Ubuntu on ARM and OMAP
Past presence and future of the Ubuntu ARM port
Ubuntu on ARM and OMAP
The Past
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Jaunty (9.04)
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Karmic (9.10)
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Initial Ubuntu ARM port using ARMv5
No other significant changes vs. Debian
Supported SoCs: Freescale Babbage, Marvell Dove
Switch to ARMv6
Turn on vfp
Supported SoCs: Freescale Babbage, Marvell Dove
Lucid (10.04)
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Switch to ARMv7
Default to thumb2
Supported SoCs Freescale Babbage, Marvell Dove, TI Beagle
Ubuntu on ARM and OMAP
The Presence
Based on the 2D Netbook images to which we switched as default
image with the lucid (10.04) release, there is now work going on to
not require debian-installer/ubiquity but instead have the image
preinstalled and ready to go after writing it to SD card.
The current development focus lies on OMAP4 hardware while
OMAP3 support will go on.
The upcoming images will be prepared to easily install all
necessary software for a smooth 3D experience.
Ubuntu on ARM and OMAP
The Future
Shortly after the Lucid release Linaro entered the stage.
Linaro works inside the Ubuntu infrastructure and develops things
like cross compilation tools, toolchain improvements, more
unification in the ARM environment (one kernel tree to rule them
all, unified bootloader code etc) as well as providing 3D testsuites
and work on graphics driver integration
The Ubuntu ARM team works closely with Linaro and will include
works from the Linaro team in all future images (and indeed you
will find the x-compile environment on x86 Ubuntu systems)
Ubuntu on ARM and OMAP
The OMAP images
With Lucid we provided very roughly made Beagleboard images
using the typical ubuntu installation (which took about 2h for a
netbook image on the 256M Beagles).
In Maverick the approach was completely changed, images are
pre-partitioned and preinstalld, they just expand to teh full size of
the SD card on first boot and then fire up a configuration tool to set
up localization and user.
With 256M being far below the default HW specs for Ubuntu the
focus for these images will be Beagle XM and the Pandaboard.
Ubuntu on ARM and OMAP
The OMAP images
To support multiple SoCs with the same image Scripts will be
provided to replace the bootloader on the images while the kernel
will support multiple SoCs on a per-subarch base(OMAP3/4)
The current OMAP4 kernel is directly maintained by TI on top of
the Ubuntu git tree which guarantees the best from both worlds
(Ubuntu kernel features and TI HW support)
While the images will default to the 2D netbook user interface we
introduced in Lucid, there is also collaborative work between teh
canonical DX team and teh TI graphics team going on to make the
new clutter based Unity netbook UI work on top of the OMAP4
SGX
Ubuntu on ARM and OMAP
The 2D Netbook Launcher
Ubuntu on ARM and OMAP
The Unity Netbook Desktop
Ubuntu on ARM and OMAP
Resources
IRC:
#ubuntu-arm on irc.freenode.net
Meetings:
Weekly every wednesday at 13:00 UTC
in #ubuntu-meeting
Images:
Daily builds at:
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-netbook/ports/dailypreinstalled/
Reach me under:
Oliver Grawert <ogra@ubuntu.com>
Ubuntu on ARM and OMAP
Questions ?