Independent Developers Tackling Snapdragon 630/660 SoC Support For The Upstream Linux Kernel

[bemerk]

If it is fully feature and speed compatible with the old downstream kernel.
Also will be easier to work with once AOSP rebases to 5.9 or higher.

[skeevy420]

Also will be easier to work with once AOSP rebases to 5.9 or higher.

That'll be a great day.

With Google's current pace, I can't wait for Android 37 to come out

[nokipaike]

damn just for a while my old snapdragon 400 was missed (it's a cortex a7) but in the list i went to check there was a cover from snapdragon 630 to snap dragon 410 ... you understand i got excited and depressed in 10 seconds hehehe

[S.Pam]

Have you actually ever diffed the sources for Motorola or LG kernels with upstream Linux of the same version? They've never diffed cleanly.

No, exactly.

[bemerk]

The last comparison from developers working on that topic has been a while. But as you can see with

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Android-AOSP-Close-Linux-5.9

we are close for many devices if the manufacturer decides to rebase.

[villeneuve]

Then problem is when you got the SoC working in Linux it doesn't mean the device will become useable for anything since most often WLAN, modem, sounds, touch etc. don't work. The amount of e-waste and with that the huge waste of natural resources is a desaster that should've long been stopped by regulators.

[bemerk]

People are using the "SoC" bringup to bring up individual devices as well. They write new drivers, port drivers from the official old sources and fix up devicetrees to be included in the linux kernel.
So the only "problem" would be firmware that needs an official vendor sign-off to be included as well.
Even if that doesn't happen it is still a lot easier to use Custom ROMs and Linux on these devices compared to the amount of work before.