Ubuntu Wiki

• Launchpad Entry: kernel-karmic-android

• Created: BradFigg

• Contributors:

• Packages affected:

Summary

There have been several requests to incorporate Android into the Ubuntu Kernel to support the ARM arch. In this session we will try to answer the following questions:

• Will we "support" the Android kernel?
• Are we only interested in ARM arch changes?
• What do we do about non-ARM changes?
• If we "support" the Android kernel, how will that be done?
  • Will the Android changes be merged into our kernel tree?
  • Will the Android changes be a topic branch of our kernel tree?
  • Will we have a separate Android + Ubuntu kernel tree?
  • Who will "own" the Android changes? (Be responsible for merging in new changes, rebasing, etc.) I believe that I will be the one.
• In order to support the Android changes, I'd like to obtain a number of test systems.
• Will there be additional Ubuntu kernel flavours specific to the Android kernel?

Release Note

This section should include a paragraph describing the end-user impact of this change. It is meant to be included in the release notes of the first release in which it is implemented. (Not all of these will actually be included in the release notes, at the release manager's discretion; but writing them is a useful exercise.)

It is mandatory.

Rationale

The Android kernel supports platforms that the Ubuntu kernel does not. Android runs on Qualcomm Snapdragon/8xxx, TI OMAP3, Freescale Babbage and Marvell PXA3xx.

It could be a competitive advantage to support the same platforms that Android does in order to make it easier for customers to move from Android to Ubuntu.

There is the potential benefit to the community if there is binary compatibility between Android and Ubuntu platforms.

There is potential benefit to the community in having both distributions on the same kernel version, having users of both finding and reporting issues and the number of developers resolving issues.

User stories

Implementation

This section should describe a plan of action (the "how") to implement the changes discussed. Could include subsections like:

Code Changes

Code changes should include an overview of what needs to change, and in some cases even the specific details.

Unresolved issues

Given that Karmic will be based on either the 2.6.30 or 2.6.31 version of the Linux kernel how do we support an Android kernel?

• The current, shipping version of Android is 1.5 (CupCake). This is based on the 2.6.27 version of the Linux kernel.

• New development is being done on a 2.6.29 branch of the Android kernel repository.

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