Linaro Introduction
Open Source Software for ARM SoCs February 2012
Contact: steve.taylor@linaro.org director of marketing
Why was Linaro Founded?
To lead Open Source software
development on ARM To help members deliver high quality OSS-based products to market as quickly as possible To solve common problems and enable members to focus their resources on differentiation
Members
Not-for-profit software engineering company Over 120 full time engineers
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What does Linaro do?
Core SoC software
Linux kernel, BSP, Graphics,
Power management, Multimedia Consolidates, optimizes & upstreams Latest ARM SoCs, Cortex-A series
Upstream Projects kernel.org gnu.org ...
Linaro
Engineering team from Linaro & Members
ARM gcc toolchain: best in class
Monthly builds LAVA test and validation Continuous Integration framework for
Linux & Android on member SoCs
Focus on member SoCs
Linux, Android & Ubuntu for members
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Supported Kernels & Builds for member SoC
Distributions Pull from upstream
Linaro Engineering Organization
TSC Working Groups Toolchain Kernel Consolidation Graphics
Office of the CTO (OCTO)
Platform Engineering
LAVA
Validation & Benchmarking
Landing Teams work under NDA
Evaluation Builds
Android, Ubuntu, OEM Linux
Power Management
:
Infrastructure
Continuous Integration for Linaro output
Multimedia
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Linaro Landing Teams
Help member engineers on open source upstreaming, inc.
upstreaming board support packages (BSPs) Greatly reduces Members future maintenance requirements Focus on SoC engineering work specific to member Comprised of member and Linaro engineers. Linaro Landing Team
engineers are Linaro employees (not assignees) and focus on 1 member only (not shared)
Landing Teams are the one area of Linaro under NDA
Work with a member on an unannounced board or chip Access to Linaro work on new technology Work with Members to integrate proprietary technology in binary form where necessary
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Linaro Optimizes Linux for the Whole SoC
Other
Instruction Cache
Data Cache
L2 Cache
Memory subsystem
Kernel
Power
Toolchain
Graphics Infrastructure
Peripherals Multi-core ARM Cortex-A class processor Power management
Interrupts
~400 patches/
Timers
Connectivity
Security
Neon
Multimedia acceleration
month (>80% accepted) ~30% for members
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Quotes from Current Members
Linaro developments such Linaro has moved from
as Device Tree and UMM reduce future technology development time Expect stronger and closer alignment with commercial distributions LAVA and testing represents significant value problem solving mode to defining the future architecture for ARM Linux 4x ROI within 12 months Although volunteering top talent as assignees, membership enables other key talent to focus on higher value add work
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External Quotes
Linus Torvalds Gaah. Guys, this whole ARM thing is a f*cking pain in the ass.
Mar 2011, http://lwn.net/Articles/437170/
ARM Linux is getting better, and the ARM community seems to be making progress.
Oct 2011, http://lwn.net/Articles/463908/
arch/arm in kernel:100k lines less than the past trend
900 800 700 600 500 400 300 200 100 0 Thousands
Jonathan Corbet The kernels ARM mess will be a memory by the end of the year
Jan 2012: http://lwn.net/Articles/473940/
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ARM extrapolated ARM x86
Future Items: big.LITTLE, v8, servers,
Currently, platforms in Linaro are Cortex-A5/A8/A9/A15
big.LITTLE models in house ARMv8 in planning Much still to do around consolidation UMM upstreaming begun, plenty left to do in all the working groups Building blocks for ARMv8 Working on ARM server architecture for Linux Hard Float, Grub2, UEFI, PXE, SMP, LAMP, LTS kernel etc. Single ARM kernel zImage binary goal Involving community and Linux server distributions Ubuntu, Fedora, Red Hat, Debian, OpenSUSE etc. Server study in Office of CTO (OCTO) https://wiki.linaro.org/OfficeofCTO/Servers
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About Linaro Connect: connect.linaro.org
The best place to see Linaro in action Held 3-4 times each year ~250 attendees from ~50 companies A full week of discussion and hacking, with select keynote presentations Next event: 28 May 1 June 2012, Hong Kong Gold Coast Hotel
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Why Join Linaro?
Direct the Future of Linux on ARM
Contact: joe.bates@linaro.org VP Linaro Member Services
Linaro: A Strategic Perspective
More devices will ship with Linux than any other OS in
consumer and enterprise products in the next 5 years Technology decisions made in open source have long-term impact on SoC schedules and maintenance costs Effective Linux upstreaming makes schedules reliable and
reduces long-term maintenance burden of patches
In the last 2 years, Linaro has become the place for ARM
licensees to safely interact on new technology development Very strong engineering team established Significant pieces of upstream plumbing merged Roadmap of technology development published
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Linaro and ARM Licensees
While Linaro work is open and generally balanced, there is
a natural bias towards the specifics of member technology ARM licensees must ensure Linux solutions match platform characteristics For instance, toolchain work must take into account pipeline model,
alignment, cache width and topology Scheduling for independently scalable cores may require different tunables than standard big.LITTLE The more sophisticated and unique the platform, the deeper these technical considerations must run
Companies that are not Linaro members are passively
taking direction from upstream and Linaro Successful SoC vendors must act proactively
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Engineering: Functional Overview
Working Groups (60 engineers in 5 teams)
Focused on creating and generalizing upstream infrastructure to
support member requirements Hundreds of patches merged upstream every quarter (see patches.linaro.org for patch tracking data)
Platform Group (30 engineers in 4 teams)
Continuous integration of upstream and Working Group trunk work Validation of member platform enablement on Android ICS-derived
tip and generic Linux builds
Landing Teams (size tailored to member requirements)
Continuous trunk rebasing and refining of member patchsets for
kernel and middleware Support upstreaming via design reviews and consulting
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Engineering: Steering & Management
Member-directed engineering
Technical Steering Committee (TSC) provides high-level direction
through requirements creation and review Members choose what teams their engineers are assigned to: aligned with skills and strategic interests Linaro engineering managers oversee day-to-day work
Engineers assigned to Linaro join a broad talent pool,
gaining technical and upstream interaction experience Knowledge diffused back into the member organization, enabling
more effective upstream interaction
Linaro continuously monitors engineering activities to
ensure work is valuable and directly useful to members
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Engineering: Platform Group
The most direct short-term value Linaro provides: directly
runnable, fully-enabled builds for member platforms Done to ensure Linaro engineering is highly effective, putting everybody on the same platform, and exercising code in production-like situations Test and benchmark WG impact on member hardware Keep track of what's happening in the wider upstream world At member's option, can be used to empower and support a community build for a specific platform Monthly builds of tip Android and Linux Hosting for binaries with conditional redistribution Example: ST-Ericsson Snowball-focused Igloo Community website
http://igloocommunity.org
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Linaro Member Management Partnership
TSC meets every 2 weeks, monthly members report,
Linaro Connect 3x and members meeting 2x per year Linaro provides Android and Ubuntu images every month Images generated by Linaro infrastructure can be delivered
automatically to member sites (or members community sites) Package update distribution available
Kernel and toolchain provided as required
Latest stable kernel for boards, tested and validated in LAVA Bug tracking and project management Escalation route(s) for kernel and toolchain issues that member sites cannot address (IRC, mail lists,)
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Linaro Membership Benefits Summary
ROI from shared investment Access to 100+ world-leading Linux engineers Direct input into Linaro direction Your resources focused on differentiation Reduced Linux maintenance and porting costs Permanent, on-call BSP upstreaming support Extended Linaro community support for your communities Industry leading gcc toolchain Latest Linux & Android kernels for your SoC Open source builds for your boards and communities Commercial-level software quality Your SoCs in LAVA continuous integration and test
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Linaro Summary
Linaro is a not for profit engineering company that delivers
core Linux technology for the benefit of members Our key goals: Use shared investment to provide high ROI to members Accelerate time to market for member products Reduce fragmentation and resulting costs Work closely with ARM to deliver Linux software for new ARM technology big.LITTLE, server, ARMv8 64-bit Make ARM a leading architecture in open source
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More about Linaro: http://www.linaro.org/about/ More about Linaro engineering: http://www.linaro.org/engineering/ How to join: http://www.linaro.org/about/how-to-join
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