Hi all,

Like we did last month, we only keep the title in this email. So, don't hesitate to click on the topic of your choice and follow the link through http://www.linux4sam.org!

And don't forget, if you missed the two previous newsletters, there are available on the web here:
http://www.at91.com/linux4sam/bin/view/Linux4SAM/LinuxNewsletter

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Table of contents:

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Linux kernel 4.2 is out

Linus Torvalds released this new revision of the Linux kernel at the end of August: just in time to be covered by this newsletter!

I think that it's a good time to talk about the way that you can be informed, at a glance, about what you can expect from a new kernel revision. Of course git log or browsing the Linux4SAM github repository can teach you a lot, but I suspect that it's far too much information and a summary can be appreciated. Actually, several websites cover the enhancements of each Linux version: they often give a very good overview of big new features.

The first news website is obviously http://lwn.net and the summary of 4.2 enhancements is found in their merge window coverage:

• 4.2 Merge window part 1
• 4.2 Merge window part 2
• 4.2 Merge window part 3

You can also search for an older summary in their precious archive database.

Kernel Newbies is a collaborative wiki that documents the Linux kernel and its processes. It also hosts a detailed page that collects all the predominant changes between kernel revisions. The page for 4.2 is not edited yet but you can check how good is the result with their page for 4.0 for example.

The other news websites that you probably know are also providing such a coverage:

• http://www.cnx-software.com/2015/09/02/linux-4-2-release-main-changes-arm-and-mips-architectures/
• http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Linux-4.2-Released

But finally, if you need more information specifically about the Atmel SoC Linux support, the best is to follow Free-Electrons' blog (Linux 4.2 released, Free Electrons contributions inside) and Linux4SAM newsletter section

Wilc1000 firmware in linux-firmware

The MPU OS team and the wireless team joined forces to write and validate a redistribution license for our wilc1000 WiFi firmware. This was the first step that allowed us to publish this essential binary on the reference repository: linux-firmware.
This database collects firmwares from all device manufacturers and allow an easy distribution to all the Linux and open-source OSes. As the wilc1000 firmware is now part of this database, expect to have it at hand when you run your next desktop or embedded Linux distribution! Indeed, the big advantage is that both Buildroot or a Yocto Project embedded distribution come with all those needed binaries, ready to be used out-of-the-box.

https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git/commit/?id=dc00519de4ac6561de76dbcb546ac483db4caac1

LinuxCon North America & Linux Plumbers conference

Two weeks ago LinuxCon and Linux Plumbers took place in Seattle, WA, USA. This is always a great combination of events and many interesting talks and presentations are now available to be enjoyed from the Linux Foundation conference website or the Linux Foundation events Youtube channel .

For Linux Plumbers conference, the articles are usually accessible on LWN Conference page and on their [2015 Topics on LPC Wiki.

Buildroot 2015.08 is out with all Atmel boards

As announced in June's newsletter, the support for all Atmel boards is now fully integrated in an official Buildroot release:

http://lists.busybox.net/pipermail/buildroot/2015-August/138336.html

 - Many new defconfigs for Atmel evaluation boards:
   at91sam9rlek, at91sam9x5ek, sama5d3xek, sama5d4ek, sama5d4
   Xplained Ultra, sama5d3 Xplained.
 - ACME Systems Aria G25

This will allow us to completely rely on the official Buildroot source code and deprecate the old copy that we host on our github.com/linux4sam account. It will clarify the way that we expose our deliveries and strengthen our policy of publishing everything in the Mainline of Open Source Projects.

Activity on linux-arm-kernel mailing-list

Finally, here is our monthly summary of our activity on the Linux ARM kernel mailing-list. It has been pretty calm and no big development landed on the mainling-list this month: fruitful discussions continued, particularly on the QSPI driver by Cyrille and about a patch series that adds the slow clock to the drivers that actually use it by Alexandre.
Alexandre also sent the two last pull-requests of the 4.3 merge window for AT91.

One additional good news came at the end of the month: it was the acceptance of the new sd/mmc driver that implements the SDHCI standard interface for a future SoC: sdhci-of-at91.c by Ludovic.

On the LCD controller front, Boris had sent a pull request with latest Atmel's DRM drivers changes. This series was taken by the DRM maintainer:

Boris Brezillon (6):
drm: atmel-hlcdc: add PRIME support
drm: atmel-hlcdc: add the missing DRM_ATOMIC flag
drm: atmel-hlcdc: add RGB565 and RGB444 output support
drm: atmel-hlcdc: add support for at91sam9x5 SoCs
drm: atmel-hlcdc: add support for at91sam9n12 SoC
drm: atmel-hlcdc: add support for sama5d4 SoCs

Now all the goodies are in Linux Mainline:
Atomic support, PRIME, all output formats and all SoCs. It's definitively a Great achievement!

By the way, we are building an FAQ for the use of this LCD driver: don't hesitate to read the How to use the Atmel KMS/DRM LCD driver FAQ entry on www.linux4SAM.org and give feedback.

We hope that the content is interesting for you and don't hesitate to contact us for any remark about this newsletter.
Bye,

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Nicolas Ferre and the whole OS team