[LEDE-DEV] Kernel version in next major release

[Hauke Mehrtens]

On 10/08/2017 01:18 AM, David Lang wrote:
> On Sat, 7 Oct 2017, Hauke Mehrtens wrote:
> 
>> * Port the generic patches
> 
> what are the 'generic patches' and is there an effort to get them
> upstream so that they don't need to be ported in each release?

Some of them are backports from more recent kernel versions, some are on
their way upstream and some are hacks, see the patches here:
https://git.lede-project.org/?p=source.git;a=tree;f=target/linux/generic/backport-4.9
https://git.lede-project.org/?p=source.git;a=tree;f=target/linux/generic/pending-4.9
https://git.lede-project.org/?p=source.git;a=tree;f=target/linux/generic/hack-4.9

It would be good to make most of this upstream.

>> * Make all the out of tree modules work with it
> 
> is there any work being done to make these in-tree?

It depends these are mostly drivers or other kernel modules which are
not mainly developed for LEDE.

>> * Port all targets to this kernel version
>>  * Some targets are not so well maintained any more and there an
>> additional delay could be introduced.
> 
> do we have a list of these devices? do any of these warrent "we need a
> maintainer or they won't be supported" calls?

I think mvebu is on of the targets which is popular, but not so well
maintained. All the targets which are still at 3.18 are not well
maintained for sure.

Hauke