Tag: kernel

Linux 6.14 released, Bootlin contributions inside

Penguin coding, AI generatedLinux 6.14 was released last week, and as usual, we recommend checking out the LWN articles covering the 6.14 merge window (part 1, part 2) to get a good sense of the main new features and updates in this release.

Bootlin engineers have once again been busy contributing to this kernel release, with 125 commits authored by Bootlin engineers, and 60 patches reviewed and merged by Bootlin engineers who are maintainers of specific parts of the Linux kernel.

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Bootlin at Netdev 0x19, THE Technical Conference on Linux Networking

Netdev 0x19The Netdev conference is THE annual event dedicated to Linux networking, featuring numerous talks, presentations, and discussions on all aspects of network support in the Linux kernel and ecosystem. It takes place this year on March 10-13 in Zagreb, Croatia.

Given the importance of these topics to Bootlin, our engineers Köry Maincent and Romain Gantois are attending in person. Köry has contributed to Linux’s new Power over Ethernet support and improvements in PTP timestamping flexibility, while Romain is actively working on SFP support. Additionally, Bootlin networking expert Maxime Chevallier will be following the conference remotely.

Attending Netdev is essential for Bootlin, enabling our engineers to stay at the forefront of Linux networking advancements, collaborate with key contributors, and take part in discussions shaping the future of networking in the Linux kernel. By actively participating, we ensure that Bootlin continues to make meaningful contributions to the ecosystem while strengthening our expertise to better support our customers and open-source initiatives.

Bootlin Training: In-person public sessions are back!

Icon from www.flaticon.comBootlin training courses have long been recognized for their quality and effectiveness. Before the COVID era, we offered in-person sessions either on-site at customer locations for larger groups or as public sessions at our facilities, bringing together engineers from multiple companies. However, with the onset of the pandemic, we transitioned exclusively to online training. Since then, we have resumed in-person sessions at customer locations, but public sessions have yet to make a comeback—until now.

We’re excited to announce the return of our in-person public training sessions! The first session will focus on Linux kernel driver development and is scheduled for June 16-20, 2025, in Lyon, France. This course will be conducted by none other than Bootlin engineer and Linux kernel maintainer Grégory Clement.

For participants who prefer an in-person learning experience, this session provides a valuable opportunity for direct interaction with our trainer and fellow attendees. It’s an excellent alternative to online sessions, fostering deeper engagement and collaboration.

Seats are available at the standard rate of 2100 EUR per participant, with a discounted rate of 2000 EUR per participant under certain conditions.

Beyond this Linux kernel driver development in-person public session, we have plans to also open in-person public sessions for our Embedded Linux system development, Yocto Project/OpenEmbedded system development and Debugging, tracing, profiling and performance analysis with Linux training courses. Do not hesitate to contact us if you’re interested. Your feedback will help us gauge interest and schedule these sessions accordingly.

Linux 6.12 released, Bootlin contributions inside

Linux 6.12 has been released during the past week-end, pretty much as expected after 7 release candidates. As usual, we recommend our readers to go through the amazing LWN.net articles covering the 6.12 merge window (part 1, part 2) to get a high-level overview of the major new features and improvements in this 6.12 release. One of the prominent improvement in this release, as far as the embeded industry is concerned, is obviously the merge of the final bits enabling PREEMPT_RT… which already caused our Real-Time Linux with PREEMPT_RT training course to be updated.

As usual, Bootlin again contributed to this release: with 118 commits merged, we are again in the top 20 contributing companies! Also, in addition to contributing our own code, several of our engineers are also maintainers, and as part of this work those engineers review and merge patches from other contributors. As part of this effort, for this 6.12 release:

  • Alexandre Belloni, as the RTC and I3C subsystems maintainer, merged 29 patches from other contributors
  • Miquèl Raynal, as the MTD subsystem co-maintainer, merged 24 patches from other contributors
  • Grégory Clement, as the Marvell platform maintainer, merged 4 patches from other contributors

Overall, 13 active Bootlin engineers made contributions to this release, which on a total staff of 24 people, means that more than half of our team has contributed to the Linux kernel for 6.12, a good indication of our strong focus on Linux kernel development and upstreaming!

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Linux 6.11 released, Bootlin contributions inside

Linux 6.11 has been released a week ago, the day before Open Source Summit Europe started, but as a large part of the Bootlin team was attending this conference and the immediately following Linux Plumbers conference, we are only posting now our usual blog post about our Linux 6.11 contributions.

As usual, we warmly recommend our readers to look at the articles from LWN.net covering the 6.11 merge window (part 1, part 2) to get a good high-level overview of the major new features and hardware support added in 6.11. CNX-Software also has a useful article on the 6.11 features relevant for embedded platforms.

From a Bootlin perspective, we contributed a total of 120 commits in this release, making us the 19th contributing company by number of commits, worldwide, according to the statistics. In addition to those 120 commits authored by Bootlin engineers, we reviewed and merged 76 patches from other contributors, as part of the Linux kernel maintainer role of several Bootlin engineers (Alexandre Belloni as the RTC and I3C maintainers, Miquèl Raynal as the MTD co-maintainer, and Grégory Clement as the Marvell platform maintainer).

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Linux kernel driver and Yocto training courses now on BeaglePlay

BeaglePlayLast summer, we announced the availability of our Embedded Linux course on the BeaglePlay platform.

Today, we are happy to announce the publication of our Linux kernel driver development and Yocto Project/OpenEmbedded system development courses also ported on the BeaglePlay platform.

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Linux 6.10 released, Bootlin contributions inside

Linux 6.10 was released last Sunday, following its now well-known release cadence. As usual, head over to LWN.net to have some good summary of the important features merged in this kernel release: part 1 and part 2.

LWN also published an article on statistics of the 6.10 release cycle, and Bootlin shows up in the most active employers by changed lines, with 7746 lines changed by Bootlin engineers. According to ths Kernel Patch Statistics site, we contributed 110 changes, putting us as the 19th contributing company (counting “Unknown” and “Hobbyists” as companies).

Also, in addition to the 110 patches we contributed, some of our engineers are also maintainers of different subsystems, and as such they review/merge patches contributed by others:

  • Alexandre Belloni reviewed/merged 19 patches for the I3C and RTC subsystems which he maintains
  • Grégory Clement reviewed/merged 14 patches for the Marvell ARM and ARM64 platforms that he maintains
  • Miquèl Raynal reviewed/merged 12 patches for the MTD subsystem, which he co-maintains

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Power over Ethernet (PoE) support into the official Linux Kernel

Introduction

Power over Ethernet (PoE) is a technology that combines power and data transmission over a single Ethernet cable. It simplifies the installation of networked devices like cameras, phones, and wireless access points by eliminating the need for separate power cables. PoE standards define how power is delivered alongside data, ensuring compatibility across devices. Originally denoted as “Power via MDI” (Media Dependent Interface) in the 802.3 IEEE standard, it later evolved into the recognized term “PoE” in the 2022 version of the standard. PoE equipment consists of two key components: Power Sourcing Equipment (PSE) and Powered Devices (PD).

Linux support, DENT initiative

Up until recently, the upstream Linux kernel had absolutely no support for Power over Ethernet technologies. Due to that, every hardware vendor providing PoE hardware was delivering its own vendor-specific and non-standard solution, often centered around not so great user-space libraries, with dubious integration with the rest of the Linux ecosystem and networking stack, like is unfortunately still done quite often by hardware vendors.

The DENT project, which exists under the umbrella of the Linux Foundation, aims at using the Linux Kernel, Switchdev, and other Linux based projects as the basis for building a new standardized network operating system without abstractions or overhead. Among other things supported by DENT is dentOS, a SwitchDev based NOS built on top of Open Network Linux, which includes PoE support, but based on yet another non-standard fully user-space driven solution in the name of poed, where even the HW-specific drivers are implemented in user-space.

So DENT set as a goal to implement a fully upstream solution in the Linux kernel to properly support Power over Ethernet, and contracted Bootlin to perform this development and upstreaming effort.

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Linux 6.9 released, Bootlin contributions inside!

Linux 6.9 was released last Sunday, and as usual we refer our readers to the excellent LWN.net coverage of the Linux 6.9 merge window (part 1 and part 2) to get a good overall picture of the improvements and new features brought by this release.

On our side, we contributed a total of 119 commits authored by Bootlin engineers, but we also merged a total of 95 patches from other contributors, as several Bootlin engineers as also maintainers of various drivers/subsystems in the Linux kernel.

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Linux 6.8 released, Bootlin contributions

The Linux 6.8 kernel has been released on March 10 by Linus Torvalds. As usual, we definitely recommend the coverage by LWN of the merge window for this release cycle to get a good grasp on the most important new features: first half and second half. Some work from Bootlin is briefly mentioned in those articles, such as the support for Lantiq PEF2256 (FALC56) framers, Lantiq PEF2256 (FALC56) pin controllers, and Techwell TW9900 video decoders.

With a total of 135 commits contributed by Bootlin engineers during this release cycle, we have been much more active than for the previous 6.7 release. This allows Bootlin to show in the recently published Development statistics for 6.8, as the 17th contributing company by number of commits, and 13th contributing company by number of changed lines.

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