i.MX8 SoC Support Is Heading Into Linux 4.21 Along With Another ARM Platform

A few days back there was the main ARM pull request for Linux 4.21 with new SoC and board support. A second ARM pull request has been submitted now during the final moments of the 4.21 kernel merge window and it offers up some new features, most notably the initial i.MX8 SoC support.

Developers had been aiming the i.MX8 support for Linux 4.21 after it wasn't ready the past few cycles contrary to some old plans to get it in ~4.18. But now with the pull request sent in on Friday by Olof Johansson, the support is now in place.

This includes the initial NXP i.MX8 support for the quad-core MX8MQ with four Cortex-A53 cores plus Cortex-M4. This also includes support for a i.MX8M EVK reference/developer board.

The most notable i.MX8 project at the moment is Purism's Librem 5 smartphone utilizing this SoC. The SoC support is in place for Linux 4.21 but there is obviously no support yet for the phone nor its recently-shipping developer board.

This pull request also adds support for the RDA Micro RDA8810PL, which is based on a Cortex-A5 processor core with Vivante graphics, Included is support for the OrangePi 2G and OrangePi i86.

Rounding out the PR are also some Samsung board updates, TEE (Trusted Execution Environment) driver fixes, and some other minor last-minute changes.