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Official project updates
Frank posted the latest system release announcement on the Elixir forum so you can read a nice summary here. Nerves is gearing up to be ever more well suited to Nx. More about Nx in the community updates.
- Add req to the built-in hex packages
- Update Nerves Systems to nerves_system_br 1.18.3 versions. This brings in a cpufreq fix, OpenMP support, and CMake support
- Update Elixir to 1.13.2
- Simplify the ssh login to ignore the user. The login is not secure anyway and this skips the step of fixing the user when you forget to specify it.
- Update to nerves_system_br v1.18.3-based systems. This fixes a cpufreq regression on Raspberry Pi.
System updates
Updated dependencies
Changes
- The cpufreq directories are available again. This was a regression that would break code that manually adjusted the CPU frequency. (for Pi systems at least)
- Programs that use OpenMP will run now. The OpenMP shared library (libgomp.so) was supplied by the toolchain, but not copied.
This applies to all systems unless I'm forgetting something:
- nerves_system_osd32mp1, v0.9.1
- nerves_system_x86_64, v1.18.1
- nerves_system_vultr, v0.15.1
- nerves_system_rpi4, v1.18.1
- nerves_system_rpi3a, v1.18.1
- nerves_system_rpi3, v1.18.1
- nerves_system_rpi2, v1.18.1
- nerves_system_rpi, v1.18.1
- nerves_system_rpi0, v1.18.1
- nerves_system_bbb, v2.13.1
Add cmake support via the CMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE environment variable. Pass -D CMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=${CMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE} when configuring a CMake project to use. Thanks to @cocoa-xu for this.
Prepend host tools to PATH rather than append them. Since LD_LIBRARY_PATH is set, there was a possibility of using a system-supplied program with a Nerves-supplied shared library. This makes this less possible. Thanks to @ejc123 for tracking this down.
Show the configured APN in the property table.
Community updates
Nx & Livebook
José Valim wrote about Nx v0.1 on Dashbit blog. It gives a brief intro, the current state of things and what the future holds. Good read I thought. There is also a cool update on Livebook v0.5 on Twitter.
- Collaborative widgets, using Kino
- An introduction to how to use it ships with Livebook
- They are exploring deployment
- Support for Mermaid, a JS tool for making diagrams and visualizations
- A MacOS desktop app (Windows is next) to ease adoption
Except for the desktop app I'm sure this'll be in Nerves Livebook shortly.
Talk video
John Palgut posted that their Elixirconf talk about using Elixir, Nerves and LiveView to control a 3D printer is now on YouTube.
Supporting the Nerves project
We want to encourage everyone to contribute in whatever way works for them. Here are some ways we currently recommend:
- Write or port a new hardware library and include it in the Elixir Circuits collection.
- Give money to the project via Open Collective.
- Get in touch about taking over maintenance duties for some libraries, we might be able to provide you hardware.
- Apply for an EEF stipend on something Nerves-related and build it. We can help if you have questions about this.
- Send corrections or improvements for documentation wherever it fails to help you.
- Write about Nerves, give talks about Nerves. Make videos about Nerves. It is all good.
Finally, if you have questions about the newsletter or want to suggest something you can simply respond to this email it will go directly to me, Lars, who edits this thing. Let me know what you think.
- Lars, Underjord.io
