nuttx/Documentation/ReleaseNotes/NuttX-7.4

NuttX-7.4
---------

The 104th release of NuttX, Version 7.4, was made on August 15, 2014,
and is available for download from the SourceForge website. Note
that release consists of two tarballs: nuttx-7.4.tar.gz and
apps-7.4.tar.gz. Both may be needed (see the top-level nuttx/README.txt
file for build information).

Additional new features and extended functionality:

* Core OS:

- Beginnings of a crypto/ subsystem from Max Neklyudov
- Tickless operation: NuttX now supports a mode with no periodic
timer interrupts. Rather, timed events are handle via an interval
timer. This (1) lowers the rate of interrupt processing to timer
events, (2) gives much high timing resolution, and (3) allows lower
power modes of operation where the CPU is not constantly being
interrupted by the timer.
- Restructured the OS files under sched/ to better support the already
modular nature of the RTOS.

* Networking

- Substantial directory and header file reorganization and renaming to
make the NuttX networking implementation more modular.
- Add network device ioctl to access PHY registers. From Daniel Lazlo
Sitzer

* Binary Loader:

- Various changes associated with symbol tables from Pelle Windestam.

* Graphics:

- colorcmp(): New utility to compare two colors.
- The initial background color is now configurable. Includes logic to
eliminates multiple background updates to get the right color.
- Minor configuration changes to handle mouse X/Y and touchscreen
X/Y differently.

* File System/Block Drivers:

- SmartFS: Increase some variables from uint16_t to uint32_t to handle
larger device sizes. From Ken Pettit.
- Add configurable AES encryption support to the block-to-character
(BCH) driver. This allows any block device to be accessed as an
encrypted character device. From Max Nekludov
- Add an MTD layer that will add read-ahead or write buffering to any
MTD driver (incomplete).
- Automounter: Add support for an auto-mounter that will automatically
mount and unmount a file system a media is inserted and removed

* Audio/Audio Drivers

- WM8904 audio CODEC driver.
- PCM .WAV file decoder. Fast forward implemented with sub-sampling
(currently no rewind support).
- Add a NULL audio device that can be used to simply unit-level testing
of audio decoders.
- Audio subsystem now supports interfaces for fast-forward and rewind
needed by CMediaPlayer; add hooks for equalizer settings needed by
the WM8904 CODEC.

* Other Common Drivers:

- MTD: Extend erase block size to 18-bits in order (decrease block
size to 14-bits) to handle parts with large erase blocks. From Kosma
Moczek
- maxTouch: Add support for the Atmel maXTouch touchscreen controller.

* Host Simulation:

- Provides the timers needed to support the Tickless mode of operation.

* Atmel SAM4C:

- Add SAM4CM IPC register header file. From Max Neklyudov
- Various fixes PMC and clock configuration for the SAM4CM port from
Max Neklyudov

* Atmel SAM4E/4S Drivers:

- SAM4 AES driver. Contributed by Max Neklyudov

* Atmel SAMA5:

- Add logic to redirect all SAMA5D4 interrupts to the AIC
- Add a configuration option to reserve DRAM for a framebuffer when
executing out of DRAM. This optional was available before when
executing out of NOR, but needs to work a little differently in
this case.
- Add SAMA5 slow (32.768KHz) clock support.
- Add support for the ARM L2CC-PL310 L2 cache. The system runs with
L2CC cache enabled but there is some issues still with the LCD DMA;
I suspect that the memory timing configuration for L2CC needs to
be tuned.
- Provides the timers needed to support the Tickless mode of operation.

* Atmel SAMA5 Drivers:

- XDMAC-based HSCMI driver for the SAMA5D4
- Adapt the SAMA5D3 LCDC driver to work with the SAMA5D4 which has
no hardware cursor.
- PIO: Add a new interface sam_pio_forceclk() that can be used to
force PIO clocking on. I am afraid I was too conservative with
PIO clocking in the initial design; this is the price.
- TWI: Now supports the up_i2creset() method.
- TWI: Use sam_pio_forceclk() so that we can read the current state
of an open-drain output in the TWI reset logic.
- SSC: SCC Frame Synch Delay and Start Delay are now configurable.
- PCK: Add the slow clock and the main clocks as options for the
PCK configuration.
- Timer/Counter: Can now handle non-constant BOARD_MCK_FREQUENCY. Also
now supports methods to attach client interrupt handlers
- One shot and free-running timers. These are wrappers around the low
level timer/counter logic to provide one-shot and free-running
timers. These were developed to support the Tickless operation, but
can be used for any purpose.

* Atmel SAMA5 Board Support:

- Add a boot loader that runs from ISRAM and loads an Intel HEX file
into DRAM.
- Add a configuration that will load a bootloader into AT25 Serial
FLASH
- SAMA5D4-EK NSH configuration supports many more features: RTC, HSCMI
card detection, maXTouch touchscreen, TM7000 LCD, the command line
media player (currently using the NULL audio device), automounter,
and others.
- SAMA5D4-EK: Add an NxWM configuration using the TM7000 LCD with
the maXTouch multi-touch touchscreen.
- SAMA5D4-EK NxWM: Uses new, larger icons in configuration instead of
scaling.
- SAMA5D4-EK NxWM: The NxPlayer and audio system are now enabled in
the default configuration (but currently using the NULL audio
device). The automounter is used to automatically mount media
on an SD card.
- SAMA5D3x-EK: Add a configuration to support the command line
NxPlayer and to verify the WM8904 CODEC driver.

* STMicro STM32:

- Add support for the STM32F103RC and RD. From Kosma Moczek
- Add a procfs entry to show the state of the CCM heap usage.
From Pelle Winderstam

* STMicro STM32 Drivers:

- Unconfigure GPIO pins when closing a serial port to prevent back
effects from back-powering on the TX pin. From Kosma Moczek

* NXP LPC17xx Drivers:

- ADC: Added burstmode ADC conversion mode, with CONFIG_ADC_BURSTMODE
option in Kconfig. From Max
- Ethernet: Added option to use the kernel worker thread to do most of
the workload with CONFIG_NET_WORKER_THREAD option in Kconfig. From Max
- Ethernet: Critical bugfix: From time to time (after some hours) the
Ethernet receiver would lose one receive interrupt and the IP stack
never recover because there is no receive watchdog as the transmit
watchdog. From Max

* NXP LPC17xx Boards:

- mbed: Port ADC, DAC, and PWM logic from the configs/zkit-arm-1769.
From Max
- mbed: Eliminated a problem with PHY DP83848C : it doesn't need a
specific initialization on mbed. From Max

* Library:

- Adds support for localtime. From Max Neklyudov

* Configuration/Build System:

- Make variable definitions 'static const' when possible to save RAM
usage. From Kosma Moczek

* Applications:

- system/mdio: New PHY tool from Daniel Lazlo Sizter.
- NSH: Networking logic modified to handler the case of SLIP
transport. From Max Neklyudov.
- NSH: Add a configuration to use a USB keyboard for the stdin
device.
- NSH: Software assigned MAC address is now configurable. From Lazlo.
- NSH: Also add an option to let platform-specific logic select the
MAC address.
- NSH: There is now a configuration option that will bring up the
network on an separate thread. Since the network bring-up is
asynchronous, there are no serial console start-up delays due
to the network negotiation time.
- NxPlayer: Changes to integrate with Ken's NxWM::CMediaPlayer.
- NxPlayer: Add interfaces for fast-forward and rewind needed by
CMediaPlayer; add interface for equalizer settings needed by the
WM8904.
- NxPlayer: Supports new way of identifying the end of the audio
stream (see the Audio section above).
- Sudoku: Add a sudoku game.

Bugfixes. Only the most critical bugfixes are listed here (see the ChangeLog for the complete list of bugfixes and for additional, more detailed bugfix information):

* Graphics:

- NxConsole: Fix scrolling for the case of the framebuffer device. In
this case, the logic for clearing the vacated region at the bottom
was missing so garbage would scroll up from the last, uncleared
line.

* Networking:

- Important fix to the read-ahead buffer queue management: Consumed
bytes were being trimmed from the head of the queue, but the queue
head itself was not being updated. From Rony XLN.
- Fix an error in SLIP escaping. From Max Neklyudov

* Network Utilities:

- Fix an include file ordering problem when CONFIG_NET_STATISTICS=y.
- Move statistics from uip.h to new netstats.h to remove a circular
inclusion problem
- Various fixes for networking and tiny webserver from Max
- webclient: Fix to offset calculation from Rony Xln. Prevents 0x0a
at the beginning of lines.
- webserver: Fix some configuration usage issues. From Max.
- webserver: Missing logic to close sockets on loop termination.

* File System / Block Drivers:

- SmartFS: Fix for a bug that would show up if CONFIG_MTD_BYTE_WRITE
was not selected and the SMART sector size was larger than the MTD
device's block size (like it would be if using SMARTFS on larger
flash devices). From Ken Pettit.

* Audio:

- Change how the end of the audio stream is detected by the leaf audio
component. This used to be done by looking for the first partial
buffer. That does not work with the in-place sub-sampling performed
by the PCM decoder: That always reduces the size of the buffer so
that all buffers only partially filled by the time they get to the
leaf. Now, a flag is set in the audio buffer flags set to indicate
the final buffer in the stream.

* Common Drivers:

- RAMLOG putc() method needs to set the errno and return EOF on a
failure.
- Add missing configuration option to select the MAX11802 touchscreen
controller. From Petteri Aimonen

* Atmel SAMA5D3/4:

- Fix logic in conversion of physical and virtual DRAM addresses when
running out of DRAM. This is an important bug fix for the SAMA5D3
and 4 when running out of DRAM .
- Critical SAMA5D3 and 4 bug fix: PIO clocking must be enabled for
all input pins or else the value that is read never changes.

* Atmel SAMA5D3/4 Drivers:

- OHCI: Fix an error in a DEBUGASSERT statement. Caused an
assertion to fire inappropriately when a low- or full-speed device
was removed and CONFIG_DEBUG=y
- OHCI: Pointers to allocated port values were not being
nullified after being deallocated. This caused some assertions
to fire when debug was enabled
- SSC: Needs to account for data offset in audio buffer

* ARMv7-M:

- Correct the initial value of the BASEPRI register. This was
apparently never being initialized! From Max

* STMicro STM32 Drivers:

- I2C: Fix missing configuration of GPIO pins in I2C driver. Fix
from Alex D.
- STM32 OTGFS device: Various changes to try to reduce that amount of
time in interrupts handles and with interrupts disabled. From
Petteri Aimonen

* Atmel SAM3/4 Drivers:

- Ethernet: Wrong bits being cleared before OR-ing in new settings.
- Ethernet: Fix an error in the function that determines the number
of free TX descriptors. This is an important bugfix on busy
networks.
- I2C: Test for read or write operation was reversed. How could
this have worked before?

* Atmel SAM3/4 Boards:

- SAM4S Xplained-Pro: Correct description of LEDs and usage. From
Kosma Moczek

* Atmel SAMA5:

- PIO: Fix definitions that could disable PIO interrupt support if only
PIOE interrupts were enabled
- PIO: Macro SAM_PION_VBASE is not define-able for the SAMA5D4 and must
be replaced with a table lookup.
- PIO: Fix a typo in Schmitt trigger configuration; Configure pin as a
vanilla input first so that final pin configuration is more read-able
(i.e., easier to debug)
- PIO: Logic for Schmitt trigger selection backward
- SAMA5D4: Correct system timer frequency. Input clock is MCK/2, not MCK.

* Atmel SAMA5 Drivers:

- Ethernet: Wrong bits being cleared before OR-ing in new settings.
- Ethernet: Fix an error in the function that determines the number
of free TX descriptors. This is an important bugfix on busy
networks.
- HSMCI: The 8-byte SCR transfer was failing silently with the DMA
transfer, leaving the SD card in single bit mode. Fixed by adding
a non-DMA read transfer mode.
- HSMCI: Fix a problem on card insertion/removal callback handling.
Interrupts were being disable so that the callbacks occurred with
interrupts disabled. This resulted in loss of some interrupts and
some not-so-good behaviors. The solution is to perform all
callbacks on the work thread unconditionally

* Atmel SAMA5 Boards:

- PIO: Fix some cloned errors in SAM GPIO interrupt setup

* NXP LPC17xx Drivers:

- Ethernet: Comment out an assertion that is reported to fire
inappropriately. From Max

* Library:

- stdint.h: Correct naming of [U]INT_LEASTn_{MAX|MIN} and
[U]INT_FASTn{MAX|MIN}. From Kosma Moczek
- unistd.h: POSIX definitions should be defined to a value. rom Kosma
Moczek
- Fixes associated with rint() and related interfaces in the math
library.

* Configuration/Build System:

- NAME_MAX not available on SunOS; use FILENAME_MAX or MAXNAMELEN.
Noted by Douglas Beattie

* Applications:

- NSH: if # appears on line, need to comment ignore additional
commands on the line
- NxPlayer: Check for file read errors and end-of-file with zero
bytes read. Other error handling corrected as well.
- NxPlayer: NxPlayer needs to set curbyte field to zero before
enqueuing a buffer. Otherwise, it looks like beginning of the
buffer has already been consumed.