asked 2014-11-19 13:34:07 +0200
It is my understanding that Jolla/SailfishOS have been running on kernel 3.4 until now because the kernel version needs to match that used by Android/AlienDalvik.
As far as my research goes Android 5.0 (Lollipop) now uses kernel 3.14, it would be great if we would see a kernel upgrade (and Adroid ART support) in one of the next releases...
answered 2015-05-23 14:23:47 +0200
It is my understanding that Jolla/SailfishOS have been running on kernel 3.4 until now because the kernel version needs to match that used by Android/AlienDalvik.
To my understanding running this kernel version is a direct result of the _hardware vendor_ (Qualcomm) only supporting this specific kernel for its Snapdragon 400 (MSM8930) processors (which the Jolla uses). Jolla is required to use this kernel in order to have working drivers for its hardware. I believe supporting all the hardware that makes up a phone is beyond the (man)power of Jolla; so this seems to be a reasonable decision. To my knowledge it's the same on every Android hardware - you're bound to use the kernel shipped by the CPU vendor.
As far as my research goes Android 5.0 (Lollipop) now uses kernel 3.14, it would be great if we would see a kernel upgrade (and Adroid ART support) in one of the next releases...
Even though upgrading the kernel seems to be beyond Jolla's options, an upgraded runtime would be awesome. And it (partially) seems to happen - at least supporting 4.4.4 seems to be planned (implemented?) but not yet released (see https://sailfishos.org/developmentroadmap/).
answered 2015-05-23 19:20:10 +0200
If I recall correctly there is no official support for 3.14 kernels in android, and only devices officialy getting 3.10.xx kernel as an update are nexus 6 and 9 devices. Every other device even with lollipop is shipped with 3.4 kernel as Jolla is. Though there are custom 3.10 kernels as well but dont know if they support the jollas chipset. Moto g kernel would be right to experiment with on Jolla ... I guess. And also worth mentioning were not limited by old kernel when comes to arc support, but to its myriad alien dalvik implementation. It would be nice to actually get use of newer kernels which from 3.4 to 3.14 got a load of improvements in terms of arm support, and memory managemnt like zswap, zcache support (latter only via patches but counts to) from which Jolla phone and we users would really benefit.
@peerchemist No it uses different chipset but still quite similar with only visible difference in used cpu core architecture and their number (moto g instead of 2x krait 200 like Jolla, has 4x cortex A7). Moto g lte with msm 8926 seems to have the same gpu and dsp responsible for lte connectivity so in my opinion it would be the right choice to experiment with its kernel source code and drivers taking into account its popularity within developers. On the other hand here is list of devices using exactly the same chipset as Jolla: http://pdadb.net/index.php?m=pdamaster
Mądry ( 2015-05-24 11:59:19 +0200 )editAsked: 2014-11-19 13:34:07 +0200
Seen: 1,678 times
Last updated: May 25 '15
I guess another reason for staying at 3.4 are the proprietary hardware drivers which, not being open-source, have only been compiled once by the hardware manufacturer, being incompatible to higher kernel versions.
schmittlauch ( 2014-11-19 14:06:42 +0200 )editCan't they request update from hardware manufacturer?
peerchemist ( 2014-11-20 19:31:23 +0200 )editAnd MPTCP would be nice...
chruldt ( 2015-05-23 13:02:22 +0200 )edit@peerchemist they can but they never get on, folks like samsung could request it but the hardware is already outdated so noone cares about updating it, the phone will probably never get a newer kernel at least not with working hardware support
chemist ( 2015-05-23 13:45:57 +0200 )editIt is good to note Jolla is however updating their 3.4 kernel with the latest fixes from linux-stable, Which contains backports for a whole host of fixes that are found in newer kernels.
Philippe De Swert ( 2015-05-25 21:12:19 +0200 )edit