Kernel version 3.16.7-ckt3-ev3dev1 has been released. This release includes the most recent upstream patches. Kernel 3.16 is not a long-term support version and is no longer maintained by the usual kernel maintainers on kernel.org. However, since it is used in Debian Jessie and Ubuntu Utopic, Ubuntu has taken over maintenance of this kernel branch in a semi-official capacity. This is is where the “ckt” in the kernel version comes from - Canonical Kernel Team. We will be tracking this branch for the ev3dev-jessie release.

The most notable change from the upstream is that the WNA1000 WiFi dongle is working again. Yay! (It is the only dongle supported on the official LEGO firmware, so lots of people have this one.)

We’ve also taken the opportunity to change the versioning scheme. 3.16.7 is the stable release version from kernel.org. ckt3 as already mentioned is a special case since this particular kernel is being maintained by Canonical. The 3 will be increased each time they do a kernel release. And of course, ev3dev1 is the ev3dev version number. The 1 will be increased each time we do a release between upstream releases and reset back to 1 when we merge a new upstream release.

Additional changes include support for the LEGO Power Functions Servo Motor (88004). It currently only works when connected to a WeDo USB Hub and not the output ports of the EV3. There are some bug fixes for input and output ports using the new lego-port class and a kernel oops in the rcx-motor driver. There are also some breaking changes of sysfs attribute renames.

See the changelog for a more technical list of changes.

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  • Posted on 06 January 2015
  • @dlech