[Letux-kernel] Letux kernel 4.13 on OpenPandora

[Vagrant Cascadian]

On 2017-09-08, H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote:
>> Am 08.09.2017 um 16:49 schrieb Linux-SWAT <openpandora at free.fr>:
> Well, the official 3.2 kernel is mature and very robust so it is
> wise to apply the "never touch a running system" rule.

I had a 3.2 kernel build that mostly worked, based off of the debian
kernel sources plus some openpandora patches... I used it regularly
running Debian on the SD card, and then the SD card died.


> On the other hand a 4.13 kernel has a lot of interesting new features.
> And there are approx. 9 months left over until there will be no maintainance
> by official Linux any more:
>
> https://www.kernel.org/category/releases.html

But, like you mention, given the end-of-life for 3.2, I didn't have the
energy to keep maintaining and old kernel...


>> And there's a lack of communication about your kernel for OP, I mean
>> if you or ED or notaz post a pinned thread, it will add a lot of
>> visibility.
>
> I think here on this (kernel related) list there are some OpenPandora
> owners which would be enough to test a little more and talk about it :)

I've worked a little on and off again testing the OpenPandora on
mainline/Debian and with the letux patchsets based on the Debian kernel
(e.g. a mostly modular config).  I even tried just building the kernel
with the appropriate letux defconfig, but didn't have much better luck.

I've also been using mainline u-boot on it... which only works via
serial console. Also never been able to figure out how to load u-boot
via SD, so it's a bit nervous updating it...


>> Does it "run" X ?
>
> Yes. It can even run PyraOS (aka Debian 9 + extensions).

I generally was able to get X to work on Debian using the LCD.


>> What is known to be broken ?
>
> Nubs. Sound. I am not sure about Bluetooth and TV-Out.
> And power management may be weaker.

From memory, I wasn't able to get working USB, wifi, and battery
charging (although seemingly arbitrarily sometimes the battery would
charge).

Never tried bluetooth and don't remember about sound. Nubs definitely
didn't work, and the keyboard FN key didn't work at all, or didn't work
correctly, and some of the keys were in unexpected places.

The SD slots worked, and I was able to access the NAND. The serial
console worked after I wired up a cable for it. Maybe I got USB-OTG
networking working with g_ether; can't recall for sure.


Long-term, it might make sense to have a wiki page with a matrix of
tested and working features on various models, kind of like the
linux-sunxi folks have:

  https://linux-sunxi.org/Linux_mainlining_effort#Status_Matrix


In general, it was not working well enough to use with recent kernels,
so I haven't tested often. I can give it another whirl and summarize the
working/broken features.


I'd love to get OpenPandora working with a reasonably recent kernel, so
if testing a bit can help, happy to test patches, but probably not in a
position to write them.


live well,
  vagrant
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