Iguleder's Blog

After a big success with the former LTS kernel, 2.6.27.x, I decided to make a tweaked 2.6.32.x kernel for Puppy Squeeze, the unofficial, community-built Puppy that has a Debian heart.

My first idea was patching the kernel (at the moment, I work on 2.6.32.23) to change its version number to 2.6.32. This way, the kernel is still compatible with all stuff for 2.6.32 (after all, the only difference between different 2.6.32.x releases is extra fixes backported from later kernels) but still allows modules compiled for an earlier 2.6.32.x to be used with it. This way, Puppy Squeeze 009 can use 2.6.32.23 and later releases won’t break compatibility with its drivers, as their more stable 2.6.32.x kernels use the same paths.

My second idea was patching the kernel with BFS, to enhance performance and benefit low-power machines or older, single-core processors. I also added HyperThreading support, which is omitted from all official Puppy kernels for some reason; I think it’s a mistake done by Barry which persisted until 5.1.1 because of the use of oldconfig. In other words, each new Puppy kernel is based on the decisions and choice of drivers done with its predecessor, so the choice of omitting HyperThreading survived. That’s a kill for netbooks, since most of them come with a single-core Atom processor that supports it.

My third idea was backporting stuff from the latest stable kernel, that’s something I’m still working on. At first, I tried to backport all laptop extras but the kernel failed to compile, probably due to the big changes in the WMI code. I also tried to backport the latest i915 driver but the compilation failed, I guess it’s DRM and KMS now.

To conclude, I find this really fun and challenging. I’d like to take a step back and be the Puppy Squeeze kernel guy at least for the next release, as I’m busy these days and I’m almost empty of new ideas. Need someone with the passion and the right attitude to lead this thing on.

I’m off to compile another 2.6.32.23 masked as 2.6.32, see you around.