Status of ARM - Arnd Bergmann

Registered by Arnd Bergmann

The ARM architecture is one of the fastest moving subsystems in the kernel at the moment, with over 400 individual contributors and close to 5000 changesets since Linux-3.0. This gives an update of the hot topics that are keeping everyone busy, and where we're headed in the future.

The three most important technical problems we are working on are the conversion to device tree based booting, allowing multiple platforms to coexist in the same kernel, and moving code out of the architecture code into new and existing subsystems that are maintained separately. At the same time as we are doing these changes, many new SoCs based on ARM are being developed and submitted for inclusion into Linux.

Aside from the technical work, the presentation will also describe the challenges of dealing with a subsystem of this scale, both in terms of working with a large number of people and organizing the patches for upstream submission.

Arnd Bergmann is co-maintaining the arm-soc tree, together with Olof Johansson, which is where most of the ARM patches end up getting merged. He has been working for the IBM Linux Technology center for ten years and is currently on assignment from IBM to the Linaro project. He is also the primary contact for new CPU architectures in the kernel and has contributed to almost every subsystem in the past.

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Assignee:
Arnd Bergmann
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New
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