porting open source mac to linux 2.6.13.0

porting open source mac to linux 2.6.13.0

[Bharat Bhushan]

hi all,
         Is there any possible way to port open source mac stck on
linux kernel 2.6.13.0 . Problem is, i am using a embedded platform
which is supporting only 2.6.13. 0 and now assigned job is to make it
working for open source mac stack without porting any other changes of
linux kernel .

Any help is much appreciated.

Thanks

bharat

Re: porting open source mac to linux 2.6.13.0

[Holger Schurig]

> hi all,
>          Is there any possible way to port open source mac
> stck on linux kernel 2.6.13.0 . Problem is, i am using a
> embedded platform which is supporting only 2.6.13. 0 and now
> assigned job is to make it working for open source mac stack
> without porting any other changes of linux kernel .
>
> Any help is much appreciated.

I think you won't get much help (at least not free help), because 
the managers of this embedded product made same grave design 
decision errors some years ago.

They developed (or let develop) against what was current at that 
time, 2.6.13.0. But they never tried to get their changes 
upstream, into the main kernel. So the put themselves onto an 
island. Hey, they even didn't update their kernel to get the 
security updates of 2.6.13.5. Looks like a "fire-and-forget" 
approach, which might in some cases save money, but often 
backfires.

If their work would have been included upstream, it would had got

a) a cost-free peer-review at the time of submission
   (good for code quality)
b) cost-free updates to newer kernel versions, at least in the
   area of infrastructure changes and compile-tests. This might
   not guarantee that it still runs, but it's better than doing
   it all by yourself :-)

It would then be trivial to use a modern kernel on this embedded 
target, with mac80211 on this device. Now it's almost 
impossible, because so much of the in-kernel infrastructure has 
changed in the meantime, see 
http://lwn.net/Articles/2.6-kernel-api/

Re: porting open source mac to linux 2.6.13.0

[Johannes Berg]

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On Thu, 2009-01-22 at 10:54 +0530, Bharat Bhushan wrote:
> hi all,
>          Is there any possible way to port open source mac stck on
> linux kernel 2.6.13.0 . Problem is, i am using a embedded platform
> which is supporting only 2.6.13. 0 and now assigned job is to make it
> working for open source mac stack without porting any other changes of
> linux kernel .

First, read Holgers mail. Then re-read it. Then cancel the contract with
your embedded vendor and find a decent one.

And frankly, the effort to port 2.6.29 to your platform is probably less
than porting mac80211 back to 2.6.13.

johannes

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Re: porting open source mac to linux 2.6.13.0

[Kalle Valo]

Johannes Berg <johannes@sipsolutions.net> writes:

> On Thu, 2009-01-22 at 10:54 +0530, Bharat Bhushan wrote:
>> hi all,
>>          Is there any possible way to port open source mac stck on
>> linux kernel 2.6.13.0 . Problem is, i am using a embedded platform
>> which is supporting only 2.6.13. 0 and now assigned job is to make it
>> working for open source mac stack without porting any other changes of
>> linux kernel .
>
> First, read Holgers mail. Then re-read it.

Yes, Holger's mail was to the point.

> Then cancel the contract with your embedded vendor and find a decent
> one.

Just out of curiousity, is there an embedded vendor who adds support
to the mainline kernels and maintains it? To me it looks like more or
less everyone want to fork their own kernel and then forget it.

-- 
Kalle Valo

Re: porting open source mac to linux 2.6.13.0

[Johannes Berg]

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On Thu, 2009-01-22 at 16:31 +0200, Kalle Valo wrote:

> > Then cancel the contract with your embedded vendor and find a decent
> > one.
> 
> Just out of curiousity, is there an embedded vendor who adds support
> to the mainline kernels and maintains it? To me it looks like more or
> less everyone want to fork their own kernel and then forget it.

Depends what you mean by "maintain", and what you're looking for. I know
many powerpc boards are supported in the kernel, so if you look in that
space I'm sure you'll find something. I don't think you'll find a vendor
that maintains their entire range of boards very long into the future,
but once it's in the kernel it's much less likely to break, and if it
does easier to fix.

johannes

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