Kernel Changes (2.6.31.14.24)
- Due to GPU and IPU changes, the system now has the full 512MB of memory available with no reserved blocks for GPU (64MB) or IPU framebuffer (32MB). Total available memory is up from 407MB. Framebuffer dynamically allocates a maximum of 24MB for a 1080p display, or 4MB on Smartbook. GPU resource allocation is completely dynamic with a maximum allocation of around 128MB of system memory.
- Headless operation now works again by setting up a less restrictive dummy framebuffer (it is a real VESA/CEA standard 640x480 mode), and not trying to set modes where there was no monitor data available.
- Backlight: no longer blanks when disabling the video overlay
- HDMI: fixed mode selection on many displays. Driver renamed to 'siihdmi' so as not to conflict with Freescale's BSP driver. Lots of performance optimizations. Hotplug support. Revert to default selection of a 720p video mode rather than 1080p to improve out-of-the-box system performance.
- Kernel: wire sys_accept4 for new udev and potentially a little better system performance.
- SD: card voltage is driven at a more compatible level hopefully fixing most peoples' MicroSD cards in the battery slot on the Smartbook
- Minor debug output cleanups
- Update to BSP 11.05
- IPU: Triple buffering, lower power on screen blank, virtual screen size fixed (3x height to accomodate the triple buffer)
- GPU: MMU enabled. New microcode and better resource and power gating.
- S/PDIF, headphone and some GPIO pad control changes for better system operation
- CPU frequency operation updated
- SAHARA module now works
- IPU: Triple buffering, lower power on screen blank, virtual screen size fixed (3x height to accomodate the triple buffer)
- Linux kernel 2.6.31.14.24 (as above)
- Overrides and differences to standard Maverick:
- Override Update Manager prompt to update to Natty (fixes Maverick to Natty transition being totally unsupported and not recommended)
- Upstart script for Efika MX:
- Loads audio modules dynamically
- CPU frequency driver is disabled by default on Smarttop for better performance. Smartbook users will have it enabled for better battery life.
- eCryptfs loaded on demand
- Creates a 64MB compressed in-memory swap (ramzswap) drive. This increases CPU performance negligibly, but reduces disk access which is more expensive.
- Minor settings differences
- flash-kernel has been replaced by a stripped down "prep-kernel" script which does the same thing, but better (and only for the Efika MX)
- Override Update Manager prompt to update to Natty (fixes Maverick to Natty transition being totally unsupported and not recommended)
- Installer now no longer creates a swap partition. Please use swapfiles!
- Installer now aligns partitions to 4MB for better performance
- OEM configuration is now far more reliable (fixed in Ubuntu upstream, finally)
- Advanced, new Xorg driver utilizing the C2D API. Supports Triple buffered Xv overlay.
- Compliance fixes and optimizations for OpenGLES and EGL.
- Preparation for multimedia codec and FlashPlayer release
- PulseAudio has some known problems with CPU usage, audio may stutter
- Xorg driver has a rare issue whereby it's context gets reset, reducing overall performance
- Boot partition may eventually fill up after installing many kernel updates. Please "dpkg --purge" older kernels once you have verified the new ones are installed and working.
- SPDIF doesn't seem to be loaded for HDMI Audio-enabled displays, will be fixed in an update to imx-boot-scripts
- Recent updates to imx-lib (libvpu, libipu, and so on and so forth) may not install correctly through Update Manager due to some file conflicts.
All updated packages in the installer will be made available on the package repository shortly.
