Monthly Release: TorizonCore 6.0.0-devel-202210

News Announcements
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We are pleased to announce the TorizonCore 6.0.0-devel-202210 monthly release for Toradex’s System on Modules.

TorizonCore is our operating system that powers Torizon, a DevOps platform that simplifies the development and maintenance of embedded Linux software. TorizonCore is designed to be used out-of-the-box on devices requiring high reliability, allowing you to focus on your application instead of on building and maintaining an operating system.

Torizon uses software containers, making it simple to add functionality to your system in a way that is both secure and easy to maintain. Torizon supports hardware acceleration in containers and graphical user interfaces.

Updates and Highlights

TorizonCore
Debian Packages and Containers
  • The weston-touch-calibrator container can now be used to calibrate displays other than RGB panels, such as LVDS
  • Container Updates:
    Debian Bullseye containers for Torizon rebuilt against the feeds from Debian 11.4
  • Portainer version bumped from 2.13.1 to 2.14.2
  • Debian Bullseye containers were tested and are expected to work with at least basic functionality on all SoMs supported by this release:
    • Apalis iMX6, Colibri iMX6, Colibri iMX6ULL, and Colibri iMX7 use an upstream kernel and upstream graphics drivers, therefore the likelihood that most things work as expected is increased
    • Verdin iMX8M Mini and Verdin iMX8M Plus use the kernel driver from NXP’s L5.15.32_2.0.0, whereas Debian Bullseye containers contain userspace libraries from the previous NXP’s L5.4.70_2.3.7. It means that, even though our container tests have passed, this is a mismatched version between kernel and libraries. Therefore we only recommend it for early migration and development on TorizonCore 6

While Debian Bullseye containers may enable you to early adopt TorizonCore 6, we don’t intend to regularly update and test them for TorizonCore 6. Debian Bookworm containers will be provided with TorizonCore. As soon as we make them available, you are encouraged to upgrade.

Other Updates
  • Several bug fixes
    Due to the bump to TorizonCore 6, an unusual number of bugs were fixed this quarter. They were expected, and as TorizonCore 6 becomes mature, the frequency of bugs will be reduced.

Get more updates on this from our Release Details.

Intended Use

The TorizonCore 6.0.0-devel-202210 Monthly Release is recommended for customers in the development stage. Being a monthly release, it’s not a production release. Remote Updates from 5.x to 6.x are not supported, as you will learn below. In the next release, we expect the Debian Containers and Packages to change from Bullseye to Bookworm.

Remote and Offline Updates

In this monthly release, the remote and secure offline update from 5.x to 6.x is not recommended due to the bootloader updates feature - a prerequisite - not being completed. Please use alternative ways such as Toradex Easy Installer and Recovery mode.
Updates between different version of 5.x or 6.x is supported. We expect to have the updates between 5.x to 6.x working in the next Releases.

Why are we not releasing a quarterly update for TorizonCore?

This month’s image was a release candidate for a quarterly release. However, TorizonCore graphical containers for NXP® i.MX 8/8X/8M Mini Computer on Modules, with support for hardware-accelerated Wayland/Weston and other features from the downstream, is not available yet. That is related to our base BSP for those modules being just moved from NXP’s L5.4.70_2.3.7 to NXP’s L5.15.32_2.0.0.

Debian Bullseye containers were tested and are expected to work on the SoMs that adopt an upstream kernel: Apalis iMX6, Colibri iMX6, Colibri iMX6ULL, and Colibri iMX7. While this may enable you to early adopt TorizonCore 6, we don’t intend to regularly update and test Bullseye containers for TorizonCore 6. Debian Bookworm containers will be provided with TorizonCore 6 throughout its lifecycle and, as soon as they become available, you are encouraged to upgrade.

Instead of making a partial quarterly release exclusively for our products based on NXP i.MX 6/7, we have decided to skip that release for the sake of clarity. Keep in mind that in spite of that, this monthly release went through our test processes for a quarterly release. As a result, it is expected to be more stable than a regular monthly release.

If you are in production with TorizonCore or you depend on the graphics stack on a board based on the NXP i.MX 8/8X/8M Mini, we recommend that you continue to use release 5.7.0. Otherwise, we recommend upgrading from 6.0.0-devel-202209 to this monthly release.

Please also note that TorizonCore is built on top of the Toradex BSP Layers for Yocto Project. As this quarterly BSP release is not as fully featured compared to the 5.7.0 LTS, hardware support and features at the BSP level may impact TorizonCore functionality. Read the BSP Layers and Reference Images for Yocto Project release news to learn more.

Hardware Support

A monthly release supports all Computer on Modules, samples and volume products, as long as they are versions supported by TorizonCore

  • Volume products: Apalis iMX6, Colibri iMX6DL, Colibri iMX7D 1GB
    This release is intended to be used in development on these modules.

  • Sample products: Colibri iMX6ULL 1GB, Verdin iMX8M Mini, Verdin iMX8M Plus
    Due to the hardware status of samples, this release is intended for development.
    For Verdin, only the second generation of Verdin products is supported.

For instructions on how to install and get started, learn from the basics to the advanced, and much more, visit the Torizon page on the Toradex developer website.