September 2024 - KernelCI Foundation

Sep 13

Sustaining long-term support for Linux mainline based products

By kernelcifoundation News

We all know that introducing and supporting hardware in Linux mainline is challenging. At KernelCI, we want to understand how we can help move the ecosystem further upstream.

The challenges come from many angles:

Invest in upstreaming and maintain the hardware support into Linux (and other projects) in the long-run
Take IP protection in consideration, making sure that no critical information is shared in the open
Time to market pressures for the product release
Test mainline based products (continuously), making sure:
- The hardware remains functional
- No regressions appear
Maintain test infrastructure, so testing can be timely and efficient
Interact with the kernel community to improve the state of the art and fix issues
And so much more

These challenges come from both technical and business aspects. On the one hand, there are still a lot of difficulties in interacting with the upstream community to implement drivers, review patches, and solve regressions. On the other hand, business stakeholders and decision-makers have a hard time understanding upstream practices, which contributes to insufficient investment to bring enough knowledge and resources for effective participation in upstream. KernelCI aims to help Hardware Vendors address both the technical and business obstacles.

With that in mind, KernelCI wants to start a discussion with all interested Hardware Vendors to share our experiences and pain points. We could then look ahead at how we can collaborate on improving the kernel integration processes and facilitate the maintenance of stable kernels in the long run. Stability and security needs are growing exponentially, with so much of our global infrastructure depending on the hardware and software we build.

If you are in Vienna, Austria on September 18th for Open Source Summit Europe and/or Linux Plumbers Conference, we invite you to join our in-person discussion to happen from 1:30pm to 3pm at LPC Room 1.34.
If you have any questions or comments, please contact us at kernelci-members@groups.io.

Sep 12

Love0

Bring your tree to the new KernelCI

By kernelcifoundation Blog

KernelCI is entering an exciting new phase, and we’re inviting kernel maintainers to register their trees with us.

We now support over 220 build configurations, run boot tests on 45 different hardware platforms (totaling over 300 machines in all labs), 7 CI systems contributing tests results and have test suites like kselftest, kunit and LTP already enabled, ensuring comprehensive coverage for your kernel trees across diverse platforms.

At the upcoming Linux Plumbers Conference, we’ll be unveiling our new Web Dashboard, which allows you to easily track your test results. Also, our team is ready to support you with custom Grafana dashboards tailored to your needs and optional email notifications. We can also enable your preferred test suites.

We’re committed to delivering real value and working closely with maintainers, developers, hardware vendors and product makers to provide specific solutions. Each subsystem and maintainer has unique needs, and we’re adapting our approach accordingly. We can build custom views and configure personalized notifications to help you focus on the results that matter most, minimizing unnecessary noise.

We encourage all maintainers to register their trees and take advantage of these new features. To get started, submit your request via our GitHub project or contact us directly at kernelci@lists.linux.dev .

During the Linux Plumbers Conference, we’ll have a hallway booth—please stop by to discuss your needs and share your feedback. KernelCI is committed to deliver solutions that matter to you.

Learn more about KernelCI in our documentation.

Sep 11

Love0

KernelCI at Linux Plumbers Conference 2024

By kernelcifoundation Blog, News

The KernelCI community will have a busy few days at the upcoming Linux Plumbers Conference(LPC) in Vienna, Austria. We will be presenting 2 talks in the Refereed track, 4 Micro-conferences sessions and 1 BoF.

For those interested in an overview of everything happening in KernelCI, come to the “Meeting the New KernelCI” presentation from Don Zickus (Red Hat) and Gustavo Padovan(Collabora) in LPC’s Refereed Track Thursday at 12:00pm CEST.

Following the talk, on Thursday afternoon, starting at 3pm, the KernelCI team will set up a small corner in the “hallway track” to dive into more discussions with the community. Come talk to us and dive further in usecases, demo the dashboard, collect feedback, etc.

Hardware Vendors are key for KernelCI success, so we will be hosting a discussion with Hardware Vendors to understand how we can improve the kernel testing and integration overall and how KernelCI, as an organization can help drive progress. This will happen Wednesday at 1:30pm to 3:00pm (Room 1.34). If you are interested in joining please send an email to kernelci-members@groups.io. Open Source Summit attendees are also welcome in this session.

Apart from that we will also bring several technical challenges for discussions in the micro-conferences, host a talk on GitLab and a Kernel Testing BoF. Check our full agenda:

Wednesday

13:30 KernelCI & Hardware Vendors at LPC Room 1.34. Hosted by KernelCI. (More info coming soon).
15:05 Unifying GitLab CI approaches for the Linux Kernel in the Graphics & DRM MC (Hall L1). By Helen Koike (Collabora), Sebastian Fricke(Collabora)
17:00 A little GitLab won’t hurt you in the LPC Refereed Track (Hall L2/L3). By Helen Koike (Collabora) Nikolai Kondrashov (Red Hat) Tales da Aparecida (Red Hat).

Thursday

12:00 Meet the New KernelCI in the LPC Refereed Track (Hall L2/L3). By Don Zickus (Red Hat), Gustavo Padovan(Collabora)
15:00 – 18:00 KernelCI Booth in the Hallway Track. By the KernelCI community.
19:00 – 21:00 KernelCI Happy Hour – Location: The View Café-Bar-Restaurant. 25 min walk from the conference venue.

Friday

12:30 Towards common mainline device testing in the Kernel Testing & Dependability MC (Hall N2). By Nícolas Prado(Collabora)
13:00 Interacting with kernel test results in the Kernel Testing & Dependability MC(Hall N2). By Helen Koike(Collabora), RIcardo Cañuelo(Collabora)
15:30 Boot time testing with ftrace in the Internet of Things & Embedded MC (Room 1.15 – 1.16). By Laura Nao (Collabora)
17:00 Continuously testing the Linux kernel in Birds of a Feather (BoF) Track ( Room 1.85 – 1.86). By Gustavo Padovan (Collabora), Nikolai Kondrashov (Red Hat)

Times are in the Vienna/CEST Timezone.

As you can see it is a pretty busy agenda. If you want to talk to us please reach out at kernelci-members@groups.io. We will be happy to see you at LPC!