Apertis is a Debian derivative distribution geared towards the creation of product-specific images for ARM (both the 32bit ARMv7 and 64-bit ARMv8 versions using the hardfloat ABI) and Intel x86-64 (64-bit) systems.

Apertis v2023dev3 is the fourth development release of the Apertis v2023 stable release flow that will lead to the LTS Apertis v2023.0 release in March 2023.

This Apertis release is built on top of Debian Bullseye with several customizations. It currently ships with the Linux kernel 5.18.x series but later releases in the v2023 channel will track newer kernel versions up to the next LTS.

Test results for the v2023dev3 release are available in the following test reports:

Release flow

  • 2021 Q4: v2023dev0
  • 2022 Q1: v2023dev1
  • 2022 Q2: v2023dev2
  • 2022 Q3: v2023dev3
  • 2022 Q4: v2023pre
  • 2023 Q1: v2023.0
  • 2023 Q2: v2023.1
  • 2023 Q3: v2023.2
  • 2023 Q4: v2023.3
  • 2024 Q1: v2023.4
  • 2024 Q2: v2023.5
  • 2024 Q3: v2023.6
  • 2024 Q4: v2023.7

Release downloads

Apertis v2023dev3.0 images
Intel 64-bit fixedfunction hmi base SDK SDK
ARM 32-bit (U-Boot) fixedfunction hmi
ARM 64-bit (U-Boot) fixedfunction
ARM 64-bit (Raspberry Pi) fixedfunction hmi

The Intel fixedfunction and hmi images are tested on the reference hardware (UP Squared 6000), but they can run on any UEFI-based x86-64 system. The sdk image is tested under VirtualBox.

Apertis v2023dev3 repositories

deb https://repositories.apertis.org/apertis/ v2023dev3 target development sdk

New features

Support for the new UP Squared 6000 amd64 reference board

Due to the reduced availability of the MinnowBoard Turbot E3826/E3845 a new reference board have been chosen. This new Apertis release provides full support to the UP Squared 6000

Support for lintian validation to packaging CI

In an effort to allow developers to check that their changes follow Debian’s best practices, Apertis added a lintian step in its CI with a custom profile. This results in a better developer experience, specially for those new in Apertis.

Improved automated license compliance

With the goal of providing a more reliable copyright information Apertis has improved its automated license compliance. Now for packages which require a not straight forward configuration for license whitelist and override, a full copyright report can be enabled, providing a finer configuration.

Build and integration

LAVA support for the UP Squared 6000 amd64 reference board

In relation to the support of the new amd64 reference board, the LAVA infrastructure now includes UP Squared 6000 boards. Thanks to this addition, now daily automated tests run in the new reference board, providing an improved test coverage.

New IoT image support

A new reference image for IoT products is now supported based on Eclipse Kanto which provides a modular software stack. Thanks to this image now product teams have a shortcut to develop their IoT products based on Apertis.

Improved submission and monitoring of LAVA jobs

The CI in Apertis has been improved to have better control of the jobs submitted to LAVA. With the latest changes the integration in more tight and simple. Thanks to this change now it is possible to get a finer grained information about test failures in the Gitlab pipelines. Additionally it allows the use of short lived credential to access not public repositories from LAVA.

Reusable CI pipeline to create Flatpak runtime and applications

To provide a better developer experience, Apertis now provides a set of reusable CI pipelines for Flatpak, which makes it easier to create both runtimes and applications. Following the steps in Flatpak CI developers can take advantage of this feature.

Improved QA reporting

Following the latest changes in relation with QA report the new site provides better information to differentiate automated from manual tests. Additionally, a more flexible configuration allows the creation of separate issues per release when a test fails on LAVA.

Documentation and designs

Following best practices on SDK API documentation Apertis chose gtk-doc as the preferred tool. Thanks to the information found in [Documenting Apertis interfaces]https://www.apertis.org/guides/app_devel/documenting-interfaces/ developers can easily integrate SDK API documentation to their packages which can later be accessed using devhelp.

Deprecations and ABI/API breaks

Regressions

No known regressions.

Deprecations

No known deprecations

Breaks

No know breaks

Infrastructure

Apertis Docker images

The Apertis Docker images provide a unified and easily reproducible build environment for developers and services.

As of today, this includes the apertis-base, apertis-image-builder, apertis-package-source-builder, apertis-flatdeb-builder, apertis-documentation-builder, and apertis-testcases-builder, Docker images.

Images

Image daily builds, as well as release builds can be found at https://images.apertis.org/

Infrastructure overview

The Apertis Image Recipes provides an overview of the image building process and the involved services.

Known issues

High

  • Issue #114 ci-package-builder tests fail due to OBS branches not being cleaned up
  • Issue #122 aum-offline-upgrade: test failed
  • Issue #127 aum-api: test failed
  • Issue #128 aum-ota-api: test failed
  • Issue #129 aum-ota-rollback-blacklist: test failed
  • Issue #130 aum-rollback-blacklist: test failed
  • Issue #134 aum-ota-signed: test failed
  • Issue #146 aum-ota-out-of-space: test failed
  • Issue #151 sdk-debos-image-building: test failed
  • Issue #166 UP squared 6000 board fails to bring up audio on v2023dev3
  • Issue #167 aum-ota-auto: test failed
  • Issue #169 aum-out-of-space: test failed
  • Issue #177 WPA3-SAE & WPA2-PSK mode connections does not succeed after wrong key attempt
  • Issue #178 sanity-check: test failed

Normal

  • Issue #7 Crash when initialising egl on ARM target
  • Issue #8 arm-linux-gnueabihf-pkg-config does not work with sysroots installed by ade
  • Issue #9 System users are shipped in /usr/etc/passwd instead of /lib/passwd
  • Issue #12 gettext-i18n: test failed
  • Issue #15 Fix the kernel command line generation in OSTRee for FIT image
  • Issue #17 SabreLite failing to boot due to failing “to start udev Coldplug all Devices”
  • Issue #22 debos sometimes fails to mount things
  • Issue #26 newport: test failed
  • Issue #28 Investigate test failure TestGetSourceMount
  • Issue #32 Gitlab pipeline OBS job reported “success” but OBS build was “unresolvable”
  • Issue #36 dashboard: gnome-settings-daemon-data incorrectly flagged as missing the git repository
  • Issue #38 LAVA/Phab bridge timeouts
  • Issue #39 grilo: test failed
  • Issue #45 Manual testcase results should not have any hyperlink in the LavaPhabridge report page
  • Issue #62 apparmor-ofono: test failed
  • Issue #66 Some binaries in the toolchain tarball are huge
  • Issue #162 phab-gitlab-bridge duplicate bugs on Phabricator
  • Issue #175 apparmor-geoclue: test failed

Low

  • Issue #23 Remote outputs and local output, buffer size combined in Maynard/GTK