The Embedded Linux Problem
summary
Intel’s Android BSP for three SOC generations accumulates ~4,000 branch patches and 30–80 non‑upstream drivers per target, with 50–100 kernel changes landing weekly, so kernel migrations take months (roughly two months for kernel prep then one–two months org-wide recovery). Uses Buildbot CI, merge‑commit backport branches, and a kernel feature team. Proposal: keep unready drivers as out‑of‑tree modules, make header edits costly, ensure userland builds independent of kernel, and require upstreamable boot basics (ramdisk boot, cpuidle/P‑states, USB gadget) before counting code as upstreamed.
AI-written summary · about
chapters (10)
- 0:00Start
- 2:48Scaling Problem
- 3:51Feature Teams
- 5:31What Is the Embedded Problem
- 7:35Motivation for Moving to a New Kernel
- 24:39Problems with Colonel Migration
- 30:00How Linux Is Developed
- 31:15Key Questions
- 37:34Upstream Goals
- 50:43Summary
