2.6.31.14 kernel

I really would like it if Wary could be built with just one kernel that suits everybody. Well, nearly everybody.

Wary is intended to support those on dialup, so I asked myself, what is the most recent kernel that will compile all the dialup drivers?

We have quite a collection of them. I know that half of them don't compile on the 2.6.32 kernel, and they do compile on the 2.6.30 kernel (2.6.30.5 is used in Puppy 4.3.1).

So, that leaves the 2.6.31 kernel to investigate. The most recent is 2.6.31.14 which was released July 2010 -- that is not long ago, so this kernel has been maintained until fairly recently and the changelogs show lots of good fixes have gone into it.

I compiled the 2.6.31.14 kernel last night, then woke up at 2.30am, wasn't sleepy, so tested compiling the dialup drivers -- oh wow, every single one of them compiles!

So, is this "the one" for Wary? Heh heh, I don't know, but it is going to be very interesting to test it. I intend to bring out Wary 0.9.3 in a few days with this kernel.

I was wondering one thing. How difficult would it be to maintain a kernel ourselves? I mean, in the way that the long-term-supported 2.6.27 and 2.6.32 kernels are maintained, by backporting patches. Hmmm...

Note, I have left ALSA at version 1.0.20, as it comes with the kernel. A couple of reasons why I have not compiled the 1.0.23 drivers -- 2.6.31.14 has many ALSA patches so it is really beyond 1.0.20, and version 1.0.20 works well on my test PCs -- including one that "stutters" with ALSA 1.0.23.

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Comments

Wary/Quirky kernels?


Dial up
Username: drongo
"Support for dial-up is one of the defining characteristics of Puppy surely? How would those with dial-up download the .sfs? I haven't used dial-up for at least five years but someone has to support those guys. Up till now it's just been Puppy.

Kernel team
Username: Iguleder
"It won't be very hard to make our own kernel. We just need three things, a "kernel team", a group of people who have the skills for creating and applying kernel patches, some repository for patches and a coordinator (you!). We'll have to scan all new kernel changelogs to trace fixes, then we need to find the commits and attempt to apply the fixes on our home-made LTS kernel. Sounds fun :)

Tags: wary