The fifth version of the Linux kernel arrived, in the words of Linus Torvalds, because he no longer had fingers to count or adding those of his hands and feet. It is clear that this is not the case, since Linux Kernel 5.0 came with many interesting news, especially in terms of hardware compatibility. But last May 5 came Linux 5.1, a version that includes more striking novelties that have also reached Google devices thanks to its collaboration with the Collabora company.
When we talk about Google devices we are referring to those that use their operating systems, which are currently Andoid and Chrome OS. These devices, according to informs Collabora, you can now mount and launch a mapper device by adding a kernel parameter via command line at boot time, bypassing the initramfs image. Until now, tAll earlier versions of the kernel required the presence of an initramfs image to boot the system to a filesystem located on a device mapper device, but there were many cases where users could not use an initramfs image, so this new feature comes in handy when you want to boot from a device mapper device without the need for an initramfs image, just using a simple kernel boot parameter.
Google and Collabora introduce major changes in Linux 5.1 for Android and Chrome OS
Collabora has also been responsible for adding to Linux 5.1 for Android and Chrome OS:
- Support for the NanoPC-T4 board.
- Support for the AM335x-based Bosch Guardian and ARM i.MX6 Phytec phyBOARD Segin boards.
- Support for the Raspberry Pi 3 board has also been included.
- HDMI audio has been enabled on RK3399 Rock960 platforms.
- Support for the RK3399 RockPI board has been improved.
- Fixed the handling of USB descriptors in FunctionFS.
- Improved the DRM_AUTH implementation of the DRM subsystem.
- Support for plane mirroring and rotation has been added on the RK3288 and RK3399 SoCs.
- Fixed a bug in the vivid controller.
- Updated the detection of the ISP1704 USB charger to use the new GPIO API.
