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Project updates
Question for y'all in the community and industry. What dev boards with ML accelerators on them have y'all been using or looking at? I spoke to Frank recently and he expressed interest in finding some available boards with a decently well-documented accelerator for less than $150. Nothing promised, nothing committed to. But suggestions would be very welcome. You can just respond to this email :)
Beyond that, there is some Pi 5 work sneaking into Nerves as you can see below.
- Changes
- Add workaround to GPIO pin numbering change on TI AM335x platforms (like the BBB) that happened between Linux 5.10 and 5.15. Circuits.GPIO will remap the pins automatically so the number is consistent with the way it’s been for years and the way that most online docs talk about it. E.g., GPIO number is the pin bank times 32 plus the pin offset in the bank.
- Defer NIF loading until opening the first GPIO. This is a minor optimization to delay shared library load time and issue to a little later in boot.
nerves_system_br, v1.25.2
This is a security/bug fix update for v1.25.1 that also adds support for the
Raspberry Pi 5's WiFi and Bluetooth module.
* Changes
* Update the RPi WiFi firmware to support the module on the RPi 5. This also
brings in about 2 years worth of updates to the firmware so it might help
other RPi's.
* Add `rpi-distro-bluez-firmware` package to supply Bluetooth firmware for the
RPi 5 and other RPi's.
* Package updates
* Buildroot 2023.08.4
- Fix incorrect typespec for PropertyTable.options()
- Changes
- Added VintageNetWiFi.summarize_access_points/1 to centralize filtering and sorting access point lists for presentation to users. (Thanks @grace-in-wonderland)
- Change VintageNetWiFi.quick_scan/1 to call summarize_access_points/1. This should make it much easier to find SSIDs at the IEx prompt. It’s technically an API change. See the function’s hexdocs for details.
Community updates
Nerves on Podcasts
Frank came on and spoke to my co-hosts on BEAM Radio, episode #64.
Connor showed up for a good conversation with the Wizards on embedded in general and comparing/contrasting with Nerves and other ecosystems.
Nerves Meetup online!
The next event happens on the 27th of November. Alfonso Gonzalez will talk about integrating Amazon Greengrass into Nerves firmware. Don't miss it :)
Participating in the community
The Nerves community is found wherever Elixirists gather. Try any of the following:
- Elixir Slack, #nerves channel
- Elixir Discord
- Mastodon/Fediverse at genserver.social
- Elixir Forum Chat
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
