Linaro

Linaro is an engineering organization that works on free and open-source software such as the Linux kernel, the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC), power management, graphics and multimedia interfaces for the Arm family of instruction sets and implementations thereof as well as for the Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA). The company provides a collaborative engineering forum for companies to share engineering resource and funding to solve common problems on Arm software.

Linaro
FoundedJune 3, 2010 (2010-06-03)
TypeEngineering organization
990027324
Registration no.07180318
FocusOpen-source software for the ARM architecture
Location
Members
22
Key people
Li Gong, David Rusling, Rob Booth
Websitelinaro.org

Linaro works on software that is close to the silicon such as kernel, multimedia, power management, graphics and security. The company aims to provide stable, tested tools and code for multiple software distributions to use to reduce low-level fragmentation of embedded Linux software.[1] It also provides engineering and investment in upstream open source projects and support to silicon companies in upstreaming code to be used with their system-on-a-chips (SoC). Since the 3.10 Linux kernel release, Linaro has consistently been listed in the top ten contributors to the Linux Kernel.[2]

Every six months, Linaro hosts the engineering conference Linaro Connect, where leading hardware and software companies in the Arm ecosystem come together to collaborate, hack and develop technical road maps and strategy.

History

The founding of Linaro was announced at Computex in June 2010 by Arm, Freescale Semiconductor, IBM, Samsung, ST-Ericsson, and Texas Instruments in a joint press conference.[3] Linaro was formed to provide ”new resources and industry alignment for open source software developers using Linux on the world’s most sophisticated semiconductor System-on-Chips (SoCs).”[4] The aim was to enable device manufacturers to get products to market faster by freeing up engineering time spent on non-differentiating, low-level software, speeding up development time and improving performance.[5] Since its formation, Linaro has continued to deliver tools, security and Linux kernel quality to the Arm ecosystem as a whole. In addition, the company has created groups tasked with addressing fragmentation in the following market segments: Datacenter & Cloud, IoT & Embedded, Edge & Fog Computing, Consumer (Android), Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Vehicles.


In 2012, Linaro formed the Linaro Datacenter & Cloud Group (formerly known as the Linaro Enterprise Group) to drive adoption of Arm in the server market.[6] In February 2013, Linaro launched the Linaro Networking Group, tasked with “accelerating Linux development for Arm processors in cloud and mobile infrastructure”.[7] This group went on to start the OpenDataPlane initiative which “defined a set of APIs to be used across the full range of processor architectures and networking offloads available”.[8] In 2018, project governance of the OpenDataPlane project was moved to the Openfastpath Foundation.[9]

In February 2014, Linaro formed the Linaro Security Working group to “create open source Android and Linux reference designs for Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) technology.”[10] Shortly after its formation, the Security Working Group took over project governance of OP-TEE (Open Portable Trusted Execution Environment), initially a proprietary TEE project developed by ST-Ericsson.[11] In May 2014, Linaro launched the Linaro Digital Home Group, focused on Arm-based media gateways and STBs (Set Top Boxes).[12] A few months later in July 2014, the Linaro Consumer Group (formerly known as the Linaro Mobile Group) was formed to consolidate and optimize open source software for mobile platforms on Arm.[13]

In 2015, Linaro launched the 96Boards initiative, the “first open hardware specification that provides a platform for the delivery of compatible low cost, small footprint 32-bit and 64-bit Cortex-A boards from the full range of Arm SoC vendors”[14] In 2016, Linaro launched the Linaro IoT and Embedded Group, with the aim of developing “end-to-end open source reference software for IoT devices and applications.”[15]

In 2018, Linaro restructured the engineering groups to align with the technological landscape. As a result, the Linaro Networking Group and the Linaro Digital Home Group were both disbanded and the Linaro Edge & Fog Computing Group created. Linaro also launched two strategic initiatives - one focused on Artificial Intelligence[16] and one focused on Autonomous Vehicles. In 2019, Li Gong was appointed Linaro CEO.[17]

Engineering Activities

Arm ecosystem Engineering

Linaro's Core Engineering Team is focused on co-maintaining the Arm ecosystem. The team works directly with upstream projects supporting core technologies including Linux Kernel core features, power management, security, toolchain support (both GCC and LLVM) and multimedia features. It makes regular public releases along with a number of reference builds of kernels and userspace for various Linux distributions (including Android and Ubuntu) on member SoCs.

The Core Engineering team also maintains the automated testing system called LAVA (Linaro Automated Validation Architecture) which Linaro developed.[18] LAVA is for automated testing of the open source components that are used in the major Linux-based software platforms. A lab running LAVA and a wide variety of Arm hardware is run for the use of Linaro and member company engineers.

Segment specific engineering

The remaining work done by Linaro is split into groups focusing on particular markets where Arm processors are used. These include:

Datacenter & Cloud

The Linaro Datacenter & Cloud Group (LDCG) focuses on Linux development for Arm servers.[19] The team's mission is to bring competing companies together to work on common solutions to problems and enable OEM's, commercial Linux providers and System on Chip (SOC) vendors to collaborate in a neutral environment on the development of the core software needed by the rapidly emerging market for low-power hyperscale servers. Since its formation, the group has evolved, now also enabling and optimizing applications and projects like Apache ODPi, OpenStack, Ceph and CNCF.

In 2016, Linaro announced the launch of the Linaro Developer Cloud, where engineers can access Arm Powered, server-class hardware running development environments such as Debian, CentOS, Ubuntu and RHEL.[20] The initiative is managed by the Linaro Datacenter & Cloud Group.

Edge & Fog Computing

The Linaro Edge & Fog Computing Group (LEDGE) is working to accelerate the adoption of Arm technologies in Edge & Fog Computing ecosystems.

Consumer

The Linaro Consumer Group (LCG) focuses on development for mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets. The primary aim of the group is to improve the AOSP ecosystem through collaborative activities that benefit members across all Android use cases.[21]

IoT & Embedded

In September 2016 Linaro announced the Linaro IoT and Embedded Group (LITE)[22] that focuses on delivering end to end open source reference software for more secure connected products, ranging from sensors and connected controllers to smart devices and gateways, for the industrial and consumer markets.

HPC

Linaro's mission in HPC is to drive the Adoption of Arm in HPC through standardisation, interoperability, orchestration and use case development. This involves automating OpenHPC CI and releases, compiler performance, SVE enablement and hardware deployment.[23]

Artificial Intelligence

Linaro launched the Artificial Intelligence Initiative in 2018 with the aim of providing best-in-class Deep Learning performance by leveraging Neural Network acceleration in IP and SoCs from the Arm ecosystem.[24]

Autonomous Vehicles

Linaro created the Autonomous Vehicles initiative in order to provide a collaborative space where automotive industry can come together to work on common problems.[25]

96Boards

In February 2015, Linaro formed the Linaro Community Boards Group (LCG)[26] to support the new 96Boards initiative. 96Boards is an open platform specification that provides a platform for the delivery of compatible low-cost, small footprint 32-bit and 64-bit Cortex-A boards.

A fixed set of minimum interfaces are required by the specifications, for example the Consumer Edition (CE) specification requires standard USB, micro-SD, HDMI, power, and low- and high-speed peripheral connectors. Vendors may add customized hardware and feature sets provided the form factor and minimum set of interfaces are supported. Since the original Consumer Edition (CE) release there have been specifications for Enterprise (EE), IoT (IE) and SoM developed.

On April 27, 2017, a board adhering to the 96Board Consumer Edition Open Standard became a development platform for the Android Open Source Project (AOSP).[27][28]

Specifications and implementations

As of August 2019, there are four published 96Boards specifications for low-cost Armv7-A and Armv8-A development boards[29]:

  • The Consumer Edition (CE) targets the mobile, embedded and digital home segments.
  • The Enterprise Edition (EE) targets the networking and server segments.
  • The Internet of Things Edition (IE) is designed to support development in the IoT space.
  • The SoM Edition (SoM) is focused on Wireless and Compute solutions.

Platforms

Linaro runs and continuously tests its output on member platforms. For the Armv7-A code, these include TI's OMAP 3 and OMAP 4, Samsung's Exynos, and ST-Ericsson's NovaThor U8500. For development on platforms prior to silicon availability, e.g. big.LITTLE development starting at the end of 2011 and Armv8-A work begun in 2012.

Products
Linaro
Initial release10 November 2010 (2010-11-10)[30]
Stable release
13.11 / 28 November 2013 (2013-11-28)
PlatformArmv7-A
LicenseEPL (default) and other licences
Websitelinaro.org

There are two types of software downloads available from Linaro:

  1. There are monthly versions of upstream software, such as GCC or QEMU.
  2. Linaro maintains public staging trees of upstream code they are working on.

License

All code developed within Linaro working groups is open source and therefore available under standard Open Source Initiative (OSI) license terms. For more details see Linaro Membership Rules and Linaro Articles of Association.[31]

References
  1. "Linaro seeks to simplify Arm Linux landscape". Lwn.net. 2010-06-09. Retrieved 2012-07-22.
  2. "Statistics from the 5.2 kernel — and before [LWN.net]". lwn.net. Retrieved 2019-08-06.
  3. McGlaun, Shane (2010-06-03). "IBM, Freescale, Samsung Form Linaro to Aid in Developing Arm-compatible Software". Dailytech.com. Archived from the original on 2013-01-07. Retrieved 2012-07-22.
  4. "ARM, Samsung, IBM, Freescale, TI and more join to form Linaro, speed rollout of Linux-based devices". Engadget. Retrieved 2019-08-06.
  5. linaro (2010-06-03). "Arm, Freescale, IBM, Samsung, ST-Ericsson and Texas Instruments Form New Company to Speed the Rollout of Linux-Based Devices". Linaro. Retrieved 2019-08-06.
  6. Ankerholz, Amber. "Linaro Enterprise Group Formed » Linux Magazine". Linux Magazine. Retrieved 2019-08-06.
  7. linaro (2013-02-20). "Networking Leaders Collaborate to Maximize Choice, Performance and Power Efficiency". Linaro. Retrieved 2019-08-06.
  8. "About". Retrieved 2019-08-06.
  9. "About". Retrieved 2019-08-06.
  10. "Linaro tackles Android and Linux security". LinuxGizmos.com. 2014-02-21. Retrieved 2019-08-06.
  11. "Open Portable Trusted Execution Environment". OP-TEE. Retrieved 2019-08-06.
  12. "Linaro forms digital media group". LinuxGizmos.com. 2014-05-30. Retrieved 2019-08-06.
  13. shovan (2015-05-01). "Google ATAP joins Linaro Mobile Group to extend collaboration in Project Ara". Linaro. Retrieved 2019-08-06.
  14. linaro (2015-02-09). "Linaro announces 96Boards initiative to accelerate Arm software development". Linaro. Retrieved 2019-08-06.
  15. "Linaro beams LITE at Internet of Things devices". LinuxGizmos.com. 2016-09-30. Retrieved 2019-08-06.
  16. linaro (2018-09-17). "Linaro announces launch of Machine Intelligence Initiative". Linaro. Retrieved 2019-08-06.
  17. linaro (2019-01-03). "Linaro announces appointment of new CEO Li Gong". Linaro. Retrieved 2019-08-06.
  18. Linaro Limited (2011-05-27). "Linaro completes first year with demonstrations of Linaro Evaluation Builds for Android and Ubuntu and introduction of new partner program". Linaro.org. Archived from the original on 2013-01-07. Retrieved 2012-07-22.
  19. Linaro Limited (2012-11-01). "Industry leaders-collaborate to accelerate software ecosystem for Arm servers and join Linaro". Linaro.org. Archived from the original on 2013-01-16. Retrieved 2013-01-15.
  20. "Linaro Developer Cloud". Developer Cloud. Retrieved 2019-08-06.
  21. "Consumer". Linaro. 2019-08-06. Retrieved 2019-08-06.
  22. Linaro Limited (2016-09-26). "Linaro Announces LITE – Collaborative Software Engineering for the Internet of Things (IoT)". Linaro.org. Retrieved 2015-09-26.
  23. "High Performance Computing". Linaro. 2019-08-06. Retrieved 2019-08-06.
  24. linaro (2018-09-17). "Linaro announces launch of Machine Intelligence Initiative". Linaro. Retrieved 2019-08-06.
  25. "Autonomous Vehicles". Linaro. 2019-08-06. Retrieved 2019-08-06.
  26. Linaro Limited (2015-02-09). "Linaro announces Actions Technology as a founding member of the Linaro Community Boards Group". Linaro.org. Retrieved 2015-02-09.
  27. "Using Reference Boards".
  28. "Huawei develops ARM-Android open source platform for Linaro". 2017-04-27.
  29. "Specifications". 96Boards. Retrieved 2019-08-06.
  30. Bennett, Jamie (2010-11-10). "Linaro 10.11 Final released". Retrieved 2013-12-02.
  31. Linaro Limited. "Linaro presentations and documents for download". Linaro.org. Archived from the original on 2013-01-07. Retrieved 2012-07-22.
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