Official project updates

erlinit, v1.12.0

Check OTP release for ERTS before checking the system. The previous behavior was to only check one or the other based on whether --release-include-erts was specified.
Fixed missing handling of EINTR when running the program to get the device’s ID. The handling has been missing since it was added and is not known to have caused issues. However, it could cause the device’s ID to not be set.

vintage_net_wizard, v0.4.7

VintageNetWizard.Backend.Default reset callback implementation (@jeanparpaillon)

nerves_livebook, v0.5.7

Updates
- Update to Erlang 24.3.2
- Various modest boot time improvements in dependent libraries

nerves_runtime, v0.11.10

Update the initial device scan to be deterministic and to trigger events for containers before the devices they contain. This fixes a subtle issue that prevented RT5379 WiFi module drivers from automatically being loaded.
Batch up modprobe invocations

System updates

Some of these systems are only getting a bump to Erlang 24.3.2 (via nerves_system_br v1.18.6) and some are getting some other neat updates. Let's start with a list of the ones that get Erlang updates:

Then we have the Raspberry Pi systems which also get file system performance updates du to an upstream Linux SquashFS patch as well as the Erlang bump:

And then Beaglebone has to be special and get a ton more good stuff (can you tell people are exploring new devices in the shortage?):

nerves_system_bbb, v2.13.4

Fix USB/Ethernet support on the BeagleBone Green Gateway
Fix regression in v2.13.3 for loading device tree overlays
Pull in upstream Linux SquashFS patch to improve file system performance

And Quickstart images get whatever their parent systems get:

circuits_quickstart, v0.4.14

Community updates

In the less official Twitter capacity Frank has shared benchmarks for an RC of Erlang 25 which introduces the ARM 64-bit JIT and comparing it to Erlang 24. Both on a Raspberry Pi 4.

This is both exciting for M1 Mac users and Raspberry Pi 4 users. Ideally it should just be free performance. If you are curious about the JIT I'd suggest a listen to an old-ish episode of Elixir Mix back when I was a host on it where we had the pleasure of interviewing Lukas Larsson and John Högberg about the JIT compiler. A JIT can mean a few things and I thought our episode cleared it up quite nicely.

Connor Rigby shared some of his experimentation with Flutter, BLE, GPS and RF69 (nice!). Let the man know we are all interested in this sort of thing.

The Nerves Meetup has happened, the recorded talk is not up at this moment but keep an eye on the YouTube channel and Alex should get it up there soon (TM).

Jon Carstens also spoke on The Big Elixir. I hope we'll see that talk get out on the webs eventually too.

I'm personally gearing up for Code BEAM in Stockholm this may which may be the only community event I manage to hit since everything else got scheduled right into my parental leave. If you are heading to Stockholm and want to talk Nerves, let us know or sound off in the #nerves channel on Elixir's Slack. Would love to pull together something fun.

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