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> Any SBC, Phone, Notebook will be easier to sell if it can run a mainline kernel. I’m pretty sure that’s only a convincing argument to a very small market seg

> Any SBC, Phone, Notebook will be easier to sell if it can run a mainline kernel. I’m pretty sure that’s only a convincing argument to a very small market segment. And I say that as someone who has bought a PinePhone.

heavyset_go 6y ago
Being able to run a mainline kernel means being able to receive updates indefinitely, and being able to run any Linux derivative that you want, not just Android. When I recommend hardware, I recommend hardware that will have a long life. Lately, recommending phones and tablets has been tough, because only certain manufacturers and models guarantee software updates, and then only for a small window of time. After that, you're expected to upgrade even if your phone or tablet works perfectly fine. Hardware that can run a mainline kernel might change that, however.
- ndesaulniers 6y ago
  > Being able to run a mainline kernel means being able to receive updates indefinitely I wouldn't say indefinitely. Hardware that runs Linux today, mainline or not, is not guaranteed to continue to run newer kernel releases. Drivers and even whole architectures do get dropped from the tree, though they get reverted if anyone actually notices and still cares about such support. While indefinite sounds nice, it turns out that indefinite support is not quite what people actually want in practice, even if they exclaim otherwise. Typically, because then they're responsible for maintenance, and the common response there is "no thanks." I'm all for getting everything upstream though!
  - heavyset_go 6y ago
    > I wouldn't say indefinitely I mean that indefinite updates are an ability enabled by being able to run a mainline kernel. Without a mainline kernel, there is no ability for someone to keep their hardware updated should they so choose. It's off the table entirely.
hajile 6y ago
I'd guess the market for cheap IoT devices running mainline Linux is pretty big.
ravi-delia 6y ago
I'd say the real help would be in a new generation of cheap ARM servers. They're mostly impeded by how much variability there is in ARM processors, but having your drivers in the mainline kernel would make it far easier to sell to hardware manufacturers. I'm sure there's some incentive to keep these drivers closed source, but the potential business benefits go far beyond mobile devices.
matheusmoreira 6y ago
Mainlining a driver means it will be immediately available to users of a huge number of architectures. It will be improved by other Linux kernel contributors. It will never have binary compatibility problems with the kernel, letting users update their software in peace. Maintenance costs are significantly reduced since it is no longer necessary to keep up with a free software project that receives over 20 patches an hour.
- megous 6y ago
  Maintaining drivers out of tree requires a few hours of testing and maybe some minor changes every two months (and that's only if you for some reason want to keep up with the main release cycle, and not just with LTS releases). It certainly does not mean keeping up with 20 patches each hour. People spend more time walking their dog during a week, than they would maintaining the out of tree driver every few months, if they changed to that as a hobby.

heavyset_go 6y ago

Being able to run a mainline kernel means being able to receive updates indefinitely, and being able to run any Linux derivative that you want, not just Android. When I recommend hardware, I recommend hardware that will have a long life. Lately, recommending phones and tablets has been tough, because only certain manufacturers and models guarantee software updates, and then only for a small window of time. After that, you're expected to upgrade even if your phone or tablet works perfectly fine. Hardware that can run a mainline kernel might change that, however.

ndesaulniers 6y ago
> Being able to run a mainline kernel means being able to receive updates indefinitely I wouldn't say indefinitely. Hardware that runs Linux today, mainline or not, is not guaranteed to continue to run newer kernel releases. Drivers and even whole architectures do get dropped from the tree, though they get reverted if anyone actually notices and still cares about such support. While indefinite sounds nice, it turns out that indefinite support is not quite what people actually want in practice, even if they exclaim otherwise. Typically, because then they're responsible for maintenance, and the common response there is "no thanks." I'm all for getting everything upstream though!
- heavyset_go 6y ago
  > I wouldn't say indefinitely I mean that indefinite updates are an ability enabled by being able to run a mainline kernel. Without a mainline kernel, there is no ability for someone to keep their hardware updated should they so choose. It's off the table entirely.

hajile 6y ago

I'd guess the market for cheap IoT devices running mainline Linux is pretty big.

ravi-delia 6y ago

I'd say the real help would be in a new generation of cheap ARM servers. They're mostly impeded by how much variability there is in ARM processors, but having your drivers in the mainline kernel would make it far easier to sell to hardware manufacturers. I'm sure there's some incentive to keep these drivers closed source, but the potential business benefits go far beyond mobile devices.

matheusmoreira 6y ago

Mainlining a driver means it will be immediately available to users of a huge number of architectures. It will be improved by other Linux kernel contributors. It will never have binary compatibility problems with the kernel, letting users update their software in peace. Maintenance costs are significantly reduced since it is no longer necessary to keep up with a free software project that receives over 20 patches an hour.

megous 6y ago
Maintaining drivers out of tree requires a few hours of testing and maybe some minor changes every two months (and that's only if you for some reason want to keep up with the main release cycle, and not just with LTS releases). It certainly does not mean keeping up with 20 patches each hour. People spend more time walking their dog during a week, than they would maintaining the out of tree driver every few months, if they changed to that as a hobby.