Upstreaming of the AAEON UP board IO expansion Linux kernel driver

AAEON UP board familyThe UP Board family of platforms, developed by AAEON, is a series of compact, high-performance single-board computers (SBCs) widely used in the industry and embedded applications. They combine high-performance Intel processors with versatile I/O through a 40-pin Raspberry Pi-like header. At its core, an FPGA manages pin functionality, routing, and direction, enabling flexible use as I2C, UART, or GPIO. Supporting this setup in Linux is uniquely challenging and fascinating, and we were recently involved in bringing support for these I/Os upstream, successfully closing a story that had been open for seven years!

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meta-kiss: updates to our simple Yocto layer

meta-kissYocto is often seen as fairly complex, and at Bootlin we believe one reason for this perception is the unnecessary complexity of the BSP layers provided by silicon or board vendors, each of which often includes highly custom logic that isn’t needed. That’s why, back in 2023, we released meta-kiss, an example layer demonstrating how simple it can be to support various hardware platforms with Yocto, without relying on any vendor-provided BSP layer.

Since then, we’ve kept this layer up-to-date and added several new features. In this blog post, we’d like to highlight recent significant updates: an upgrade to Yocto Scarthgap, support for the i.MX93 FRDM platform, and the ability to build OP-TEE for the previously supported STM32MP1 platform.

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Announcing sbom-cve-check, a lightweight CVE analysis tool for your SBOM

sbom-cve-checkToday, we are happy to announce the first release of a brand new open-source project: sbom-cve-check, a lightweight CVE analysis tool for your Software Bill of Materials (SBOM). Written in Python, with minimal dependencies, and a very simple workflow in mind, sbom-cve-check will parse your SBOM (SPDX v2.2 or SPDX v3.0 currently supported), and using publicly available databases of security vulnerabilities, will generate a report of known security vulnerabilities affecting the software components listed in your SBOM.

This tool will be presented tomorrow, on December 2 at 3:40 PM during the Yocto Project Virtual Summit 2025.12 during a talk titled sbom-cve-check: Lightweight Python tooling for out-of-build CVE analysis of SPDX3 SBOMs, presented by Bootlin engineers Benjamin Robin and Olivier Benjamin.

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Linux 6.18 released, Bootlin contributions inside

Penguin coding, AI generatedThe 6.18 version of the Linux kernel has just been released, and as usual we recommend our readers to look at the 6.18 merge window coverage by LWN.net (part 1, part 2) to get the best overview of the major changes in this release.

On our side, we contributed a total of 77 patches to this kernel release, and our engineers who work as maintainers review/merged 111 patches from other contributors.

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Bootlin at Capitole du Libre 2025

The 2025 edition of Capitole du Libre took Capitole du Libreplace in Toulouse, France on November, 15th and 16th this year, and as in previous years, Bootlin was actively involved through a variety of contributions.

The Capitole du Libre is a major conference about Free Software in the south of France, even attracting people from other countries. This is an important opportunity for local actors to meet and share their interests and contributions to Open Source Software.

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Support for Yocto buildtools added to upstream Kas

Yocto Buildtools in KasBootlin has recently contributed to the Kas project by adding support for Yocto Project’s Buildtools. In this blog post, we will give an overview of what Kas is, what Buildtools are, why an integration of Buildtools was deemed useful and relevant, and how to use it.

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Bootlin engineer Luca Ceresoli speaks at Linux Day 2025 in Bergamo, Italy

Linux DayBootlin is happy to share that our engineer Luca Ceresoli will be speaking at Linux Day 2025 in Bergamo, Italy, on Saturday, October 25, 2025.

Luca’s talk, titled “Software updates on embedded Linux devices” (“Aggiornamenti software su dispositivi embedded Linux”), will take place from 14:00 to 15:00.

About the talk

Many of the electronic products we use every day are powered by Linux, even when we don’t see it. Like PCs, these embedded devices also need software updates to fix bugs and improve functionality. However, unlike PCs, they must perform these updates automatically and reliably, without any user intervention.

In his presentation, Luca will explain one of the most widely used techniques for achieving this: A/B updates. He will describe what they are, how they work, and the most common tools used to implement them in embedded Linux systems.

This talk is a great opportunity for developers and engineers interested in the practical challenges of maintaining and updating Linux-based devices in the field.

About Linux Day

Linux Day is an annual, nationwide event organized across Italy to promote the use and understanding of free and open-source software. Many cities host talks, workshops, and meetups aimed at both newcomers and experienced developers. The Bergamo edition continues this tradition with a full day of technical sessions, community engagement and an install party.

Meet Luca and Bootlin

If you’re attending Linux Day Bergamo 2025, don’t miss Luca’s session! Don’t hesitate to meet Luca to talk about what we do at Bootlin and open job positions!

Adding support for the MAX7360 keypad controller in the Linux kernel

MAX7360Among all activities I’ve been doing at Bootlin during the past few months, one has been to add support for the Maxim MAX7360 Key-Switch Controller and LED Driver/GPIOs chip to the Linux kernel. Together with my colleague Kamel Bouhara, we developed Linux kernel device drivers to support it and upstreamed them to the mainline kernel. The full set of drivers have been merged in the upstream Linux kernel, and will be available in the upcoming Linux 6.18 release.

In this blog post, we will share some details on how this hardware works, and how it is now supported by the Linux kernel.

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Bootlin at Capitole du Libre in Toulouse, Nov 15-16

Capitole du LibreCapitole du Libre is the leading annual open-source and free software conference in Toulouse, France, and has been a key event in the community for over a decade. With offices based in Toulouse, Bootlin has been a long-time participant and active contributor to this event, and 2025 will be no exception.

  • Bootlin is part of the 4 Platine sponsors of the event, the highest sponsorship level
  • Bootlin will have a booth in the main hall of the conference, which will allow visitors to meet the Bootlin team, discuss Bootlin activities, career and internship opportunities, and more
  • Bootlin engineers will be giving a number of talks, related to Embedded Linux or not:
    • Thomas Petazzoni will be giving a talk titled What’s new in the Linux kernel: a year of changes in review
    • Alexis Lothoré and Maxime Chevallier will be delivering a hands-on workshop on Mastering eBPF and XDP: creating a high-performance ad blocker
    • The same Alexis Lothoré will be talking about a more personal project: An Open-Source Blind Test from Start to Finish: When Free Software Makes Our Parties Buzz

Looking forward to meet you at Capitole du Libre in November!