open sources the decades-old MIPS architecture.

• driver
• 64bit
• compatibility
• amd

Up to now the AMDKFD kernel driver needed for running the ROCm user-space has only worked on x86_64 CPUs, but with some simple changes, it turns out this Radeon compute kernel driver can work on 64-bit ARM as well.

• driver
• update
• compatibility
• mips
• kernel

After Greg K-H handling Linux 4.19 release, Linus Torvalds is back at the helm, and released Linux 4.20 just before Christmas:

• kernel

While already in use by Android's version of the Linux kernel, the ARM-developed Energy Aware Scheduling support is set to finally be mainlined for the Linux 4.21 kernel.

• ubuntu
• other_linux
• benchmark
• redhat
• fedora
• versus

Last month Amazon rolled out their "Graviton" ARM processors in the Elastic Compute Cloud. Those first-generation Graviton ARMv8 processors are based on the ARM Cortex-A72 cores and designed to offer better pricing than traditional x86_64 EC2 instances.

• driver

ARM developers have posted their first public patches for the new "Komeda" display driver for the Linux kernel that offers DRM/KMS integration.

• linaro
• development

The ARM Linux developers continue working on Energy Aware Scheduling (EAS) for the mainline Linux kernel to better handle systems with asymmetric CPU topologies, namely SoCs like those with ARM big.LITTLE cores.

• server
• redhat

If there’s one thing that the past several years of IT evolution have taught us, it’s that choice is king. This starts with enterprises not wanting to be locked into a closed, single vendor technology stack. Choice now not only includes the option of footprint -  from bare-metal servers to public cloud instances - but also the underlying architecture powering a technology stack.