We recently released Nerves 1.5.0 and corresponding updates to the Nerves new project generator, nerves_bootstrap and our official systems.

The primary update in this Nerves release is support for Elixir 1.9’s new OTP release support. Previous Nerves releases used Distillery to create OTP releases as part of the firmware creation process. It is still possible to use Distillery with Nerves 1.5.0.

Please review our upgrade guide at Updating Projects — nerves v1.9.1.

In addition to Elixir 1.9 release support, we have other exciting updates in the core Nerves projects that we’d like to share:

1. OTP 22 support in the latest official systems. If you’re building a custom system, you can select OTP 21 or OTP 20 if your applications can’t be upgraded.
2. Buildroot 2019.05. Buildroot provides the required infrastructure around the BEAM and this update pulls in many security updates and bug fixes in “C” packages.
3. gcc 8.3.0 support. We had been using gcc 7.3.0 across official releases and this update improves C++ support for some projects and pulls in compiler improvements

This release is both big and small. From one perspective, many Nerves users won’t notice any changes after dealing with the Elixir 1.9 release configuration updates. However, there’s a lot going on behind the scenes in Nerves to keep Linux, C libraries and applications up-to-date and patched. Please give yourself time to work through the upgrade guide link above and perhaps go slowly with small projects first if you have trouble updating a large project. We have noticed hiccups especially with webengine-based kiosk projects since these have particularly complicated C++ code in them. For those projects, it’s best to follow the lead of the kiosk_system_* projects that Le Tote hosts.

One final note - we have a number of contributors to the Nerves OpenCollective. we can not thank all of you enough! Your support lets us pay for many things that fall outside of our employers needs for their Nerves devices, but which support open-source and maker use of Nerves. Speaking of which, Raspberry Pi 4 support is coming soon!