Asymmetric Multi Processing with Linux & Zephyr on the STM32MP1

In the embedded world, more and more vendors offer Arm-based System-on-Chips (SoC) including both powerful Cortex-A CPU cores, designed to run a full-featured OS such as Linux, and one or more low-power Cortex-M cores, usually found in microcontrollers, designed to execute bare-metal or RTOS-based applications. [...] While the Linux kernel can run on a wide range of devices, it requires a decent amount of memory (> 4MB), and therefore cannot be used on memory-constrained microcontrollers. Enters Zephyr, a project initiated by Wind River, now developed as a Linux Foundation project.

Geniatech XPI-3288 Raspberry Pi lookalike features Rockchip RK3288 SoC

Geniatech XPI is a family of single board computers following Raspberry Pi 3 form factor. We first covered XPI-S905X SBC in 2018, which was followed by XPI 3128 board last year. The company has now launched another model with Geniatech XPI-3288 SBC powered by Rockchip RK3288 32-bit quad-core Cortex-A17 processor coupled with 2G RAM and 16GB eMMC flash.

Videos/Audiocasts/Shows

• Font Preview Ueberzug: A Better Font Previewer

  A while back I looked at a font preview script but it was kind of annoying to use, but it turns out there's a much better version of that script called font preview ueberzug which is what we're checking out today.

• Ubuntu Voltage

  For a few years we’ve been performing a live version of an Ubuntu Podcast at FOSS Talk Live. This is a lively, nerdy, in-person Linux Podcast event at the Harrison Pub in London. A few shows are performed in front of a live slightly drunk studio pub audience. We are but one troup of performers though, over the course of the evening. The whole thing is organised by Joe Ressington and attended by our friends and/or/xor listeners. Joe has just announced over on episode 114 of Late Night Linux that we’re all doing it again! Go and listen to that show for a small amount of detail.

• FLOSS Weekly 619: Notetaking With Dendron - Kevin Lin and Dendron [Ed: FLOSS Weekly jumping the shark by pushing Microsoft proprietary software instead of actual FLOSS]

  Kevin Lin and Dendron. Kevin Lin joins Jonathan Bennett and Katherine Druckman to talk about Dendron, a note-taking application built on top of VSCode. After many years of taking notes, Kevin found himself with a massive, unmanageable personal knowledge store. None of the existing note-taking applications quite solved his problem, so Kevin did the only reasonable thing, and wrote his own. On this episode of FLOSS Weekly, Lin covers some of his design decisions, including building Dendron on VSCode and Javascript, and helps us understand how Dendron can help tame the jungle of personal knowledge.

Kernel: Intel SGX, Swapfile Problem, and Security Fixes

 

• Intel Sends Out KVM SGX Virtualization Patches For Linux - Phoronix

  Intel SGX support finally landed in Linux 5.11 after going through 40+ rounds of review that took years for bringing up Software Guard Extensions in the mainline kernel. But that trek isn't yet over as Intel is now working on KVM SGX virtualization support to be upstreamed.  Intel earlier sent out a "request for comments" on KVM SGX virtualization support while on Monday they sent out the first formal (non-RFC) patch series with this support for handling Software Guard Extensions in the context of KVM virtualization. Basically this allows for a portion of the system memory to be encrypted with an SGX enclave exclusively for a KVM guest virtual machine that can't be accessed outside of the secure enclave. Separate from SGX enclaves, Intel also has coming out with future CPUs the Total Memory Encryption (TME) feature. AMD meanwhile has been working on Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV) with Secure Memory Encryption (SME) as their EPYC approach for securing guest VM memory from other VMs or the host. 

  

• Linux 5.12 Lands Fix For File-System Corruption Caused By Swapfile Issue - Phoronix

  For those wanting to help in testing out the Linux 5.12 kernel, at least it should no longer eat your data now if you rely on a swapfile.  The file-system corruption issue on Linux 5.12 Git noted last week and then followed up on yesterday when the corruption hit Intel's graphics CI systems and narrowed down to a set of swap-related changes, has now been resolved with today's latest Git code.  [...] With that fix now in, we can get back to looking at Linux 5.12 performance changes and other more interesting testing than worrying about data loss.

• High severity Linux network security holes found, fixed | ZDNet

  Young and rising Linux security developer Alexander Popov of Russia's Positive Technologies discovered and fixed a set of five security holes in the Linux kernel's virtual socket implementation. An attacker could use these vulnerabilities (CVE-2021-26708) to gain root access and knock out servers in a Denial of Service (DoS) attack.