The Linaro Connect Las Vegas 2016 (LAS16) was one of the largest Connect events to date. Linaro Connect Las Vegas 2016 (LAS16) was a five-day event full of keynotes by industry leaders, talks, training, hacking and a lot of socializing fun. Linaro Connect brings together the best and the brightest of the Linux on ARM community and LAS16 was no exception. The week was full of great keynotes each morning covering many different topics in the community. There was an announcement of a new segment group at Linaro, the Linaro IoT and Embedded Group (LITE). The Internet of Things (IoT) is disrupting the traditional embedded market and creating huge growth opportunities. Standards are essential to the success of IoT and the LITE group will bring together ARM ecosystem support for key standards and engineering work to support reliable implementations.
The week of sessions included many different tracks that attendees could attend, with each day focused on a particular segment within Linaro. Along with all the sessions and hacking there was also the traditional demo Friday that was held to showcase all the hard work that was done by the various teams over the last several months. Attendees were able to enjoy lunch while wandering the exhibit hall full of demos by both Linaro and it’s member companies.
Images from Demo Friday
The last day of Linaro Connect gave attendees an opportunity to listen to two Linux pioneers, David Rusling (Linaro) and Linus Torvalds (Linux Foundation) chat about the past, present and future of Linux and the Open Source community. They also answered questions that were submitted by the attendees earlier in the week.
Keynotes During the Week
Monday:
On Monday the Welcome Keynote was given by Linaro’s CEO, George Grey, who welcomed attendees to the event and gave an overview of the many projects that Linaro is working on with its member companies. George then went on to demo several of these projects.
Morgan Quigley, Chief Architect of the Open Source Robotics Foundation, then gave a second keynote on “The Robot Operating System: An Open Source Framework for Modern Robotics”. Morgan discussed the many challenges in trying to create robust, general-purpose robot software. Watch keynote and view the presentation
Tuesday:
Sarah Sharp, who is the founder of Otter Tech gave the Tuesday keynote titled: “Corporate Open Source Fail” in which she discussed how many company’s good intentions of being productive open source citizens go bad. She explained ways that engineers and managers can work with their teams to influence strategies. Watch the keynote
Wednesday:
Geoff Thorpe who heads up security within the Microcontroller group of NXP, gave the Wednesday morning keynote which was an overview of Zephyr and talked about the what, where, why as well as gave an update on the status of Zephyr. Geoff also discussed IoT security including the terminology, disruptions, observations and how Zephyr fits into this. Watch the keynote and see the slides
Thursday:
Brian Richardson, who is an an Intel technical evangelist and is a blogger for the Intel Software Evangelists project, a former writer for linux.com, and executive producer for DragonConTV was on hand to give the Thursday keynote. Brian gave a keynote on “TianoCore – Open Source UEFI Community Update”. Watch the keynote and view the presentation
Friday:
Jono Bacon, Previously Director of Community at Canonical, GitHub, XPRIZE, and OpenAdvantage. Advisor to organizations includingAlienVault, Open Networking Foundation, Open Cloud Consortium, Mycroft, and others and is now Founder of Jono Bacon Consulting, kicked off our final day by giving a keynote on how community has evolved over the years, the structure of building powerful technical and open source communities, building workflow and on-ramps, building growth, and the balance between company and community relations. Watch the Keynote
Mini Conferences:
During LAS16 we also had three mini conferences that took place. Below is an overview of each conference and the resources available from each one:
Firmware Summit
Presentations and Videos: http://connect.linaro.org/resource/las16/las16-200/
Title: ARM64 ASWG and Linux ACPI update
Speaker: Al Stone, Hanjun Guo
Title: SCMI – System Management and Control Interface
Speaker(s):Charles Garcia-Tobin
Title: Tianocore Progress and Status
Speaker: Leif Lindholm
Title: Secure Boot
Speaker: Ard Biesheuvel
Title: RAS What is it? Why do we need it?
Speaker: Yazen Ghannam, Fu Wei
Cortex-M Software
Title: Cortex-M Software – Device
Presentations & Videos: http://connect.linaro.org/resource/las16/las16-300/
Speakers: Andy Gross
Title: Cortex-M Software – Build Systems
Presentations & Videos: http://connect.linaro.org/resource/las16/las16-304/
Title: Cortex-M Software – Security Architecture for Cortex-M
Presentations & Videos: http://connect.linaro.org/resource/las16/las16-308/
Speakers: Paul Bakker
AOSP
Title: AOSP (Session 1)
Presentations & Videos: http://connect.linaro.org/resource/las16/las16-400/
Topics covered included:
– Filesystems
– HAL consolidation
– Graphics – YUV support in mesa and hwc.
– WiFi and sensor HAL status and next steps
– New developments with AOSP + the Kernel
– – Updates on HiKey in AOSP
– – EAS in common.git & integration with AOSP userspace
– – New Sync API in 4.6+ kernels, and how it will affects graphics drivers
– AOSP transition to clang
– Out of tree AOSP User space Patches
– Brainstorming on improving Android boot time.
Speakers: Thomas Gall, Bernhard Rosenkränzer
Segment Team Sessions
Below are the sessions held by each of the Linaro Segment teams during the week of Linaro Connect LAS16. To see all the sessions held during the week and get access to all presentations and videos please visit the Linaro Connect LAS16 Resources.
96Boards
LAS16-109: LAS16-109: The status quo and the future of 96Boards
Community development, Compliance (for members and partners), Reference platform software, product development platform.
Presentations & Videos: http://connect.linaro.org/resource/las16/las16-109/
LAS16-412 96Boards Openhours
96Boards will be hosting Openhours live from Linaro Connect! Join us in person or remotely to talk about all things 96Boards related.
Presentations & Videos: http://connect.linaro.org/resource/las16/las16-412/
LAS16-502: 96Boards Community Panel
Discussion around activities for 96Boards.
Presentations & Videos: http://connect.linaro.org/resource/las16/las16-502/
LAS16-506: The future of 96Boards documentation
96Boards aims to end outdated documentation by implementing a dynamic approach which utilizes member and community resources, paired with on point maintenance and diligent review from the 96Boards team and Linaro. Doing this, we can provide up-to-date, straightforward, and accurate documentation without the need to share documents, convert formats, or refer to releases/versions when wondering if the document is going to work.
Presentations & Videos: http://connect.linaro.org/resource/las16/las16-506/
LEG
LAS16-301: OpenStack on Aarch64, running in production, upstream improvements, and interoperability
OpenStack is at the heart of the next generation of the opensource cloud on a global scale. This presentation, touches on three themes, running an OpenStack based cloud in production, followed by the packaging and bug fixing on archives required to make that happen on AArch64. Then an explaination on what it is like working with the the upstream project, the development environment, the current patches and what needs to be done next. Finally an Introduction of the OpenStack Interop Working Group. Why is interoperability important for OpenStack? And What is Linaro doing to improve the interoperability of OpenStack?
Presentations & Videos: http://connect.linaro.org/resource/las16/las16-301/
LAS16-305: Smart City Big Data Visualization on 96Boards
Cities are getting identified as smart cities based on what and how data are used to do predictive analytics. Smart City as a phrase can have a wide spectrum of meaning. But there are two key things (Data and Analytics) that ‘smart’ refers to in smart city. With IoT gaining so much market attention, brings in the power to drive the implementation. Data collection, Storage and Analytics provide so much potential. This talk will go over a sample use case scenario utilizing ODPi based Hadoop eco system and H20 visualizations for analytics.
Presentations & Videos: http://connect.linaro.org/resource/las16/las16-305/
LAS16-309: Server Ecosystem: Xen on ARM, from Big Iron to IoT & LuaJIT status on Aarch64
Abstract Xen on ARM: The Xen port is exploiting this set of new hardware capabilities to run guest VMs in the most efficient way possible while keeping ARM specific changes to Xen and Linux to a minimum. ARM virtualization is set to be increasingly relevant for the embedded industry in the coming years.Whilst Xen is best known as the technology powering the biggest clouds in the industry, it also a great fit for automotive deployments and mobile devices that can fit in your pocket. The talk will give concrete examples of the ways Xen can add value to your platforms, not only by providing an excellent general purpose virtualization solution, but also by providing simple, yet effective ways to partition the platform into different security domains.
This presentation will include a brief overview of the Xen on ARM architecture, covering the key design principles employed. The techniques pioneered during the ARM port that allowed the Xen community to remove many legacy components from the Xen code base, streamlining both the ARM and x86 implementations. The talk will conclude explaining how to port Xen to any new ARM boards with the least amount of effort.
Abstract LuaJIT: Lua is a scripting language commonly embedded by web front-ends. Enabling Lua JIT compilation can reduce CPU usage when handling huge amounts of network traffic. This year Linaro (and others) started to work on porting LuaJIT to AArch64. Though the work is not finished we have made good progress. This presentation will briefly introduce LuaJIT, discuss the technical challenges of porting to AArch64, and address the progress of the porting effort and the next steps.
Presentations & Videos: http://connect.linaro.org/resource/las16/las16-309/
LAS16-312: Open Compute Project (OCP): Consume, Collaborate, Contribute
In this session, Amber Graner, Operations Director for the Open Compute Project Foundation will discuss how Linaro Member can influence and drive ARM consumption, collaboration and contribution in, near and around the data center ecosystem through the OCP community. Learn how to participate, contribute to and influence ARM contributions with the OCP ecosystem. How can you, the Linaro community and ARM partners drive ARM contributions within the OCP rack formats. See what OCP currently has contributed, upcoming contributions and what is still needed.
Presentations & Videos: http://connect.linaro.org/resource/las16/las16-312/
LHG
LAS16-302: LHG Reference Security Solutions
This presentation will give an overview of the suite of reference security solutions developed by LHG. The solutions all have OPTEE as the secure OS running on ARM TrustZone integrated with DRMs such as Microsoft PlayReady and Google Widevine on both Linux and Android platforms. The secure video path implementation strives to use common elements across Linux and Android based solutions.
Presentations & Videos: http://connect.linaro.org/resource/las16/las16-302/
LAS16-306: Exploring the Open Trusted Protocol
Interconnected systems require trust between devices and service providers. To deal with this problem, several companies (ARM, Solacia, Symantec, Intercede) collaborated on the Open Trust Protocol (OTrP), which combines a secure architecture with trusted code management, using technologies proven in large scale banking and sensitive data applications on mass-market devices such as smartphones and tablets.
Presentations & Videos: http://connect.linaro.org/resource/las16/las16-306/
LAS16-310: Introducing the first 96Boards TV Platform: Poplar by Hisilicon
This presentation will discuss the hardware and software features of the Poplar TV platform board. The capabilities and use cases that can be exercised will be highlighted.
Presentations & Videos: http://connect.linaro.org/resource/las16/las16-310/
LITE
LAS16-100: Zephyr Technical Overview
This session will give an overview of Zephyr Project. Zephyr is a small, scalable, real-time operating system designed specifically for small-footprint IoT edge devices. Its modular design allows you to create an IoT solution that meets all of your device needs, regardless of architecture. It is also embedded with powerful development tools that will, over time, enable developers to customize its capabilities. Launched in partnership with the Linux Foundation, the Zephyr project is a truly open source solution focused on empowering community development. The goal of Zephyr is to allow commercial and open source developers alike to define and develop IoT solutions best suited for their needs.
Presentations & Videos: http://connect.linaro.org/resource/las16/las16-100/
LAS16-112: mbed OS Technical Overview
ARM mbed OS is an open source embedded operating system designed specifically for the “things” in the Internet of Things. It includes all the features you need to develop a connected product based on very small memory footprint ARM Cortex-M microcontrollers, including security,connectivity, an RTOS, and drivers for sensors and I/O devices. You can start developing with mbed OS 5.1.0 today using a choice of 40 different development boards from 11 different providers and a wide choice of toolchains including a complete command line build management and configuration tool mbed CLI, industry standard desktop IDEs or ARM’s free online IDE.
Presentations & Videos: http://connect.linaro.org/resource/las16/las16-112/
LAS16-104: MyNewt technical overview
James Pace & Sterling Hughes (Runtime.io) Apache Mynewt is a community-driven, permissively licensed open source initiative for constrained, embedded devices and applications. The emergence of the IoT is proving that anything that can be connected will be. Many of these devices—wristbands and wearables, lightbulbs and locks–must be operated for long periods of time, but are constrained in terms of power, memory, and storage. Apache Mynewt addresses these constraints while remaining hardware agnostic. Apache Mynewt includes the world’s first controller-level open source Bluetooth Low Energy for microcontrollers. Apache Mynewt has 4 main goals: A foundational RTOS and embedded middleware such as boot loaders, file systems / TLV storage, time-series data support; rich instrumentation and logging infrastructure; Solid networking protocol stacks for secure, efficient communications with constrained devices; Simple image and configuration management and instrumentation for ongoing diagnostics, whether at the workbench or in mass deployment; Modularity and easy composability to build an optimized image. This presentation will help developers up and down the stack understand the requirements and challenges of embedded development environments. For embedded developers–whether they are using common maker environments like Arduino or mature product-oriented tools–a fresh approach to permissively licensed open source tools will be presented.
Presentations & Videos: http://connect.linaro.org/resource/las16/las16-104/
LAS16-108: JerryScript and other scripting languages for IoT
Overview of small-size/low-resource VHLL (very high-level languages)/scripting languages available for embedded/IoT usage (JavaScript, Python, Lua, etc.). Typical/possible usage scenarios and benefits. Challenges of running VHLLs in deeply embedded/very resource-constrained environments. Progress reports on porting JerryScript to Zephyr. (Possibly, architecture comparison of JerryScript and MicroPython).
Presentations & Videos: http://connect.linaro.org/resource/las16/las16-108/
LAS16-203: Platform security architecture for embedded devices
Heads up on what ARM are doing with the new ARMv8-M architecture from a software perspective.
Presentations & Videos: http://connect.linaro.org/resource/las16/las16-203/
LAS16-300K2: Overview of IoT Zephyr
Overview of IoT Zephyr – Keynote address by Geoff Thorpe
Presentations & Videos: http://connect.linaro.org/resource/las16/las16-300k2/
LAS16-407: Internet of Tiny Linux (IoTL): the sequel
This is a discussion on various methods put forward to reduce the size of Linux kernel and user space binaries to make them suitable for small IoT applications, ranging from low hanging fruits to more daring approaches. Results from on-going work will also be presented.
Presentations & Videos: http://connect.linaro.org/resource/las16/las16-407/
LMG
LAS16-205: The State of AOSP common android-4.4 Kernel
This session will cover the state of android-4.4: total patch count or lines of code sitting out of mainline, their upstream status, new patches added (e.g sdcardfs, dm-verity etc), patches dropped from android-4.4 either in favor of upstream patches (e.g. siockilladdr, switch class etc) or they are obsolete and no longer used in AOSP (e.g. uid, n/w activity stat etc).
Presentations & Videos: http://connect.linaro.org/resource/las16/las16-205/
LAS16-201: ART JIT in Android N
Android runtime (ART) has evolved from an AOT compiler (in Android L & M) to a hybrid mode runtime (in Android N) which combines fast interpreter, JIT compiler and profile guided AOT compiler. In this talk, we’ll take a look at all these important changes in Android N. For example, the design and implementation of JIT, hybrid mode, tooling support, etc. This talk is meant to help Linaro members and developers to have a deeper understanding of ART in Android N, and to help them face the challenges of the new behaviors of Android runtime.
Presentations & Videos: http://connect.linaro.org/resource/las16/las16-201/
LAS16-209: Finished and Upcoming Projects in LMG
This survey of topics covers the engineering output of recent Android related projects in LMG and some future plans. This includes Memory Allocators, Filesystems, LCR news, Work on both gcc and clang based toolchains, Increased participation in upstream development as well as a quick overview of some upcoming topics. Kernel possible topics: Generic Build: where we are at.
Presentations & Videos: http://connect.linaro.org/resource/las16/las16-209
LNG
LAS16-401: Accelerating applications with OFP+ODP: highlighting NGINX, OpenSSL and L3FWD
OpenDataPlane provides a portable framework for data plane acceleration that is the basis for higher-level functions such as the full IP protocol stack provided by OpenFastPath (OFP). ODP+OFP in turn can be used to offer acceleration to applications like the open source NGiNX web server. This talk discusses experiences using these tools with a focus on the performance and scaling benefits of using ODP and OFP.
Presentations & Videos: http://connect.linaro.org/resource/las16/las16-401/
LAS16-405: OpenDataPlane: Software Defined Dataplane leader
You may think OpenDataPlane and DPDK are somewhat equivalent. But they are not. OpenDataPlane is about Software Defined Dataplanes while DPDK is a Software Dataplane. A Software Defined Dataplane can control a hardware only Dataplane in a way that packets can go from input port to output port without reaching a CPU core. With Software Dataplanes , all packets have to reach a CPU core. As a result, one vendor could leverage a Software Defined Dataplane to build a 100Tbps network box while it is not possible with a Software Dataplane.
Presentations & Videos: http://connect.linaro.org/resource/las16/las16-405/
LAS16-409: Time Sensitive Networking: kernel modifications for automotive/industrial
Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) is a set of protocols and extensions that allow precise control of traffic latencies over standard Ethernet and is of growing importance in Automotive, Industrial, and Professional Audio/Video domains. This talk provides an overview of the topic and will include a dialog to help set priorities and next steps for work in this area with other interested groups.
Presentations & Videos: http://connect.linaro.org/resource/las16/las16-409/
We hope you join us for our next Linaro Connect to be held in March 2017. Details and registration will be available soon.