Raspberry Pi 3's BCM2837 SoC Now Supported By Mainline Linux 4.8

Written by Michael Larabel in Raspberry Pi on 1 August 2016 at 08:00 PM EDT. 21 Comments
RASPBERRY PI
ARM platform enablement continues in Linux 4.8 with several new targets being supported by the mainline Linux kernel. The most notable ARM Linux 4.8 addition is support for the Broadcom SoC used by the Raspberry Pi 3.

The ARM platform code is the latest to add to the new features so far of the Linux 4.8 kernel.

New ARM 32-bit platforms to be supported by Linux 4.8 are Broadcom BCM23550, Freescale i.MX7Solo, Qualcomm MDM9615, and the Renesas r8a7792.

There's less 64-bit ARM platforms added this cycle, just: Broadcom BCM2837 and Renesas r8a7796. The BCM2837 is arguably though the most interesting addition with that being the SoC used by the Raspberry Pi 3. With this support there, it's looking like the Raspberry Pi 3 is getting closer to be fully supported by an upstream Linux kernel.

In addition to the new platforms, updated platforms worth mentioning include the NVIDIA Tegra X1, Mediatek MT8173, Rockchip RK3399, and ARM Juno. The Tegra X1 work includes USB 3.0, regulars, and display subsystem updates.

More details via the pull request series.
Related News
About The Author
Michael Larabel

Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.

Popular News This Week