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Editor's note: The baby and the toddler are both asleep. Time to update y'all on Nerves! Lots of Buildroot updates and such. I expect next update will be a hailstorm of board systems.
This newsletter will continue to be uneven. I got a very gracious offer to help keep it on schedule but the practicalities of it would been a major hassle so uneven it shall be.
Enjoy your summer!
Official project updates
This release bumps GCC from 10.3 to 11.3.
- Include a Fortran compiler to make it easier to create Nerves systems that require Fortran.
- GCC 11.3 (https://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-11/changes.html
toolchains, nerves_toolchain_ctng-v1.9.0
This release bumps gcc 10.3.0 to gcc 12.1.
- Use latest crosstool-ng commit. This also updates glibc from 2.34 to 2.35.
- Enable Fortran by default. This makes it possible to enable Fortran in Nerves systems that want to use it without completely rebuilding a toolchain.
mix upload now attempts to display the UUID of the firmware as well
- Set `CMAKE_SYSTEM_PROCESSOR` for cmake builds. This fixes a build issue with `xnnpack` and possibly other libraries. Thanks to @cocoa-xu for this fix.
- Package update: Erlang/OTP 25.0.2
- Fixes an issue where the Raspberry Pi Zero 2W’s WiFi module’s firmware wouldn’t load with Linux 5.15
Package update: boardid 1.13.0
This is a major update that pulls in Buildroot 2022.05. Most projects shouldn’t need any changes with this update, but please review the release notes.
- Package updates
This is a bug fix release for v1.19.0.
- erlinit 1.12.1
- Raspberry Pi WiFi firmware - 20210315-3+rpt5 + Zero 2W fix
Add -X option to capitalize hex digits when converting them from binary. This works with the binfile and atecc508a methods since those are the only two methods that run binary to hex conversions.
Fixed an issue that caused the DNS bridge to stop working with OTP 25.
This is a major update to nerves_runtime that removes SystemRegistry. SystemRegistry has been disabled by default for years, but it could be re-enabled if device insertion and removal events were needed. That functionality has been moved to nerves_uevent and updated to use the property_table library used by VintageNet.
Elixir 1.11 is the minimum supported Elixir version now.
To upgrade from prior versions of nerves_runtime:
- If you’re using :system_registry at all, please review the :nerves_uevent documentation for new library.
- Remove config :nerves_runtime, :kernel, use_system_registry: false from your target.exs. It’s not used any more.
- If you had config :nerves_runtime, :kernel, autoload_modules: false in your target.exs, change it to config :nerves_uevent, autoload_modules: false.
Bug fixes
- Run reboot and poweroff sequences in their own Erlang process. This fixes a bug were the process that calls reboot gets killed partway through the reboot process and the system doesn’t actually reboot.
Changes
- Kernel logging and syslog monitoring has been moved to nerves_logging. The functionality is the same as before, but it’s now possible to use without nerves_runtime.
- Added convenience routines for getting status from nerves_heart.
Don't crash when lacking permissions to read logs. Restarting doesn't fix the permission issue so this ends up being terminal. The error will be logged.
- Several :heart.get_cmd/0 status info updates:
- Decode hardware watchdog options (no more hex number)
- Add the configured heart timeout
- If no hardware watchdog, fill out fields with default values
The list of name servers that VintageNet uses when configuring the name resolve is now available by running VintageNet.get(["name_servers"]).
Remove absolute path requirement on --alternate-exec for binaries in the Erlang runtime. This makes it much less brittle to use since the ERTS directory has a version number in it that may change on every Erlang update. If you’re using --alternate-exec to run run_erl, remove the absolute path to it. erlinit will run the one associated with the OTP release.
Fix MacOS deprecation warning. Thanks to @tonnenpinguin for the fix.
- Update to Erlang 25.0 - Enables JIT on Raspberry Pi 4!
- Update Nerves systems to nerves_system_br 1.19.0 versions to bring in security and bug fixes
Community updates
Alternative boards?
At this point everyone doing hardware has realized that the supply is a bit of an issue. Raspberry Pi are hard to get, often pricey and so on. Some people are experimenting with options.
Frank's tweet about getting the RISC-V MangoPi running.
Connor is trying something with a custom board.
NervesConf II is ON!
August 31st in the same venue as ElixirConf. I'm majorly frustrated that I won't be able to go so you all better pick up the slack and get on it. Tweet here has details.
Next Nerves Meetup ready for you
On the 29th of June, tweet with details.
Nerves Training at ElixirConf US 2022
Frank and Bruce are giving a Nerves-based training, detail-tweet here.
Supporting the Nerves project
We want to encourage everyone to contribute in whatever way works for them. Here are some ways we currently recommend:
- Write or port a new hardware library and include it in the Elixir Circuits collection.
- Give money to the project via Open Collective.
- Get in touch about taking over maintenance duties for some libraries, we might be able to provide you hardware.
- Apply for an EEF stipend on something Nerves-related and build it. We can help if you have questions about this.
- Send corrections or improvements for documentation wherever it fails to help you.
- Write about Nerves, give talks about Nerves. Make videos about Nerves. It is all good.
Finally, if you have questions about the newsletter or want to suggest something you can simply respond to this email it will go directly to me, Lars, who edits this thing. Let me know what you think.
- Lars, Underjord.io
