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Diffstat (limited to 'content/newer-kernel-galaxyS3.rst')
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diff --git a/content/newer-kernel-galaxyS3.rst b/content/newer-kernel-galaxyS3.rst index 435b998..a89ea03 100644 --- a/content/newer-kernel-galaxyS3.rst +++ b/content/newer-kernel-galaxyS3.rst @@ -1,14 +1,14 @@ :title: Problems getting a current kernel working on the Galaxy S3 and why merging is bad -:date: 2016-11-27 19:54 +:date: 2017-02-02 17:32 :tags: kernel, free software, sustainability, phone :category: General :author: Wolfgang Wiedmeyer -:status: draft +:status: published :summary: Some time ago, I started to wonder if it would be possible to update the old Linux kernel for the GT-I9300 variant (international version) of the Galaxy S3 to a more recent version. Some time ago, I started to wonder wheter it would be possible to update the old Linux kernel for the GT-I9300 variant (international version) of the Galaxy S3 to a more recent version. A newer kernel could not only bring new features and speed improvements, but also lots of security fixes that are not yet patched. Furthermore, porting a more recent Android version to the device would be much more easier. Making a newer kernel work with an older user space is much easier than making an old kernel work with a new user space. And isn't it the spirit of free software to be able to use the newest and shiny software on arbitrary hardware, regardless of its age? -But why Galaxy S3? Wouldn't it be better to take a more recent device that was already released with a newer kernel? I work on the Galaxy S3 because I use it as my daily driver and I have a spare device that I can use for development. Besides the Galaxy S2, it is still the best supported device by `Replicant <http://www.replicant.us/>`_ which was my original reason to start working with this phone. And especially in regards to the mainline kernel, it actually turns out to be a really good choice, but more about that in a `second post <{filename}/mainline-kernel-galaxyS3.rst>`_. +But why Galaxy S3? Wouldn't it be better to take a more recent device that was already released with a newer kernel? I work on the Galaxy S3 because I use it as my daily driver and I have a spare device that I can use for development. Besides the Galaxy S2, it is still the best supported device by `Replicant <http://www.replicant.us/>`_ which was my original reason to start working with this phone. And especially in regards to the mainline kernel, it actually turns out to be a really good choice, but more about that in another post. It's pretty easy, isn't it? ########################### @@ -33,4 +33,4 @@ There is another reason that makes merging with newer kernel releases very diffi Without the Git history, Git has a very hard time to resolve conflicts when merging and you end up with a huge amount of conflicts so that it's just too much work to go through all of them. This happened when I merged with the 3.2.x mainline kernel tree. `I was able to get a partial merge working <https://code.fossencdi.org/kernel_samsung_smdk4412.git/log/?h=migrate_3.2>`_. The end result is not maintainable because there is too much unmerged code and you end up in the middle between two kernel versions. Merging more recent kernel versions becomes even more harder and you will end up with numerous bugs that no one else has. `Dorimanx targeted the Galaxy S2 and he did partial merges up to Linux 3.14 <https://github.com/dorimanx/Dorimanx-SG2-I9100-Kernel>`_, but he stopped working on it in 2014. The Galaxy S2 (GT-I9100) uses the same kernel sources. -In the end, all of these efforts don't really bring a newer kernel to the device and we end up with an unmaintainable mess. The goal should be to have an easily maintainable kernel that makes future kernel updates possible. `In the second part <{filename}/mainline-kernel-galaxyS3.rst>`_, I will explain why going mainline is the only solution and how far I've got with getting the mainline kernel working. +In the end, all of these efforts don't really bring a newer kernel to the device and we end up with an unmaintainable mess. The goal should be to have an easily maintainable kernel that makes future kernel updates possible. In the next post, I will explain why going mainline is the only solution and how far I've got with getting the mainline kernel working. |