Kernel Release Cycle 10

In this round of releases, we have:

• v3.16.7-ckt26-10-ev3dev-ev3 for the EV3.
• v4.1.18-ti-rt-r56-10-ev3dev-bb.org for the BeagleBone.
• v4.1.21-10-ev3dev-rpi for the Raspberry Pi 0/1.
• v4.1.21-10-ev3dev-rpi2 for the Raspberry Pi 2/3.

Note: rt in the BeagleBone kernel denotes that it is a realtime kernel. BeagleBone has been shipping a realtime kernel for a few months now, so it will be interesting to see if we run into issues or if there is a noticeable difference in performance. Perhaps in the future we can get a realtime kernel running on the EV3 as well.

Breaking Changes

Motor Drivers!

There has been a major overhaul of the tacho-motor class. Most of the changes are under the hood, however there are a few important breaking changes that users need to know about.

• speed_regulation attribute is removed. Now, all run-* commands except for run-direct behave the same as the old speed_regulation = on. If you need unregulated control of motors (speed_regulation = off) use the run-direct command.
• encoder_polarity attribute is removed. You probably were not using this unless you were using Firgelli linear actuators. More on these later…
• stop_command is renamed to stop_action. Since we were making breaking changes, we decided to change this to make it clear that when you write to this attribute, the motor does not stop until you write stop to command. Note: This change also affects the dc-motor class.
• max_speed attribute is added. This returns the maximum speed of the motor with no load at 9V.
• New linear subclass for linear actuators.
  • This is for use with Firgelli linear actuators.
  • These are not automatically detected. You have to specify the driver by using the set_device attribute of the output port.
  • The devices will show up as /sys/class/tacho-motor/linearN instead of /sys/class/tacho-motor/motorN
  • These will not have the count_per_rot attribute. Instead, they will have count_per_m (tachometer counts per meter of linear travel) and full_travel_count (tachometer counts for full travel of the actuator)

Fixes

Thanks to some new contributors for the following:

• @harmooni fixed the HiTechnic Angle Sensor driver.
• @markosko fixed the HiTechic Compass Sensor driver.

Also we backported a couple of mainline kernel patches to our EV3 kernel:

• Fixed some Sony Dualshock controllers not working.
• Fixed camera button on LEGO Vision Command cameras not working.

And last, but not least, BrickPi got some love:

• Motor control is greatly improved. You can now control motors very close to the same way you can on the EV3.
• Fixed inconsistent port addresses.
• Fixed a sensor connection bug.
• Fixed NXT/Analog sensors value not changing.

Changelogs

For a more complete changelog, follow the link for your platform: EV3, BB, RPi or RPi2.