In this release the mpy file format has been moved to version 4 and has some significant improvements: mpy file size is reduced on average by about 35%, loading time of mpy files is reduced by about 40%, and they now have support to save native, viper and inline assembler code (or machine code generated from any other source). Size reduction of mpy files was achieved by adding a qstr window to reuse past qstrs when encoding them, by packing qstrs directly in the bytecode, and by defining a static qstr set.

Some VM opcodes were also changed to fix a bug when doing a break/continue out of a finally block, and to make some simplifications. In particular POP_BLOCK and POP_EXCEPT opcodes were replaced with POP_EXCEPT_JUMP.

Most uppercase macros have been converted to lowercase to make a more consistent C API, including all MP_OBJ_IS_xxx and MP_xxx_SLOT_IS_FILLED macros.

The default PYTHON makefile variable is now changed from "python" to "python3", but Python 2 is still supported via "make PYTHON=python2".

The mpy-cross compiler supports the new mpy version 4 and has new command line options: "-march=" to select the native emitter, and "--version" to print the MicroPython version and the mpy version. Also mpy-tool.py has support for freezing native code.

A module system for external, user C modules has been implemented and documentation for this is available in the new "docs/develop" section.

A new "javascript" port has been added which targets JavaScript as the machine via Emscripten. This allows to run MicroPython as an application within node.js, and to run it within a browser (among other things).

All bare-metal ports have the following improvements: machine.sleep() is now machine.lightsleep(), and both lightsleep() and deepsleep() now take an optional argument which is the maximum time to sleep in milliseconds. These ports also now allow freezing of boot.py and main.py using the usual methods. And a new I2C method i2c.writevto(addr, vect) is added which can be used to write a tuple/list of buffers all at once to an I2C device.

The stm32 port now has a fully integrated Ethernet MAC driver (see the network.LAN class) using lwIP for the TCP/IP stack, and sockets were made significantly more robust. Support for F413 MCUs was added. There are also some minor user-facing changes to this port:

• machine.UART (and pyb.UART) now defaults to timeout=0 (was 1000ms) which gives UARTs a non-blocking behaviour.
• The USB REPL is now configurable using uos.dupterm, and by default pyb.USB_VCP(0) is put on dupterm slot 1 before boot.py is executed. To disable the default REPL use: uos.dupterm(None, 1).
• pyb.DAC(id) will now only reset the DAC the first time it is called; to get the old behaviour pass the bits parameter like: pyb.DAC(id, bits).
• pyb.DAC.noise() and pyb.DAC.triangle() now output at full scale.
• The system will not recreate boot.py if it's missing (it will only create it if the filesystem is corrupt, or when doing a factory reset).

For the esp32 port, the build process has been updated to align better with the ESP IDF and now uses sdkconfig to configure features. Dual core mode is now enabled by default, SPIRAM is in memory-mapped mode so all of it can be used for the MicroPython heap, there is support to change the CPU frequency, and the WDT now panics and resets the device if it times out.

A detailed list of changes follows.

py core:

• remove calls to file reader functions when these are disabled
• add optional support for 2-argument version of built-in next()
• compile: swap order of pop_block/pop_except in "except as" handler
• warning: support categories for warnings
• builtinhelp: only print help re FS modules if external import enabled
• downcase all MP_OBJ_IS_xxx macros to make a more consistent C API
• downcase MP_xxx_SLOT_IS_FILLED inline functions
• mkenv.mk: change default PYTHON variable from "python" to "python3"
• qstr: evaluate find_qstr only once then pass to Q_GET_HASH macro
• obj.h: remove obsolete mp_obj_new_fun_viper() declaration
• objfun: make fun_data arg of mp_obj_new_fun_asm() a const pointer
• eliminate warnings about unused arguments when debugging disabled
• compile: fix handling of unwinding BaseException in async with
• compile: add optimisation to compile OrderedDict inplace
• objexcept: fix hash of exc str created in mp_obj_new_exception_msg
• py.mk: update lwip build config to work with latest lwip version
• fix VM crash with unwinding jump out of a finally block
• vm: remove currently_in_except_block variable
• replace POP_BLOCK and POP_EXCEPT opcodes with POP_EXCEPT_JUMP
• persistentcode: add a qstr window to save mpy files more efficiently
• persistentcode: pack qstrs directly in bytecode to reduce mpy size
• persistentcode: define static qstr set to reduce size of mpy files
• add independent config for debugging sentinel object values
• emitnative: consolidate where HASCONSTS is set to load-const-obj fun
• emitnative: provide concentrated points of qstr emit
• emitnative: adjust accounting of size of const_table
• emitglue: remove union in mp_raw_code_t to combine bytecode & native
• add support to save native, viper and asm code to .mpy files
• persistentcode: bump .mpy version to 4
• allow registration of modules at their definition
• implement a module system for external, user C modules
• update and rework build system for including external C modules
• move mp_native_type_from_qstr() from emitnative.c to nativeglue.c
• nativeglue: rename native convert funs to match other native helpers
• compile: add support to select the native emitter at runtime
• compile: support multiple inline asm emitters
• compile: check that arch is set when compiling native, viper or asm
• runtime: remove long-obsolete MICROPY_FSUSERMOUNT init code
• scheduler: convert micropythyon.schedule() to a circular buffer
• nlrthumb: add support for iOS where the C func is _nlr_push_tail
• makedefs: use io.open with utf-8 encoding when processing source
• runtime: optimise to not create temp float for int to power negative
• runtime: fix mp_unpack_ex so seq can't be reclaimed by GC during use
• mpprint: support printing %ld and %lu formats on 64-bit archs
• asmthumb: support asm_thumb code running on normal ARM processors
• native: improve support for bool type in viper functions
• remove "if (0)" and "if (false)" branches
• objgenerator: fix handling of None passed as 2nd arg to throw()
• objgenerator: remove unneeded forward decl and clean up white space
• misc.h: rename _MP_STRINGIFY to not use leading underscore in ident
• persistentcode: change "len" type to size_t for mp_obj_str_get_data
• objarray: add support for memoryview.itemsize attribute
• objarray: add decode method to bytearray
• update makefiles to use $(CAT) variable instead of hard coded "cat"
• update makefiles to use $(TOUCH) instead of hard coded "touch"

extmod:

• moduzlib: update to uzlib 2.9.2
• modlwip: add support for polling UDP sockets for writability
• moduhashlib: include implementation of sha256 only when required
• convert legacy uppercase macro names to lowercase
• moduwebsocket: refactor websocket to uwebsocket
• modlwip: change #ifdef to #if for check of MICROPY_PY_LWIP
• modlwip: fix bug when polling listening socket with backlog=1
• modlwip: add concurrency protection macros
• modwebrepl: fix logic to handle a put of file of size 0
• vfs_fat: update for new oofatfs version
• modlwip: fix case where concurrency lock isn't released on error
• moduselect: adjust select_select and poll_register to use size_t
• vfs_fat: fallback to FAT32 if standard FAT16/SFD format fails
• modlwip: handle case of connection closing while on accept queue
• modlwip: handle case of accept callback called with null PCB
• modlwip: protect socket.accept with lwIP concurrency lock
• modlwip: free any stored incoming bufs/connections on TCP error
• modlwip: use correct listening socket object in accept callback
• modlwip: abort TCP conns that didn't close cleanly in a while
• modurandom: add init method to seed the Yasmarang generator
• machine_signal: fix fault when no args are passed to Signal()
• modussl_mbedtls: support non-blocking handshake
• modussl_axtls: add non-blocking mode support
• moducryptolib: add optional AES-CTR support
• modujson: handle parsing of floats with + in the exponent
• machine_i2c: change C-level API to allow split I2C transactions
• machine_i2c: remove need for temporary memory in writemem() call
• machine_i2c: add i2c.writevto() that can write a vector of bufs
• modlwip: free any incoming bufs/connections before closing PCB
• modlwip: register TCP close-timeout callback before closing PCB

lib:

• utils/pyexec: implement paste mode with event driven REPL
• utils/printf: exclude __GI_vsnprintf alias for gcc 9 and above
• utils/gchelper_m3: add license header and clean up code
• utils/gchelper_m3: add gc_helper_get_sp() function
• utils/gchelper: add gchelper.h header file for assembler functions
• netutils: add function to print tracing info for Ethernet frames
• oofatfs: update oofatfs library to R0.13c working branch
• oofatfs: update ffconf.h config for new oofatfs version
• oofatfs: update oofatfs library to fix issue with logic not
• stm32lib: update library to fix F7 MMC capacity calculation
• utils/pyexec: add pyexec_file_if_exists() helper function
• utils: make pyexec_file_if_exists run frozen scripts if they exist
• utils/interrupt_char: invalidate interrupt char at start up
• stm32lib: update library to fix UART9/10 baudrate on F4 MCUs
• nrfx: upgrade nrfx to v1.7.1 plus a UART bug fix

drivers:

• memory/spiflash: rework wait_sr to fix uninit'd variable 'sr'
• display/ssd1306.py: change to use new i2c.writevto() method

tools:

• mpy-tool.py: add support for freezing native code
• upip.py: use "raise arg" instead of no-arg raise form, for native
• pyboard.py: add missing line from example usage comments
• mpy-tool.py: adjust use of super() to make it work with Python 2
• mpy-tool.py: fix init of QStrWindow, and remove unused variable
• pyboard.py: don't accumulate output data if data_consumer used
• upip.py: add support for multiple index URLs with custom default

tests:

• basics: add tests for try-except-else and try-except-else-finally
• run-tests: support running native tests via mpy
• import: add test for importing x64 native code
• extmod: add test for FAT filesystem on a very large block device
• run-tests: ignore exception in process kill when ending repl test
• micropython: add some tests for failed heap allocation
• skip tests needing machine module if (u)machine doesn't exist
• ussl_basic: disable setblocking() calls
• basics/sys1.py: add test for calling sys.exit() without any args
• pyb: update UART expected output now that default timeout is 0
• basics: add coverage tests for memoryview attributes

mpy-cross:

• enable building of x64 native .mpy files
• add "-march=" option to select native emitter
• support compiling with MICROPY_PY___FILE__ enabled
• automatically select ARMV6 arch when running on such a host
• add --version command line option to print version info

all ports:

• change PYB message prefix to MPY
• convert legacy uppercase macro names to lowercase
• update to work with new oofatfs version
• {stm32,esp8266}: set mpy-cross native arch for frozen native code
• convert to use pyexec_file_if_exists() to execute boot/main.py

unix port:

• mpthreadport: add thread deinit code to stop threads on exit
• mpthreadport: cleanup used memory on thread exit
• mpthreadport: remove busy wait loop in thread garbage collection
• modmachine: handle repeated /dev/mem open errors
• modffi: eliminate unused-argument warning when debugging disabled
• Makefile: update coverage tests to match those in Travis
• mpthreadport: use named semaphores on Mac OS X
• gcollect: make sure stack/regs get captured properly for GC
• coverage: add test for printing literal % character
• modusocket: fix use of setsockopt in usocket.settimeout impl
• modusocket: raise ETIMEDOUT when connect or accept has timeout

windows port:

• fix line wrapping behaviour on the REPL

qemu-arm port:

• rework to run bare-metal on boards with Cortex-M CPUs
• use gchelper code to get registers for GC scanning

stm32 port:

• implement machine.lightsleep()
• rtc: check RTCEN=1 when testing if RTC is already running on boot
• usbdev: add USB config option for board being self powered
• usbdev: add USB config option for max power drawn by the board
• main: make board-defined UART REPL use a static object and buffer
• boards/stm32f429_af.csv: fix typos in UART defs Tx->TX and Rx->RX
• mboot: add option to autodetect the USB port that DFU uses
• sdcard: don't use SD clock bypass on F7 MCUs
• usb: add flow control option for USB VCP data received from host
• boards/make-pins.py: add basic support for STM32H7 ADC periphs
• boards/stm32h743_af.csv: add ADC entries to pin capability table
• adc: add basic support for ADC on a pin on STM32H7 MCUs
• mboot: use USB HS as main USB device regardless of USB_HS_IN_FS
• mboot: add support for STM32F769 MCUs
• mboot: add support for GPIO ports G, H, I and J
• mboot: allow deploying via deploy-stlink
• usb: use USB HS as main USB device regardless of USB_HS_IN_FS
• usbd_conf: fully support USB HS with external PHY
• modmachine: make bootloader() enter custom loader if it's enabled
• boards/STM32F769DISC: support the use of USB HS with external PHY
• boards/STM32F769DISC: configure for use with mboot by default
• systick: rename sys_tick_XXX functions to systick_XXX
• systick: make periodic systick callbacks use a cyclic func table
• pendsv: clean up pendsv IRQ handler and eliminate duplicate code
• pendsv: add ability to schedule callbacks at pendsv IRQ level
• systick: provide better compile-time configurability of slots
• modnetwork: change lwIP polling to be based on background systick
• move gchelper assembler code to lib/utils for use by other ports
• gccollect: use gchelper.h header instead of explicit declaration
• pendsv: fix inline asm constant and prefix with # character
• mboot/Makefile: support specifying BOARD_DIR for custom board
• boards/NUCLEO_L476RG: add support for RNG, DAC and CAN1
• boards/make-pins.py: add cmdline options to support use by mboot
• mboot/Makefile: generate all pin header files from board pins.csv
• mboot/mphalport.h: include genhdr/pins.h for access to pin names
• qspi: use static af functions for pin configuration
• mboot: add support for loading gzip'd firmware from a filesystem
• mboot: move some BSS vars to new section that isn't zeroed out
• mboot: add support script which can program mboot and application
• modmachine: add ability to pass through user data to mboot
• mboot: add hook to run board-specific code early on startup
• boards/stm32f429.ld: increase uPy heap size by 64k for F429 MCU
• extint: fix ExtInt to work with non-GPIO pins
• extint: fix RTC Alarm/FS USB EXTI constants for L4
• make-stmconst.py: improve regex to parse more constants
• extint: add non-GPIO EXTI IRQ sources for F0
• extint: remove unused (and incorrect) EXTI defines
• stm32_it: fix RTC IRQ handler to handle all EXTI IRQs on F0 MCUs
• sdram: increase GPIO speed for SDRAM interface to "very high"
• boards/NUCLEO_F767ZI: fix up comments about HCLK computation
• mphalport: add mp_hal_get_mac() helper function
• eth: add low-level Ethernet MAC driver
• network_lan: add high-level network.LAN interface to ETH driver
• mpconfigport.h: enable lwIP concurrency protection mechanism
• modnetwork: don't call NIC callback if it's NULL
• boards/NUCLEO_F767ZI: enable lwIP and Ethernet peripheral
• boards/STM32F7DISC: enable lwIP and Ethernet peripheral
• boards/STM32F769DISC: enable lwIP and Ethernet peripheral
• boards/NUCLEO_F429ZI: enable lwIP and Ethernet peripheral
• qspi: enable sample shift and disable timeout counter
• Makefile: allow a board to specify its linker sections for FW
• boards/STM32F769DISC: use external QSPI flash to store some code
• use global lwip build config and support building without lwip
• boards: update to use new build config for lwip component
• add compile-time option to use HSI as clock source
• mboot: update to match latest oofatfs version
• allow to build with threading with the GIL disabled
• qspi: set pin speed to very-high and allow to config some options
• usb: allow to override USB strings & VID/PID in app and mboot
• stm32_it: guard UART7_IRQHandler with check for UART7 define
• mboot: set USE_MBOOT=1 by default in the Makefile
• system_stm32: provide default value for HSI calibration
• mpconfigport.h: remove malloc/free/realloc helper macros
• boards/STM32L476DISC: enable servo support on STM32L476DISC board
• Makefile: allow to override CROSS_COMPILE with included Makefile
• make default USB_VCP stream go through uos.dupterm for main REPL
• timer: expose the PWM BRK capability of Timer 1 and 8
• uart: handle correctly the char overrun case of RXNE=0 and ORE=1
• rename MICROPY_HW_HAS_SDCARD to MICROPY_HW_ENABLE_SDCARD
• add support for MMC driver, exposed via pyb.MMCard class
• moduos: allow to compile again without USB enabled
• network_wiznet5k: add ability to trace Ethernet TX and RX frames
• network_wiznet5k: add ability to set the MAC address
• network_wiznet5k: automatically set MAC if device doesn't have one
• i2cslave: add support for H7 MCUs
• usbd_conf: add support for USB HS peripheral on H7 MCUs
• mboot: add support for H7 MCUs, with H743 flash layout
• boards/NUCLEO_H743ZI: add config options to support mboot
• boards/NUCLEO_L432KC: disable complex nos and default frozen mods
• rtc: add auto-LSE-bypass detection with fallback to LSE then LSI
• rtc: remove unused LSE detection code
• rtc: remove non-ASCII mu-character from source code comment
• timer: correctly initialise extended break settings on F7/H7/L4
• system_stm32f0: enable PWR clock on startup
• system_stm32f0: add support for using HSE and PLL as SYSCLK
• powerctrl: enable EIWUP to ensure RTC wakes device from standby
• dac: rework DAC driver to use direct register access
• usbdev: make USB device descriptors at runtime rather than static
• usb: add USB device mode for VCP+VCP without MSC
• powerctrl: deselect PLLSAI as 48MHz src before turning off PLLSAI
• usb: remove mp_hal_set_interrupt_char now that it's reset at boot
• main: increase default UART REPL rx buffer from 64 to 260 bytes
• powerctrl: support changing frequency when HSI is clock source
• flash: fix bug computing page number for L432 page erase
• add support for F413 MCUs
• boards: add NUCLEO_F413ZH board configuration
• machine_uart: change default UART timeout to 0, for non blocking
• move factory reset files and code to separate source file
• usbd_cdc_interface: don't retransmit chars if USB is reconnected
• rtc: allow overriding startup timeouts from mpconfigboard
• dma: initialise all members of DMA structs for H7 MCUs
• dma: always reset and configure the H7 DMA peripheral
• spi: enable SPI IRQs and add IRQHandlers for H7 MCUs
• irq: fix IRQ_ENABLE_STATS stats config to work on all MCUs
• boards/NUCLEO_H743ZI: enable SPI3 on this board
• modmachine: create dedicated asm function to branch to bootloader
• adc: fix VBAT_DIV to be 4 for STM32F411
• machine_i2c: update to support new C-level I2C API
• i2c: make timeout for hardware I2C configurable
• machine_i2c: simplify ROM initialisation of static HW I2C objects
• i2c: support setting the I2C TIMINGR value via keyword arg
• sdcard: add switch break to ensure only correct SD/MMC IRQ is run
• sdram: update MPU settings to block invalid region, change attrs
• mboot/README: fix some typos, describe bootloader and fwupdate.py
• modmachine: in bootloader() disable caches before reset of periphs

cc3200 port:

• mods/modussl: fix ca_certs arg validation in mod_ssl_wrap_socket
• modmachine: rename machine.sleep to machine.lightsleep
• use common gchelper_m3.s code from lib/utils
• mpconfigport.h: disable compiler optimisation of OrderedDict

esp8266 port:

• modmachine: implement optional time_ms arg to machine.deepsleep
• modmachine: rename machine.sleep to machine.lightsleep
• modmachine: implement simple machine.lightsleep function
• modmachine: in lightsleep, only waiti if wifi is turned off
• modmachine: call ets_event_poll after waiti in machine.idle
• modmachine: handle overflow of timer to get longer periods
• fix ticks_ms to correctly handle wraparound of system counter

esp32 port:

• don't put py/scheduler.o in iRAM, it's no longer needed
• Makefile: put all IDF compenents in .a libs to use IDF ld script
• update to latest ESP IDF using sdkconfig and new ldgen procedure
• machine_timer: deinit all active timers on soft reset
• Makefile: make sure that directory exists for sdkconfig.h
• boards: use auto xtal freq config instead of default 40MHz
• modsocket: fix crashes when connect/bind can't resolve given addr
• modmachine: rename machine.sleep to machine.lightsleep
• use SPIRAM in mem-map mode so all of it can be used for uPy heap
• modmachine: add support for changing the CPU frequency
• modsocket: fix usocket.send to accept anything with buffer proto
• modsocket: change socket.socket to be socket type rather than fun
• network_lan: add arg to constructor to set clock mode for ETH PHY
• modnetwork: catch and report Ethernet events
• network_lan: make power arg to constructor optional
• modnetwork: fix wifi.isconnected to return False after disconnect
• modnetwork: implement RSSI for WiFi STA via WLAN.status('rssi')
• modnetwork: remove redundant esp_log include
• Makefile: add some missing IDF source files to bootloader and app
• mphalport: use ets_delay_us for mp_hal_delay_us_fast
• machine_pin: make it so None as pull value disables pull up/down
• machine_pin: add new PULL_HOLD pin pull mode
• machine_pin: rework pull mode config to fix GPIO hold feature
• mpthreadport: exit vPortCleanUpTCB early if threading not init'd
• boards: enable dual core support by default
• boards/sdkconfig: disable WDT check of idle task on CPU1
• README: add info about pyparsing and the correct Python version
• machine_wdt: add timeout arg to select interval, make WDT panic
• modnetwork: change type to size_t for uses of mp_obj_str_get_data
• machine_uart: implement UART.deinit() method
• network_ppp: add a timeout for closing PPP connection
• machine_touchpad: use HW timer for FSM to enable wake-on-touch
• modsocket: raise EAGAIN when accept fails in non-blocking mode

javascript port:

• add new port targeting JavaScript via Emscripten
• fix Emscripten async load, and to compile with modern clang
• library: use Buffer.alloc() since new Buffer() is deprecated
• pass (error) exit value out from script to process caller
• Makefile: fix unrepresentable float error by using clamp
• library: print data as raw bytes to stdout so unicode works

nrf port:

• modmachine: rename machine.sleep to machine.lightsleep
• uart: use formula instead of switch for baudrate calculation
• uart: remove unused machine.UART() parameters
• shrink " does not exist" error messages
• pin: cleanup Pin.str to print relevant information
• pin: print pull information in Pin.str
• ticker: remove duplicate NRFX_IRQ_PRIORITY_SET
• timer: fix disabling Timer 1 when using soft PWM
• readme: update link to nrfjprog download
• bluetooth: improve advertisment behavior for nrf52 targets
• bluetooth: resolve compilation warning in ble_drv.c
• readme: update make flash command when defining board
• pwm: remove superfluous NULL in machine_hard_pwm_instances
• bluetooth: add support for SoftDevice s132 version 6.1.1
• board: migrate all nrf52832 targets to new BLE stack
• bluetooth: deprecate use of SoftDevice s132 v6.0.0
• bluetooth: add support for SoftDevice s140 version 6.1.1
• board: migrate nrf52840 target to new BLE stack
• bluetooth: deprecate use of SoftDevice s140 v6.0.0
• readme: add section about LTO
• Makefile: update to match latest oofatfs version
• boards: add support for BLYST Nano module based boards
• change types to size_t for all uses of mp_obj_str_get_data
• machine/i2c: update to support new C-level I2C API
• nrfx_glue: adapt to nrfx v.1.7.1
• uart: change UART driver to be non-blocking and use IRQs
• mpconfigport.h: enable MICROPY_KBD_EXCEPTION by default
• uart: make UART print output something, and add write method
• mphalport: use wfi to save power while waiting at the UART REPL

zephyr port:

• modzephyr: revamp stacks_analyze() call
• modzsensor: rename "TEMP" sensor channel to "DIE_TEMP"
• prj_minimal.conf: switch to CONFIG_STDOUT_CONSOLE
• Makefile: proxy ram_report, rom_report targets from Zephyr
• prj_frdm_k64f.conf: add fxos8700 sensor
• prj_frdm_kw41z.conf: add new board configuration
• i2c: add support for hardware i2c
• CMakeLists.txt: set AR to point to the Zephyr toolchain exe
• machine_i2c: update to support new C-level I2C API
• switch back to enabling I2C in board-specific configs

docs:

• machine: change sleep to lightsleep and add timeout arguments
• convert all cases of machine.sleep to machine.lightsleep
• ure: fix match.group signature to indicate index param is required
• uos: document extra requirements on stream objs passed to dupterm
• pyboard: add link to pyboard v1.1 schematic and layout PDF
• pyboard: make pyboard v1.1 pinout the default shown in quickref
• develop: fix typos in C-module example for example_add_ints
• library/machine.Pin: add PULL_HOLD constant to possible pin pulls
• esp32: add a note to quickref about use of Pin.PULL_HOLD
• esp32: add example for pin isolation in combination with deepsleep
• develop: remove paragraph that was copied in error from other doc
• cmodules: fix example to globally define MODULE_EXAMPLE_ENABLED
• cmodules: note the various ways MODULE_EXAMPLE_ENABLED can be set
• esp8266: add tutorial for APA102 LEDs
• esp32: correct quickref for ESP32 hardware SPI with non-default IO
• machine.I2C: add writevto method to write a vector of byte bufs
• pyboard/quickref: refer to new machine.I2C instead of old pyb.I2C

travis:

• update to use Ubuntu 16.04 Xenial for CI builds
• enable test for running native code via mpy