What is the difference between Montavista Kernel Source, and Kernel.Org Source

[Vitaly Bordug]

On Sun, 18 Feb 2007 11:20:27 +0100
Lorenz Kolb <linuxppcemb at lkmail.de> wrote:

> 
> >> I'm Going to use linux on ML403.
> >>
> >> I want to know, what is the difference between the linux kernel source,
> >> that we download from source.mvista.com ( using git ) and the original
> >> kernel source code that we download from kernel.org?
> >>     
Being brief, some Mvista patches were not merged due to various reasons 
(such as say Xilinx stuff for a while) and anyone interested can still use
that work. So for instance people asking here and in other ML's can be just referred 
to those git trees and obtain a full understanding what were done to get things work.

> >
> > The multiple git trees hosted at source.mvista.com/git are development
> > trees similar to the trees hosted at www.kernel.org/git.  Contact the
> > individual developers for details on each tree.
> >
> > Dale Farnsworth
> >
> >   
> Oh, and I thought that development does mean something like progress.
> If I'd "develop" something "new" with last change 8 months ago, I guess 
> my boss would not pay for that "development".
> 
sorry, but that is not quite right. Trees there are development stuff for 4.x MVL
product (at least ppc-related), and now active development is heading for next release.

I don't think you'll find these up-to-date sources in source.mvista.com, bit not because
of internal reasons - almost all the efforts were brought up to the community and merged 
to the stock kernel tree. 

> So what is the difference between kernel.org and montavista's tree for 
> ML403.
> 
> kernel.org is quite a bit ahead.
> 
> Personally I'd recommend Denk's 2.6.19 tree (that's a 2.6.19 from 
> kernel.org with some ppc specific patches, afaik) and patching the EDK 
> 8.2 into it. That's quite a lot of work (I am just doing that at the 
> moment) but that's the only way to get an up-to-date system.
> Currently my partner and I are working on building a minimalistic sound 
> driver and in some future release a ALSA compliant sound driver and a 
> new controller (with at least DMA support) as this is can still not be 
> found in MontaVista.
> 
Xilinx stuff is a really interesting approach. Sorry,  but I guess "patching the EDK 
8.2 into it" is not the thing maintainers are expecting to appear upstream. So, referred mvista code can 
be used as a reference, but a living solution requires careful consideration. Do some investigations,
share the thoughts and you'll not be left alone.

As a side note, most of the active work is in the mainstream kernel, MV, Denx and many others actively 
participating in it.

-- 
Sincerely, 
Vitaly