A new SD card image, a new kernel, updated packages and (coming soon) a new platform.

SD Card image release 2015-05-01-ev3dev-jessie.img

This image release contains some fundamental changes. As a result, unlike the other recent releases where you can apt-get upgrade instead of re-flashing your SD card, you need to re-flash for this one.

This biggest change is that we are dropping LVM (logical volume management). We are also moving from ext3 to ext4 for the file system. Also dropped is the need for an initramfs. Hopefully we should see better performance because of this, mostly in the form of a slightly faster boot time.

Additionally, instead of a swap partition, there is now a swap file that is created and managed by dphys-swap.

We’ve also added some new packages for peer hostname resolution so you don’t have to use the IP address all of the time. So now as soon as you have a network connection, you should be able to ping ev3dev.local on Linux and Mac or ping ev3dev on Windows.

And finally, we’ve gone back to using the default ssh.service instead of ssh.socket. This is made possible by installing libpam-systemd to workaround a bug.

Download and release notes.

Kernel release v3.16.7-ckt10-4-ev3dev-ev3

We’ve changed the version scheme slightly to match the recommendations from the Debian Kernel Handbook. So, 3.16.7-ckt10 is the upstream kernel we are based on. -4- is the ABI version. ABI means we only change this when we have made changes that would require you to rebuild any extra kernel modules. This number will match the DKMS package release version. The -ev3dev- part means this is an “ev3dev” kernel and it has ev3dev drivers in it. And finally -ev3 at the end is the “kernel flavor”. We use this to mean it is targeted at the LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 hardware.

This kernel release includes quite a few driver changes as well. As mentioned in the section above, support for LVM is removed, so installing this version on an older image will render it un-bootable.

There have been significant changes to the dc-motor class and the servo-motor class. They have been changed to be more like the recent changes to the tacho-motor class. Also, there are some small changes with a couple HiTechnic sensors.

Also see the ev3dev changelog and the upstream ckt10 changelog.

Other Packages

base-files 8ev3dev1

This package has been updated to reflect the fact that jessie is now stable.

brickman 0.6.0

Updated to use the changes in the motor kernel drivers. Also added a motor browser.

ev3dev-base 9.0

Updated to not create an initrd and changed how console-setup.service works since we are no longer shipping plymouth.

linux-latest-ev3dev-ev3

The name of this package has changed from linux-latest-ev3dev to reflect the changes in the kernel naming scheme and also (hopefully) to not break existing installs.

ev3dev on Raspberry Pi

I’m probably jumping the gun by announcing this, but it is very exciting!

We are working on porting ev3dev to Raspberry Pi for use with the Dexter Industries BrickPi. (Thank you Dexter Industries and Shari Vedovato for donating the hardware).

I haven’t even started on the drivers for the BrickPi yet, but any early adopters that are interested can try out the first ev3dev image (also available on the Download page). It also run Debian jessie and has the other ev3dev drivers. This mean you can use WeDo out of the box and if you are clever, you can probably get an I2C sensor working on input port 5 on the BrickPi.

Note: This only works on Raspberry Pi 1 models. If someone would like to donate a Raspberry Pi 2 to the cause, we can make an image for it too.