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Root [DEV]Patching the Motorola 2.6.32.9 Kernel

I am making this thread for devs to post any information on patching the kernel source of our phone.

I know mantera has sucessfilly patched the 2.6.32.9 kernel up to 2.6.32.21 and found put how to make it force load modules so wifi will work with the updated kernel.

Also official gingerbread based roms usually come with a 2.6.35 based kernel. But from what I've read in order to go from 2.6.32.x to 2.6.35 you must first revert back to 2.6.32 and then patch up to 2.6.35. But I bleieve in order to revert back to 2.6.32 we need patch file from 2.6.32 to 2.6.32.9. I cannot find on because the incremental patches only go back to like 2.6.32.20 or something on kernel.org.

I believe if we get the patches necessary we can patch up to 2.6.35(and maybe even 3.0)! My brother has a captivate running official cm9 and they have managed to patch the cappy kernel up to 3.0 so I am confident it could be possible on our phone.

I am not too knowledgeable in patching kernel source but my brother us going to help and if anyone else out there has insight please post it here.

I have read you can create patch files by using the diff command and using it on the Linux kernel source to diff between the versions of the kernel you wanna make a patch for but I have no clue how to go about this! If anyone out there has any knowledge that may help the process of going from 2.6.32.x to 2.6.35.x and eventually up to 3.x then please share it here!

Thanks to all!
 
I believe if we get the patches necessary we can patch up to 2.6.35

The issue we are going to run into is finding all the patches. The diff is not very difficult but it takes time when patching as you need to do through any issues with the code using tools like meld. Here is a great article on it which is somewhat outdated.

From Zero to Boot: Porting Android to your ARM platform - ARM Community

As it stood Android and Linux kernel parted some 2 years ago so the patches are the hard part to find. However it looks like Android and Linux are back together in the kernel sack.

Linux kernel 3.3 released, Android kernel code merged - Liliputing

It maybe possible that we could take the 3.3 kernel and compile it with the right .config file and get this to work on our phone. If that's the case it's also possible we could get Ubuntu to run on our phones. I am not a wiz with kernel's like mantera is but this maybe a possibility.
 
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Yeah potentially if a phones setup hardware wise is alot like our phone and they have 3.0 on it we could maybe use some of that.

Another thing I just thought of is some of the other fb0 devices run 2.6.35 on them so we maybe be able to merge our kernel source with theirs and get at least up to 2.6.35. The only reason why I hadn't looked into it before was because we didn't have the wifi kernel module source so changing the version would make the module not load into the kernel. But mantera found you can make the modules force load reguardless of mismatches in kernel versions so the only issue is finding patches and merging g them in with the source and hoping it builds right!
 
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Yeah potentially if a phones setup hardware wise is alot like our phone and they have 3.0 on it we could maybe use some of that.

Another thing I just thought of is some of the other fb0 devices run 2.6.35 on them so we maybe be able to merge our kernel source with theirs and get at least up to 2.6.35. The only reason why I hadn't looked into it before was because we didn't have the wifi kernel module source so changing the version would make the module not load into the kernel. But mantera found you can make the modules force load reguardless of mismatches in kernel versions so the only issue is finding patches and merging g them in with the source and hoping it builds right!


you know you and your brother can do it lol! :cool:
 
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Lol he might be able to!! I could patch it up to 2.6.32.59 I believe but that wont do no good getting up to 2.6.35 or higher because we need to get back to 2.6.32!

You can do it!!!!! patch the freaking kernel lol little water boy pep talk for ya but seriously this would be awesome hopefully we could get this to work would love having a 3.0 kernel it would be so much better
 
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One thing that's messed up is if Motorola was to release the GB update they said they would release, then they would be required to release most of the kernel. And if what you said is true about GB and kernel 2.6.35, then I think it would send us light years ahead.

Even if they updated us to gb, there's nothing that says they are required to update the kernel to 2.6.35.x. They could just patch up the 2.6.32 kernel to make it work in gb--just like we did.

On my wife's Xoom which has an official ICS update, the kernel version is only 2.6.39.x.
 
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So my brother came up with a genius idea. Download the vanilla android 2.6.32.9 kernel source and then diff that against the stock triumph source and create a sort of patch file with the moto changes to the base android Froyo kernel. Then after that he is going to download the base vanilla android 3.0.x kernel source and were gonna patch in the moto changes to the 3.0 kernel and go from there. Hopefully it will go smoothly and we can get something that at least boots or builds for that matter then we can go from there.

This is if we can get the android 2.6.32.9 vanilla android source. I believe they still have it in there repository somewhere but I'm not sure we are gonna look into it. To me this seems like the most logical way.

I talked to pawitp who got the Linux kernel 3.0 on the team haxsung build of ics on the captivate and he said that what he did is take the android kernel 3.0 and manually add in the hardware and captivate specific drivers!

So wish my brother some luck. He's gonna start on it this weekend so hopefully he gets somewherr with it!
 
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So my brother came up with a genius idea. Download the vanilla android 2.6.32.9 kernel source and then diff that against the stock triumph source and create a sort of patch file with the moto changes to the base android Froyo kernel. Then after that he is going to download the base vanilla android 3.0.x kernel source and were gonna patch in the moto changes to the 3.0 kernel and go from there. Hopefully it will go smoothly and we can get something that at least boots or builds for that matter then we can go from there.

This is if we can get the android 2.6.32.9 vanilla android source. I believe they still have it in there repository somewhere but I'm not sure we are gonna look into it. To me this seems like the most logical way.

I talked to pawitp who got the Linux kernel 3.0 on the team haxsung build of ics on the captivate and he said that what he did is take the android kernel 3.0 and manually add in the hardware and captivate specific drivers!

So wish my brother some luck. He's gonna start on it this weekend so hopefully he gets somewherr with it!

I wish you and your brother the best of luck.;)
 
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A quick update on our project.

I have downloaded the 2.6.32.9 source from code Aurora and I diffed the stock triumph source against that and created a patch file and then applied the patch to the base android msm 2.6.32.9 I downloaded from code Aurora and it applied with no errors. I haven't tried building it yet but I will and see if it boots. I also downloaded the latest stable 3.0.8 ics kernel build from code Aurora and when I get time I'm going try to apply the patch to it and try to build it also with the froyo initram I have for my rom!

Will post updates as they come!

My brother is also trying a similar approach!
 
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A quick update on our project.

I have downloaded the 2.6.32.9 source from code Aurora and I diffed the stock triumph source against that and created a patch file and then applied the patch to the base android msm 2.6.32.9 I downloaded from code Aurora and it applied with no errors. I haven't tried building it yet but I will and see if it boots. I also downloaded the latest stable 3.0.8 ics kernel build from code Aurora and when I get time I'm going try to apply the patch to it and try to build it also with the froyo initram I have for my rom!

Will post updates as they come!

My brother is also trying a similar approach!

Please do thank u so much this is going to be awesome
 
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I don't know much about kernels, but wouldn't the Sharp SH8188U with the 2.6.35.7 kernel have almost everything we need in it?

And the new linux kernel 3.3 is supposed to have android driver stuff built in.

"The 3.3 kernel release will let you boot an Android userspace with no modifications, but not very good power management."

Just stuff I've been reading lately trying to learn more about kernels.
 
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I don't know much about kernels, but wouldn't the Sharp SH8188U with the 2.6.35.7 kernel have almost everything we need in it?

And the new linux kernel 3.3 is supposed to have android driver stuff built in.

"The 3.3 kernel release will let you boot an Android userspace with no modifications, but not very good power management."

Just stuff I've been reading lately trying to learn more about kernels.

Find the sharp kernel and we could rock it. The 3.3 will need edits to work with our device. It does build but I couldn't get it to boot.
 
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