Hi Stuart, On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 05:06:35PM +1000, Stuart Longland wrote: > > For projects I'm involved in I do my best to influence hardware decisions > > based on the current (or near term projected) Linux kernel support. > > Indeed... this is where it's often hard to determine what the true > status is. Keeping so much behind closed doors, it's hard to get a look > in.
When I said "current Linux kernel support" I meant mainline kernel. Outside code coming from the vendor does not count. It's more often the not buggy like hell, and not suitable for production. > > > - The SoM used a customised kernel based on Linux 2.6.28... it is only > > > made available to those who have purchased the modules. Latest > > > mainline kernel was 2.6.34 at the time. > > > - The chosen audio CODEC used I2S for audio transfer. 2.6.28 did not > > > support I2S on the i.MX27... but 2.6.34 did. > > > > > > The decision to make then was a choice between: > > > - Backport the SSI driver to 2.6.28 > > > - Forward port the custom patchset to 2.6.34 > > > > > > We also didn't have a CODEC driver... but TI were happy to supply us > > > with one... with a catch... their license prohibited the execution of > > > that code on non-TI processors. So it was useless to us... we had to > > > spend time developing that too. > > > > Wow. I was under the impression that TI are good Linux community members. > > At > > least judging from the volume of company sponsored activity around their > > SoCs > > (OMAP, DaVinci). Maybe the CODEC devision is different in this regard. I > > see > > the same distinction between the Freescale ARM (i.MX) and PowerPC > > departments. > > Well, I knew TI did like to keep their privates private... I saw that > with MSP430 (anyone tried to code for one of those on non-x86 Linux?) > ...but I digress... Well, I use mspgcc4 (http://mspgcc4.sourceforge.net/) and mspdebug (http://mspdebug.sourceforge.net/) to program a MSP430F2370, and I'm quite happy with these. > What's more, the driver they were offering was for kernel 2.6.22... so I > would have had to forward-port that to 2.6.34, then backport to 2.6.28. > It would have been an even bigger mess. > > They need to somehow get the message that these silly games are *not > helping*. Having had this experience, I now very carefully check for > this kind of nonsense, and I'll be voting with my wallet. They are slowly getting the message. It takes time. baruch -- ~. .~ Tk Open Systems =}------------------------------------------------ooO--U--Ooo------------{= - [email protected] - tel: +972.2.679.5364, http://www.tkos.co.il - _______________________________________________ busybox mailing list [email protected] http://lists.busybox.net/mailman/listinfo/busybox
