Conference – Page 3

Bootlin at Live Embedded Event, 3rd edition

Tomorrow, on May 18, the third edition of Live Embedded Event will take place. Live Embedded Event is a free and fully online conference, dedicated to embedded topics at large. One can register directly online to receive a link to attend the conference.

Bootlin will be participating to this third edition, with 3 talks from 3 different Bootlin engineers:

Michael Opdenacker on LLVM tools for the Linux kernel, at 12:00 UTC+2 in Track 3. Details: Recent versions of Linux can be compiled with LLVM’s Clang C language compiler, in addition to Gcc, at least on today’s most popular CPU architectures. This presentation will show you how. Cross-compiling works differently with Clang: no architecture-specific cross-compiling toolchain is required. We will compare the Clang and Gcc compiled kernels, in terms of size and boot time. More generally, we will discuss the concrete benefits brought by being able to compile the kernel with this alternative compiler, in particular the LLVM specific kernel Makefile targets: clang-tidy and clang-analyzer.
Grégory Clement on AMP on Cortex A9 with Linux and OpenAMP, at 15:30 UTC+2 in Track 2. Details: While, usually, the Cortex A9 cores are used in SMP, one could want use one of the core to run an other OS. In this case the system becomes AMP. Typically, it allows running a dedicated real time OS on a core. This presentation will show the step that allow having this support using open sources stacks. First we will see what OpenAMP is, then how the Linux kernel can communicate with external OS using remote proc message, and finally what to adapt in the Linux kernel and OpenAMP in order to support the usage of a Cortex A9. This was experimented on an i.MX6 but the solution presented has the advantage to be easily adapted on any SoC using Cortex A9.
Thomas Perrot on PKCS#11 with OP-TEE at 15:00 UTC+2 in Track 2. Details:
PKCS#11 is a standard API that allows to manage cryptographic tokens, regardless of the platform such as Hardware Security Modules, Trusted Plaform Modules or smart cards. Moreover, modern processors offer a secure area, named Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) that allows the isolation of some operations, datas and devices to guarantee their integrity and confidentiality. OP-TEE is an open source implementation of Trusted Execution Environment that runs in parallel with the operating system, as a companion. In this talk, we will first introduce PKCS#11, then OP-TEE, and finally look at how PKCS#11 operations can be performed through OP-TEE, and what are the benefits. Our presentation will be illustrated with examples based on the NXP i.MX8QXP platform, but should be applicable to other platforms that have OP-TEE support.

Join us at Live Embedded Event, and discover our talks as well as the many other talks from other speakers!

Bootlin at Embedded Recipes and Kernel Recipes 2022, Paris

After 2 editions cancelled due to the pandemic, the famous Embedded Recipes and Kernel Recipes conferences are back: they will take place end of May and beginning of June in Paris!

Bootlin will be present at this event, with several engineers from the team participating:

Paul Kocialkowski and Michael Opdenacker will be attending both Embedded and Kernel Recipes
Kamel Bouhara will be attending Embedded Recipes
Grégory Clement will be attending Kernel Recipes

We look forward to meeting you at this event! If you want to discuss business or career opportunities with Bootlin, do not hesitate to meet Paul, Michael, Kamel or Grégory during Embedded and/or Kernel Recipes!

Bootlin at the Embedded Linux Conference North America 2022

Bootlin CEO Thomas Petazzoni and COO Alexandre Belloni will both be attending the next Embedded Linux Conference North America, on June 21-24 in Austin, Texas.

In addition, both Thomas and Alexandre will be speaking at the event:

Thomas Petazzoni will give a talk Buildroot: what’s new?, providing an update on the improvements and new features in the Buildroot build system that have been integrated over the past two years
Alexandre Belloni will give a talk Yocto Project Autobuilders and the SWAT Team, during which he will explain what’s happening behind in the scenes in the Yocto Project to review and validate contributions before they are integrated.

Thomas and Alexandre will also naturally be available during the event to discuss business or career opportunities, so do not hesitate to get in touch if you’re interested.

Finally, prior to the event, Thomas Petazzoni will be in the Bay Area on June 13-15, also available for meetings or discussions.

Bootlin at the SIDO event in Paris, November 10

The SIDO is a large event dedicated to IoT, AI, robotics in Paris, and it takes place next to the Open Source Experience event, which as the name suggest is dedicated to all things related to open-source. For Bootlin whose activity is precisely at the junction between embedded systems/IoT and open-source, being present at this combined event made complete sense.

Therefore, Bootlin CEO Thomas Petazzoni will be present at SIDO on November 10, 2021. If you’re interested in discussing with Bootlin about:

Engineering services, and how Bootlin can help you with Embedded Linux development, Linux kernel development and upstreaming, boot time optimization, real-time, Yocto, Buildroot, and anything related to Embedded Linux;
Training services, and how Bootlin can help your company, team and engineers grow their skills in the field of Embedded Linux;
Career opportunities, both full-time positions and internships

Then feel free to contact us to schedule a meeting!

Embedded Linux Conference 2021 schedule published, 4 talks from Bootlin

The schedule for the Embedded Linux Conference 2021 has been published and features 4 talks proposed by Bootlin !

This year, the ELC will take place in Seatle but will be organised as a hybrid virtual/physical event due to the pandemic. As usual the ELC will have a really interesting schedule with 46 talks covering a wide range of topics: build system, kernel graphics, boot process, security, etc.

See below the details of Bootlin talks that will be presented as virtual talks.

Advanced Camera Support on Allwinner SoCs with Mainline Linux – Paul Kocialkowski, Bootlin

Capturing pixels with a camera involves a number of steps, from the ADC reading the photosites in the image sensor to the final pixel values that are ready for encode/display, with various processing and transmission taking place along the way. While simple cases put most of the heavy lifting on the image sensor’s side (through its embedded processor) and use a simple parallel bus for transmission, advanced cases require more work to be done outside of the sensor. In addition, modern high-speed transmission buses also bring-in more complexity. This talk will present how support for such an advanced use case was integrated into the mainline Linux kernel, using the Media and V4L2 APIs. It involves supporting a sensor using the raw Bayer RGB format, transmission over the MIPI CSI-2 bus as well as support for the Image Signal Processor (ISP) found on Allwinner platforms. A specific focus will be set on this ISP, with details about the features it implements as well as the internal and userspace APIs that are used to support it. The integration between all of the involved components will also be highlighted.

Talk given by Paul Kocialkowski, at 4:50 PM PDT on September 27, 2021. See this talk in the schedule.

Embedded Linux Nuggets found in Buildroot Package Eldorado

To this date, Buildroot supports more than 2,500 packages, selected for the ability to run them on embedded Linux systems. We’ve gone exploring this Eldorado, and came back with multiple nuggets of all shapes and colors. Join this playful presentation and as if you were still a new comer to the embedded Linux community, discover lesser known tools and resources that can add to the functionality of your systems or make your life as a developer easier and more fun. Whenever possible, each resource will be shown through a quick demonstration or video capture. During this talk, I’ll also open an Etherpad for all participants to share their favorite solutions with the rest of the audience, especially the ones that deserve to be better known, and could be worth supporting in Buildroot too. We will close the session by an open review and discussion based on the nuggets shared by the audience.

Talk given by Michael Opdenacker, at 12:00 PM PDT on September 28, 2021. See this talk in the schedule.

I3C in Tomorrow’s Design

I3C is the new bus specification by the MIPI Alliance. While being compatible with I2C devices, this bus brings a colorful set of new features such as dynamic address assignment, in-band interrupts, hot-join, master handover and many others. It was improved once again recently with the 1.1 version of the specification which brought timer based sampling synchronization and targeted reset. All this make the I3C bus a good candidate for a number of new situations compared to its I2C cousin. It is then more and more being included in new hardware designs. With this talk we would like to propose a reminder of the various components and concepts of this relatively new bus. We will then detail how it is implemented in the Linux kernel with a short guided tour in the I3C core. Since the previous talk on I3C in 2018 by Boris Brezillon, I3C has now become a reality and starts to become available in real hardware designs. This talk will recap the basics of I3C as well as add details of the 1.1 specification and improvements in the Linux support.

Talk given by Miquèl Raynal, at 4:00 PM PDT on September 28, 2021. See this talk in the schedule.

OP-TEE: When Linux Loses Control

OP-TEE is an open-source Trusted Execution Environment designed to be executed in a secure context as a companion to a non secure Linux system. But what happens to the peripherals control since OP-TEE can forbid the non-secure OS to access them ? When running with a TEE, Linux isn’t in charge anymore of some critical peripherals and relies on the TEE to access and configure them. There are multiple protocols and methods to access these peripherals that are supported by Linux (SCMI, PSCI, SMC). Supporting them for a SoC requires understanding the various interactions between the systems and how to modify them to fit that new control scheme. Additionally, the configuration must be passed from OP-TEE to Linux to allow a seamless integration. This talk will cover the boot process to start a secure system and the modifications needed to run Linux when OP-TEE is in charge of some peripherals. The work that has been done for a specific SoC will be described to have a tangible real-world use-case.

Talk given by Clément Léger, at 12:00 PM PDT on September 29, 2021. See this talk in the schedule.

Slides and videos of Bootlin talks at Live Embedded Event #2

The second edition of Live Embedded Event took place on June 3rd, exactly 6 months after the first edition. Even though there were a few issues with the online platform, it was once again great to learn new things about embedded, and share some of the work we’ve been doing at Bootlin on various topics. For the next edition, we plan to switch to a different online platform, hopefully providing a better experience.

But in the mean time, all videos of the event have been posted on the Youtube Channel of the event. The talks from Bootlin have been posted on Bootlin’s Youtube Channel.

Indeed, in addition to being part of the organization committee, Bootlin prepared and delivered 5 talks as part of Live Embedded Event, covering different topics we have worked on in the recent months for our customers.

Understanding U-Boot Falcon Mode and adding support for new boards, Michael Opdenacker

Slides [PDF]

Introduction to RAUC, Kamel Bouhara

Slides [PDF]

Security vulnerability tracking tools in Buildroot, Thomas Petazzoni

Slides [PDF]

Secure boot in embedded Linux systems, Thomas Perrot

Slides [PDF]

Device Tree overlays and U-boot extension board management, Köry Maincent

Slides [PDF]

CFP for the Embedded Linux Conference 2021 ends June 13th

Initially planned to take place in Dublin, Ireland, the unique edition this year of the Embedded Linux Conference will take place in Seattle, US and virtually from September 27 to September 30, 2021. See also the conference website. Bootlin CEO Thomas Petazzoni is again a member of the program committee for this edition of ELC.

This kind of event is only possible thanks to the talks proposed by its participants! As detailed on the Call For Papers, the last date to submit your proposals is June 13, 2021. There is really a wide range of suggested topics, and ELC is an excellent place to talk about advancements in the Linux kernel for embedded platforms, in user-space libraries and stacks relevant to embedded, about practical experiences in using Linux in embedded devices, about real-time, boot time, power management, build systems, open hardware, and more.

We look forward to seeing your proposals for ELC!

CFP open for Live Embedded Event #2

Back in December 2020, together with Smile, Logilin and Theoris, Bootlin organized and participated to the first edition of Live Embedded Event, a new 1-day online conference focused on embedded systems topics. Following the success of this first edition, we are now organizing a second edition of Live Embedded Event, which will take place on June 3rd, 2021. Like the previous edition, this event is free.

The call for papers is open, and we are looking for talk proposals on a wide range of topics:

Software update and provisioning
Network connectivity (Long range / Short range)
Edge Computing / ML-AI
Security & Safety
RTOS and Embedded frameworks
Firmware, BSP and Bootloader
Internet Of Things / Cyber Physical Systems
Hardware: system-on-chips, interfaces, FPGA, open hardware
Linux kernel
Build systems: Yocto, OpenWrt, Buildroot
Development process, methods and tools
Embedded Linux
Real time

Two talk formats are proposed: 45 minutes talk + 15 minutes of questions, or 25 minutes talk + 5 minutes of questions. If you want to get a feeling of the talks that were accepted for the first edition, look at the Youtube channel of the event.

We look forward to your proposals for Live Embedded Event #2, and of course, to your participation!

Videos and slides of Bootlin presentations at FOSDEM 2021

The videos from Bootlin’s presentations earlier this month at FOSDEM 2021 are now publicly available. Once again, FOSDEM was a busy event, even if it was online for once. As in most technical conferences, Bootlin engineers volunteered to share their experience and research by giving two talks.

Maxime Chevallier – Network Performance in the Linux Kernel, Getting the most out of the Hardware

Abstract: The networking stack is one of the most complex and optimized subsystems in the Linux kernel, and for a good reason. Between the wild range of applications, the complexity and variety of the networking hardware, getting good performance while keeping the stack easily usable from userspace has been a long-standing challenge.

Nowadays, complex Network Interface Controllers (NICs) can be found even on small embedded systems, bringing powerful features that were previously found only in the server world closest to day to day users.

This is a good opportunity to dive into the Linux Networking stack, to discover what is used to make networking as fast as possible, both by using all the features of the hardware and by implementing some clever software tricks.

In this talk, we cover these various techniques, ranging from simple batch processing with NAPI, queue management with RSS, RPS, XPS and so on, flow steering and filtering with ethool and TC, to finish with the newest big change that is XDP.

We dive into these various techniques and see how to configure them to squeeze the most out of your hardware, and discover that what was previously in the realm of datacenters and huge computers can now also be applied to embedded linux development.

Here are PDF slides for this presentation.

Michael Opdenacker – Embedded Linux from Scratch in 45 minutes, on RISC-V

Abstract: Discover how to build your own embedded Linux system completely from scratch. In this presentation and tutorial, we show how to build a custom toolchain (Buildroot), bootloader (opensbi / U-Boot) and kernel (Linux), that one can run on a system with the new RISV-V open Instruction Set Architecture emulated by QEMU. We also show how one can build a minimal root filesystem by oneself thanks to the BusyBox project. The presentation ends by showing how to control the system remotely through a tiny webserver. The approach is to provide only the files that are strictly necessary. That’s all the interest of embedded Linux: one can really control and understand everything that runs on the system, and see how simple the system can be. That’s much easier than trying to understand how a GNU/Linux system works from a distribution as complex as Debian!

The presentation also shares details about what’s specific to the RISC-V architecture, in particular about the various stages of the boot process. This presentation shares all the hardware (!), source code build instructions and demo binaries needed to reproduce everything at home, and add specific improvements. Most of the details are also useful to people using other hardware architectures (in particular arm and arm64).

It’s probably the first time a tutorial manages to show so many aspects of embedded Linux in less than an hour. See by yourself! At least, that’s for sure the first one demonstrating how to boot Linux from U-Boot in a RISC-V system emulated by QEMU.

Here are PDF slides for this presentation.

Device Tree 101 webinar slides and videos

As we announced back in January, we have offered in partnership with ST on February 9 a free webinar titled Device Tree 101, which gives a detailed introduction to the Device Tree, an important mechanism used in the embedded Linux ecosystem to describe hardware platforms. We were happy to see the interest around this topic and webinar.

Bootlin has always shared freely and openly all its technical contents, including our training materials, and this webinar is no exception. We are therefore sharing the slides and video recording of both sessions of this webinar:

Thanks to everyone who participated and thanks to ST for the support in organizing this event! Do not hesitate to share and/or like our video, and to suggest us other topics that would be useful to cover in future webinars!