Google Working On Android Based On Linux 3.8

Written by Michael Larabel in Google on 27 February 2013 at 04:09 PM EST. 17 Comments
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Google recently opened up a public code repository that contains their experimental work to re-base Android off the recently released Linux 3.8 kernel.

Surfacing recently is the experimental/android-3.8 repository. This experimental kernel is derived from the Linux 3.8 source tree plus Google engineers layering their modifications atop to make it suitable for Android's use. The work is labelled as "experimental" but it seems to be evolving fast.

It's not clear what their plans are for the Linux 3.8 kernel roll-out as they also are still maintaining 3.0, 3.3, and 3.4 versions of the Linux kernel. With "Jelly Bean" they are presently shipping the Linux 3.0 kernel.

In the coming months it's expected that Google will release Android 5.0 "Key Lime Pie", which is where the Linux 3.8 kernel on Android could make its debut, though that would be a fairly fast turnaround time for pushing it onto Android devices. Regardless, Google developers are now working on an Android 3.8 kernel and the source is available for those interested.

Fortunately, with more Android components being mainlined in the Linux kernel, Android's source tree is becoming much closer to resembling the vanilla Linux kernel. With the Linux 3.9 kernel is where Google is now mainling Android's Goldfish. The features of the Linux 3.8 kernel are talked about here.
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Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.

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