Tesla OS moving to Linux 4.4 soon

[Cosmacelf]

OK, Linux programmers out there. What does this mean in terms of stability, performance, capability? Elon says Tesla OS will move to Linux 4.4 around December.

Tesla vehicles to get a much-needed updated browser with new Linux OS in December, says Musk

 

[DOCAL]

Technically Linux is just the kernel, but generally when people refer to Linux they mean the whole collection of things that come with the kernel. In this case 4.4 will be the kernel itself, which is up to version 4.8 currently.

My assumption would be that they'll also update the rest of the OS too, bringing with it lots of bug fixes and support for newer hardware. In terms of performance, I wouldn't expect a whole lot to change because of the kernel, but the browser speed should improve due to newer versions of webkit and qt.

 

[wart]

Per kernel.org the latest "longterm" kernel is 4.4.24. Makes sense that Tesla would want to be conservative and use a longterm kernel rather than the latest mainline or stable.

Presumably this will include updates to some other surrounding infrastructure like glibc and other libraries which will close up some possible security vulnerabilities and make life easier for the developers working on the user-facing applications.

I'm not a programmer but I know we have quite a few people around here who are; hopefully some of them can chime in with more info.

The timing is interesting since we just got Tesla version 8.0. Will this new update with kernel 4.4.x be Tesla 8.1 or would they go to 9.0 so quickly? A major kernel update seems to me like it ought to trigger a major version update, but I'm not really an expert here.

 

[Gizmotoy]

The timing is interesting since we just got Tesla version 8.0. Will this new update with kernel 4.4.x be Tesla 8.1 or would they go to 9.0 so quickly? A major kernel update seems to me like it ought to trigger a major version update, but I'm not really an expert here.

They could swap out the entire kernel and, done right, owners might never even notice. They could bury it in a point release if they wanted to, I'm sure.

 

[Cyclone]

They could swap out the entire kernel and, done right, owners might never even notice. They could bury it in a point release if they wanted to, I'm sure.

While I'm sure they would increment the 2nd digit (if not even the first) of the internal firmware numbers, I completely agree with this. Tesla has done lots of work of simply planting a UI over the data its processes provide. Thus, if done correctly, this could be done with no "customer-facing" changes beyond the updated web browser. Now, "if done correctly" is a key word there, but I suspect that most of our complaints about the Tesla FW is how the UI interacts with the control logic, not the firmware's operations itself. So hopefully the non-UI people are also not the "business rule" people (go to volume level 2-3 when doors open without first checking if on mute) and thus, we could have a stable upgrade.

 

[Gig103]

They could swap out the entire kernel and, done right, owners might never even notice. They could bury it in a point release if they wanted to, I'm sure.

I can confirm this one - I work on an embedded system and aside from my team, the rest of the department is unaware of the kernel's existence and importance. I work on the kernel, BSP (hardware drivers), and any interfaces the rest of the department needs, and they are all end users. It isn't always transparent for the other software developers, but I can tell you the customer has no idea that level of detail - and we're the customer.

 

[S'toon]

Looks like they may have to upgrade the upgrade. I just upgraded to Linux Kernel 4.8.3 stable to protect against this bug.

Users of the Linux operating system are being urged to update it to remove a "serious" bug that hackers could use to hijack systems.

Known as the Dirty Cow bug, the vulnerability has been present in many versions of Linux for almost a decade.

The warnings come as malicious hackers start exploiting it to take over vulnerable computers.

The vulnerability gets its name from the Linux sub-system, called Copy-On-Write or COW, in which it appears.

Updated versions of Linux that no longer suffer the bug are now being widely distributed. Millions of computers, including a majority of web servers, run Linux or one of its variants.

"The nature of the vulnerability lends itself to extremely reliable exploitation," Dan Rosenberg, a security researcher at Azimuth Security, told tech news site Ars Technica. He added that it was the "most serious" bug of its type ever found in Linux.

The vulnerability allows attackers to steadily increase the amount of control they can exert over a target system.

<snip>

Full article at:
Warnings over Dirty Cow Linux bug - BBC News

 

[mike_smith]

Are there any programmers interested in a small model x screen project?