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So the wraps are off on this one - Ubuntu will soon come to a ARMv7-based SoC near you. Here are the press releases from ARM and Canonical if you are into reading those. I'm going to be adding support for several popular ARM-based devices to the Ubuntu kernel soon. Please refer to my other post to get familiar with nomenclature in the ARM world if you need. If you've followed Debian, they've had an armel port (ARM-endian-little), based on the new ARM ABI for a while now. A link to the excellent Debian EABI is in order for people interested in the nitty-gritty of ABIs. The Debian armel port is compiled for armv4t to support every ARM EABI-capable processor. Ubuntu is going to concentrate on ARMv7-based processors, including the Cortex-A8 and Cortex-A9. In practice, that would mean bootstrapping the distro for ARMv5 architecture and then optimizing critical libraries and applications for the ARMv7 architecture.

The ARM processor architecture naming/numbering scheme is confusing. Architecture version Family Sample devices ARMv4 ARM7 (and some ARM 9s) iPod, Lego NXT ARMv5 ARM9 OMAP1 (Nokia 770), Nintendo DS Xscale Sharp Zaurus, Palm Tungsten, Gumstix ARMv6 ARM11 OMAP2(N95, N800, N810), iPhone ARMv7 Cortex-A8/A9 OMAP3, no major devices yet The table above is a cheatsheet that I use to get my numbers straight. For all the gory details refer to wikipedia . Each family above has several cores each, differentiated by the various feature sets they offer such as Jazelle, DSP, Thumb, etc. The devices listed are ones that I have owned/worked on.

6 months of work ended with the release of Ubuntu 8.10 (codenamed Intrepid Ibex). We've tried to be a little more ambitious with our kernel this time by switching to 2.6.27 that was released only a few weeks before our freeze. On the whole it has been a good move, especially since Adrian Bunk has decided to make 2.6.27 a long term support release I would like to ask people to install the kerneloops package in order to help upstream gather and fix any crashes in the kernel. I will be working toward making kerneloops part of the default Ubuntu install for 9.04. On now towards 9.04 or Jaunty Jackalope...

I was at the OLS again this year. It is a great way to meet with people you are usually working with only over email. There were some great talks this year as well, the most notable ones being: Keynote by GregKH USB Reverse Engineering by Eric Preston Why Userspace Sucks? by Dave Jones

Neat article about Architecture against Death . The premise being that an active mind and body lives longer. I have to visit the Site of Reversible Destiny (and some more pics ) by the same architect.

A bunch of interesting books I plan on reading someday: Clayton Christensen - The Innovator's dilemma Clayton Christensen - The Innovator's solution Tao of Physics Mathematics and sex Mapping the mind - Rita Carter, Christopher Frith Freakonomics - Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner

On the top of my wishlist for Blogger was support for categories or labels to organize my posts. Came across this service, www.labelr.com , that lets me do that seamlessly. Check it out.

I used the Nokia 770 on a recent vacation trip to BeNeLux. I have to admit is was very handy to have a small device for quick web access without having to lug around my laptop. And the fact that I could play a few games while travelling on the trains or listen to music just adds to its utility. This device is beginning to look better by the day. So now back to work on it for the Q3 launch as promised.

Interesting article about the inconsistencies in version numbering conventions in open source software. I have heard a lot of marketing- speak about version numbering theories. Here are a few: Version numbers shouldn't go too high, else it seems like the product has many problems that are fixed with every version. Microsoft marketing seems to think this way, Adobe doesnt. Certain version numbers convey better software than others. Point-oh releases are a case in point, but odd numbers convey instability. Your version numbers should be higher than your competitors' to signify a better product. So obviously there is no panacea here. Personally, I would prefer version numbers to be an increasing sequence - for the lifetime of the product.