== Dev Week -- Ubuntu ARM and the OMAP4 images -- ogra -- Wed, Mar 2nd, 2011 == {{{#!irc [18:02] hey hey [18:03] so i will give a short insight into Ubuntu ARM, the team and the images we care for, i dont expect this to take much time so there should be plenty of time for questions (if there are any) [18:04] the ubuntu arm team (as the name suggests) cares for the arm port in ubuntu [18:04] we build images for different types of arm hardware [18:04] target audience for these images are endusers [18:05] and we try to make them an identical experience to any other ubuntu architecture, so you can expect identical functionallity as in any other ubuntu install [18:06] initially the ubuntu arm team consisted of 8 developers that cared for the whole archive [18:06] all builds (and their failures) as well as all images had to be maintained by this small bunch of people === daker is now known as Ghost_of_daker [18:07] recently ARM recognized how important ubuntu was for them, so they started linaro ... [18:07] linaro is a consortium of companies taking care of improving arm and the arm experience [18:08] i.e. nowadays if you get an arm board you will need a linux kernel from the vendor, a so called BSP [18:08] usually that has tons of incompatible changes so the kernel couldnt be merged upstream in linus tree [18:08] and you will also not run a kernel for board A on board B [18:09] linaros mission is to fix such issues [18:09] so that at some point you have someting like the linux-generic package that runs on all arm hardware [18:09] they also care about the toolchain and compiler to get the best optimization out of them [18:10] and they help a lot with failures to build from source [18:10] so since linaro is around, the work of the ubuntu-arm team got a lot easier, we stand on their sholders now [18:10] ... [18:11] over the recent releases we built images for a variety of boards ... starting with freescales imx51 babbage board, marvells dove board (which is known from the press as armada board nowadays) and the very popular beagleboard from TI === cmagina-lunch is now known as cmagina [18:12] with maverick we started to work closely with TI to make ubuntu the reference platform for their OMAP4 pandaboard [18:12] this was released in 10.10 and gets improved in 11.04 now [18:12] as architectures come and go the babbage and dove architectures vanished from our list of ports, omap 3 and 4 persist [18:13] if you want to help out with arm development i would highly suggest to take a look at the pandaboard on http://pandaboard.org [18:13] its is available for $175 and has all HW you can imagine [18:14] with the ubuntu install and the TI addons it is fully capable of playing 1080p video [18:14] so if you are intrested in arm development on ubuntu a beagleboard (see beagleboard.org) or a panda is the way to go [18:15] for people that cant afford hardware we also worked out cross ways of building and testing arm packages, the qemu-kvm-extras-static package brings all you need to run an arm chroot on your x86 boax [18:15] for testing and devevlopment thats a good start [18:16] for the highly embedded thinking people linaro offers a cross toolchain and the xdeb packages that makes it possible to cross build packages for arm on an x86 host [18:17] if you are intrested in tryinf out our images you can find install instructions and download links at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ARM/OMAP it sill always list links to the different release centric instructions [18:17] ok, enough of me babbling i think :) [18:18] there are some questions [18:18] darkdevil75 asked: arm? [18:19] yes :) [18:19] monish001 asked: arm port means arm hardware architecture platform? [18:19] right, it means the CPU you carry in your mobile phone, tablet or (rarely) in your netbook [18:19] monish001 asked: why is arm hardware important? [18:20] heh, well, as you see above it runs very transparently in many devices ... you can find arm in your dishwasher as well as in your mobile phone or the ipad [18:20] even in TVs [18:21] ARM CPUs usually eat a tenth of the power of an x86 CPU while providing the same computing power [18:21] that means you usually dont need a fan for example [18:22] within the last years ARM CPUs turned from very low profile embedded things into powerful CPUs [18:22] i'm currently typing on a netbook (toshiba ac100) that is powered by an arm dual core cpu and can easily take it up with an atom [18:22] but it only weights 700garms and has no fans [18:23] in the next years you will very likely see arm approaching the server market [18:23] in a datacenter the most power is used to keep the air condition running ... wirth arm CPUs that cost will drop significantly [18:23] ... [18:24] thats why arm is an important arch [18:24] (and in my personal opinion the future) [18:24] beachbrake asked: Why are ARM development boards more expensive? (from the point of view of a student) [18:25] well, i dont think the beagle or pandaboards are much more expensive than and intel mainboard+cpu+graphics card+network card [18:25] chadadavis asked: are compiler developers (i.e. GNU) also involved, or is Linaro also taking that upon themselves? [18:25] linaro is working with gcc upstream and if you know a bit about arm you will know about codesourcery, they are part of linaro [18:26] so all work done on the compiler is done very closely with all entities that are involved in arm gcc nowadays [18:26] bullgard asked: "recently ARM recognized how important ubuntu was for them" <- Why is ARM important for Ubuntu end users? [18:27] well, once you can buy netbooks with arm cpu and have a battery life of 3days you will know ;) [18:27] honestly though, tablets, netbooks and mobile phones are the future [18:28] while ubuntu doesnt offer any UI options for the latter two, having the distro running on such platforms enables the developer community to work on them [18:29] so you can work on your concept of porting unity to a mobile phone if you are intrested for example ;) [18:29] fisch246 asked: when will Ubuntu Server support ARM? [18:29] well, theoretically it already does [18:29] you can turn a pandaboard into a server and i.e. use it as webserver etc [18:30] practically we might work on server images in future releases, server has always been on our list of devices to support, currently we only focus on netbook though [18:30] bullgard asked: What do you mean by "low profile" in "ARM CPUs turned from very low profile embedded things into powerful CPUs"? ("low profile" appears to have several meanings in English.) [18:30] well, i actually meant "underpowered" [18:30] :) [18:31] arm CPUs in the past were designed exactly for a low power task ... i.e. run your dishwasher or your TV settop box [18:31] there was no focus in running a desktop or full server on them [18:32] (though there were many embedded servers around ... your router might run an embedded arm with a webserver UI) [18:33] over the recent years arm simply "grew up" your smartphone is as powerful as your PC was 5 years ago nowadays and you can play games you wouldnt have imagined a few years ago [18:33] (or watch HD movies or ... or ...) [18:33] bullgard asked: Is a Ubuntu image enough software or does one need additional software to run Ubuntu from an ARM board? [18:33] depends what hardware you look at [18:34] the omap3 and 4 images we provide also offer you the missing bits and pieces (closed source drivers etc) in an easy way so you can get up and running within minutes [18:35] though the bare image is always good enough to start working right away [18:35] the install isnt harder than on x86 and it doesnt behave different in userspace [18:35] balau asked: Debian is working on ARM ports, too. Is Ubuntu (and Linaro) coordinated with Debian on this front? [18:35] INDEED !!! [18:36] i just returned from the emdebian sprint this weekend where debian, linaro, ubuntu and genesi met for working on improvements of the arm port [18:36] and as with x86 debian is our upstream for packages, even though ubuntu is optimized more [18:37] ubuntu builds focus only on the last two generations of arm cpus while debian tries to be backwards compatible for a lot more boards [18:37] but that goes at the cost of performance [18:38] the first arm port in ubuntu was a nearly unmodified rebuild of debian [18:38] optimizations and architecture specific improvements happened since though [18:38] jderose asked: what hardware do you recommend for uTouch + ARM? [18:39] oh, thats hard to say since i dont know what HW utouch supports yet, i would recommend talking to the utouch guys for this [18:39] theoretically all hardware that runs on x86 will also run on arm [18:40] i.e. a usb touchscreen you attach to x86 that is supported by utouch will definitely also work on an arm device [18:40] chadadavis asked: Are licenses required to distribute the necessary drivers? [18:40] yes [18:41] powervr (which you might know as poulsbo from the intel world) is the most sold 3D chip in the arm world [18:41] sadly the situation isnt much better than with nvidia drivers here [18:41] the drivers are freely usable but not distributable in images [18:42] so we have a set of PPAs for these and a process that automatically installs them after first boot if you chose so [18:43] in cases where you have to accept an EULA this is shown and you can approve or decline it [18:43] jderose asked: speaking of drivers, embedded graphics drivers are a big concern for me... looking at ARM website, I got the impression the Mali-T604 might have fully open-source drivers... do you know if this is true? [18:43] i know there are plans that all drivers should go opensource but i dont know if this is already the case [18:44] in fact there is only one board that just came out that uses the mali engine, the linaro guys might know more about this board [18:44] abhinav19 asked: so your work involves working at the kernel level or user space packages also need to be modified ? and also, how can new developers get started if they are interested in contributing or learning ? [18:44] our work involves everything that makes up ubuntu [18:45] from the kernel up to UI we make sure everything works on the platform [18:46] while i'm not particulary a kernel guy we gave persons in the team that cover that area and we have community developers that help out as well [18:46] if you want to get started i would suggest dropping by ion #ubuntu-arm, this is the channel where we all hang out [18:47] and there is also the #linaro channel if you are more intrested in the hardcore lowlevel stuff ... like assembler, hacking on toolchains or any other bit thats very close to the hardware [18:48] jederose said he was hoping i could give him a recommendation for a touchscreen regarding his question above [18:48] i cant really, what i know is that the liliput displays work quite well [18:49] they are mainly for car entertainment, but they are cheap and can do full HD [18:49] (and come with a USB touchscreen by default) [18:49] afaik there is no actual recommendation from TI for pandaboard touchscreens [18:50] you could ask in #pandaboard though :) [18:50] so there are 10min to go but no questions left [18:51] i hope i could give some insight in the ubuntu world of arm, linaro and the omap images, thanks for the questions :) [18:51] There are 10 minutes remaining in the current session. [18:51] tsimpson, i think i'm done, feel free to take the stage [18:52] give me a minute to get my notes :) [18:53] oh, there is another question ... [18:53] i can answer while tsimpson gets his notes [18:53] jderose asked: have the Linaro members (TI, Freescale, IBM, Samsung, etc)... been sympathetic to the importance of fully open-source drivers? Are you optimistic about improvements on this front? [18:53] i think tehy see the need but after all they are all business people indeed [18:54] in fact though, the powervr situation changed a lot during the last year [18:54] part of that is because of TI pushing for more openess [18:55] abhinav19 asked: thanks. well I dont have the capacity to buy ARM hardware right now. So if one wants to do application level development, is there some thing like a simulator or emulator to run on PC ? [18:55] yes, as i noted above, there is the qemu-kvm-extras-static package that gives you a chroot ... and indeed you can run qemu VMs [18:56] There are 5 minutes remaining in the current session. [18:57] if there are remaining questions, feel free to come by in #ubuntu-arm at any time, the team is there and happily helps }}}