Linux 4.9 Adds Support For 29 New ARM Machines, Includes Raspberry Pi Zero & LG Nexus 5

There is support for a number of new ARM platforms with the in-development Linux 4.9 kernel.

Perhaps most exciting to end-users with the ARM updates for Linux 4.9 is the mainline Raspberry Pi Zero support as well as supporting the LG Nexus 5 smartphone, among other new hardware support. Here are some of the highlights:

- ZTE ZX296718 SoC 64-bit support. The ZX296718 is used by some set-top boxes.

- The Broadcom BCM47189 and BCM53573 are supported as the first ARM SoCs with integrated 802.11ac WiFi networking.

- Renesas r8a7796 (R-Car M3-W) platform support, an automotive SoC.

- Amlogic meson-gxbb (S905) supports more drivers.

- Nextthing GR8 platform support, making use of the kernel's Allwinner code as close relatives to the A13/R8 chips.

- The DeviceTree conversion for mach-omap2 is complete, including full support for the Nokia N900.

- The Marvell Armada 8040 development board is supported with its quad-core Cortex-A72 processors and 3 x 10Gbit Ethernet interfaces.

- The Qualcomm DragonBoard 820c 96Boards platform is now supported by the mainline Linux kernel.

- The Rockchip Tronsmart Orion r86 set-top box is now supported as an Android-powered set-top box powered by an 8-core RK3368 SoC.

- THe Qualcomm External Bus Interface 2 (EBI2) is now supported as what's used by some mobile phones for connecting flash memory, LCD displays, and other peripherals.

- New mainline Allwinner board support includes the Empire Electronix M712 and iNet d978 Rev2 tablets; Orange Pi PC Plus, Orange Pi 2, Orange Pi Plus 2E, Orange Pi Lite, Olimex A33-Olinuxino, and Nano Pi Neo single-board computers.

- New mainline Broadcom board support includes the Broadcom: BCM958525er, BCM958522er, BCM988312hr, BCM958623hr and BCM958622hr reference boards for Northstar platform; Raspberry Pi Zero single-board computer.

- The Netgear WNR854T router is now supported by the mainline kernel.

- The LG Nexus 5 phone is supported by the mainline kernel.

- The beagleboard-x15 rev B1 single-board computer is now supported with the latest DeviceTree additions to TI OMAP.

- Various other ARM board/machine support as a result of DeviceTree additions.

The ARM pull requests by Arnd Bergmann can be viewed here.