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That’s not really possible. Let’s imagine you try to build a phone. You buy an SoC, and you get a single kernel build. If you’re lucky, you get a few binary k
by kuschku 9y ago
That’s not really possible.
Let’s imagine you try to build a phone.
You buy an SoC, and you get a single kernel build. If you’re lucky, you get a few binary kernel modules.
These will never be updated.
You will always be stuck on that kernel version.
No manufacturer of ARM SoCs for phones currently provides ever updates for these.
Linux LTS Kernels get 2 years of support.
Now, tell me, how do you support a kernel that was dropped by upstream, with proprietary drivers that you can’t do anything about? I’m not sure if you’ve ever tried porting a custom ROM to such a device, I have. By the time Android was on the 3.11 kernel, I had a device still using kernel 2.6. It was insanity, half the functionality wasn’t working, we were reverse engineering and hacking together the rest, and still barely got anything working. It’s impossible to use a decade-old kernel with modern Android userland, yet that’s what you ask for.
- fulafel 9y agoYou can support that kernel version, like distributions do now with back port etc work, or you can prefer SoC vendors that promise updated driver support. If the latter was happening, the problem would be fixed by now. So essentially phone vendors have been voting with their dollars for lack of driver updates. But even for the self caused major version jam, the "get 2 years of support from upstream" is a heavy understatement and even after the n years of community LTS support ends, it's just the baseline you get for granted and you can diy more.