An exciting week is over: Embedded World 2025 in Nuremberg! We had lots of interesting talks with our visitors and other exhitibors, and for me the most important result was: connected embedded Linux devices won't be possible anymore without a good maintenance strategy for the kernel, without secureboot and a solid updating concept, taken that companies have to fulfill the european regulations of the cyber resilience act!

But let's start from the beginning: Every year in February/March, the Embedded Community meets in Nuremberg for Embedded World. The trade fair is truly exceptional because it’s probably the only place where all kinds of people from various industries come together, having an interest in embedded systems. Our Pengutronix booth is always a great meeting point to catch up with old and new customers, partners and people from the Embedded Linux community, and to hear the latest background stories and rumors.

I was a bit curious to see whether there was a crisis this year or not: Several customers explained in advance that, due to the economic situation, not all colleagues would be able to travel to Nuremberg. However, once on-site in the exhibition halls, it quickly became clear: If there’s a crisis anywhere, it’s only in very limited parts of the industry, particularly in the automotive sector. The exhibition space was packed - at least on Tuesday and Wednesday.

It also quickly became obvious what the central topic regarding Embedded Linux was this year: the upcoming regulation around the Cyber Resilience Act. There is still a lot of uncertainty about what exactly will happen to manufacturers of devices with software inside, and as long as the standardization process isn’t completed, the details remain unclear.

In any case, we at Pengutronix are definitely on the right track:

• Our systems are based on the mainline Linux kernel
• With a few clean patches, our systems are easy to maintain
• With RAUC, we have set up an Open Source update strategy
• Our secure-boot activities make systems secure
• With Labgrid, you can ensure during maintenance work that everything is well-tested and still functional.

As a result, many great discussions this year focused on these topics, and not so much on AI – even though that should have been the hype topic :-) However, we also showcased the current activities of our graphics team at the booth, who are working on Etnaviv support for the NPU on the MX8M Plus. This will soon allow the possibility of running neural network accelerators on this hardware with proper Open Source drivers, making them maintainable in the long term!

Also, the test remote control equipment from our subsidiary, Linux Automation GmbH, was well received by the audience.

Thanks to everyone who visited us at the booth for the many exciting conversations and topics!