Fixing fragmentation
Linaro was formed at last year's Computex as a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to improving Linux for mobile devices. Its leadership team consists mainly of former ARM execs and external events have meant its primary focus has been Android.
A year down the line Linaro has grown to over 100 developers who have worked on Linux and delivered code upstream to the likes of Android and Ubuntu. It has also worked to streamline the validation process. You can keep tabs on their progress here.
One of the well-documented challenges Android faces is fragmentation, given the huge variety of devices, components and operators it has to support. We spoke to Stephen Doel, COO, and David Rusling, CTO of Linaro, and they confirmed Android has been the major focus of their work.
"We're working on reducing the fragmentation that comes with diversity," said Doel. "There will always be a tension between product timing and doing the right thing with the Android Kernel."
To further assist the efforts of the Linux mobile device ecosystem Linaro has partnered with Samsung to make the Origen sub-$200 evaluation board packing the Samsung Exynos processor, which runs ARM CPU and GPU cores. It will also provide Linaro evaluation builds of Android and Ubuntu via its website.
