Linux 5.10 kernel released

A good simple answer, succinct. I think that’s message (as testimony to longevity) should be made more visible.

It’s wood inducing.

But if you really can’t wait for Ubuntu to package and provide it you can install it manually — just do so knowing that when/if your system breaks in half, you get to keep both pieces!

hehe ! spoiler alert ! :sweat_smile:

This also helps avoid the problem plaguing so many other ARM platforms–they get their hardware working with a kernel using forked code and custom drivers (often proprietary) but because they never follow through with mainlining hardware support, they typically just lock into that particular kernel version and the end user never sees updates.

I have a number of non-Raspberry Pi ARM computers here that suffer from that problem–the vendor’s distribution is locked into a kernel of a similar age to that particular hardware, which typically have known security issues after a year or two that are never patched.

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Agreed. This is the same good sentiment that @Caliga expressed in other words. What I’m trying to get at, is that this may be a big point that hasn’t been made visible enough and expressed in a way that people get. It’s connected to security, longevity, ecology, usability, stability, support for a lifetime, value over time, doing things right, having a solid base and so on.

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And as a proof of the openes and freedom

purism@pureos:~$ uname -a
Linux pureos 5.10.0-00363-gcf48c321c3eb #56 SMP Mon Dec 14 08:11:33 CET 2020 aarch64 GNU/Linux

Note that this is [yet] pinephone but these are competing in their openness

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I had a quick look in the chronology, and the first two articles I checked at least touched the topic:



(As well as several other topics people regularly have questions about)
Despite the fact that, especially in the first months after the campaign “we, the people” complained lack of information, over the years quite a lot of knowledge has piled up (of which @amosbatto’s FAQ does an excellent job of summarizing).
So, one problem might now be finding all the info we have.

But the other is probably a variant of what @dcz described in her latest article I love you for your personality:
Just because you learn something doesn’t mean you understand the implications and appreciate them.
:crazy_face: “L5 has now mainline support !!!”
:thinking: “so …?”
:crazy_face: “lifetime of updates !!!”
:thinking: “and that’s exciting …?”
:crazy_face: “plus a plethora of distros to choose from !!!”
:thinking: “a what?”
:nerd_face: “plethora is greek and…”
:thinking: “no… that other thing. Distro …?”
:neutral_face: “uh… somebody takes the source code and compiles …”
:astonished: “source code? Compile?”

But I guess your right, there’s certainly value in trying to communicate such things. Just wondering how much impact blog posts have outside the Purism bubble of converts :wink:

Well made videos might work, but it must be entertaining if you want to teach such implications. Maybe humor could work. The above conversation was slightly inspired by a YouTube outro of a German satire show, where somebody tries to explain video subscription and mouse clicks to… Isaac Newton.

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It’s probably worth pointing out that the fork of PureOS that is on the Pinephone is not something Purism is involved in. It’s sufficiently different from PureOS in the software and settings that it includes that the project should probably rename itself to avoid confusion.

Sorry Kyle, but I’m using Purism’s original PureOS image, not the fork :wink:
But the kernel of course is not purism’s, I’m rather using Megi’s kernel for pinephone.

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Aha! Got it. Super interesting!

It is funny in a sad way that so many devices become obsolete just because the manufacturers don’t care or actually benefit from the lack of upstream support.

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It is indeed, because I was expecting to side-load firmware in addition to kernel to make wifi work. But it appears Megi hardcoded fw blob into custom driver. That won’t be accepted into mainline of course but it sill allows to work with original L5 image :slight_smile:

The short comment:
Your talking heads make a good point :slight_smile:

The longer and more rambling comment that I'm too tired to make more coherent...

“How” (with humour, sure) is an important part of trying to get any message across in a manner that is optimum for receiving. (side note: let’s not drag Barthes into this)

Yes, it is a real danger to create a bubble with it’s own feedback loop to enforce it. Finding the info from all the heaps of texts is a problem of medium and availability for both inside and outside already. The getting the message is difficult if it’s all over the place, like trying to be being so much of everything, without a single focus. The abundance of possibilities may be challenge that hasn’t fully been solved.

“Getting it” is partly “deciphering it” in IT & linux. That part could also be made easier - for Newton’s sake - but there is also the other part of simplifying and distilling the grander message (not referring to message content) to something between a slogan or an “elevator speech” and a half page summary. This is what inches the discourse of L5 as well as linux and linux phones from fringe lunacy towards general acceptance, if you permit the hyperbole.

And it’s not made easy, because L5 has several of these grander messages to both choose from (positive) and which compete of interests (negative in communication sense). Still, in IT and linux kernel mainline is big and it’s connected to so many that it should be emphasized somehow (even if that message is not conveyed directly).

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Is this the same as the PureOS distro listed in the Pinephone wiki? Or, is this your custom thing?

No, it’s different, and I think PureOS entry has been removed from there as it’s not really PureOS, it’s rather mobian with purism’s repositories. the [kernel] sideloading process is initially described in this topic and indetails in the included references.

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@amosbatto some minor updates to FAQ 2.10, 4.3 and 8.1 may be needed as mainline is now reality.

This was a reasonably busy cycle. …”

I was thinking more on the Purism side than the whole kernel. Although, probably same answer.

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Well, it looks like I didn’t give up (this time)! @amosbatto, here is link to Display Controller Subsystem (DCSS) update for the FAQ.

Besides, there is NXP i.MX boards one.

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A bit curious: last commits I can find on “Librem 5” or “imx8” are from August (DCSS is from September). Should there have been development since then, or is it with a subsystem name that doesn’t include either of those?