Backport LXC to kernel 3.10 for newer Alien Dalvik

Feature Requests
#1

By looking at the Jolla helpdesk pages I discovered that Xperia XA2 and 10 i will get Android 10 support in Alien Dalvik from SailfishOS 4.1.

This is pretty impressive given the fact that neither of those phones uses Android 10 as a base for the SailfishOS-installation which let me to think about if LXC support could be backported to the 3.10 kernel used in Jolla C, their tablet and Xperia X.

Jolla has previously stated that updating the kernel would mean they’d have do redo the porting for each device which given their R&D resources isn’t an option. Also the community port of SailfishOS with kernel 4.9 has some unsolved major bugs so backporting LXC support might be the best option if possible.

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#2

You’re talking about backporting ~2,5 years of kernel work (3.10 = June 2013, 4.9 = December 2016) that is just as gargantuan a task.

To my understanding the issue is not as much the need to redo the device port as it is the need for us (the users) to reflash our devices.

You can find the max supported version of Android/kernel at the Sony Open Devices Program here:
https://developer.sony.com/develop/open-devices/get-started/supported-devices-and-functionality/

It’s nice that at least for the XA2 and the 10 they are being updated more.

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#3

As @Keeper-of-the-Keys pointed out, I also do not think that taking this approach (“backporting LXC to Linux 3.10”) is any easier or technically more feasible than forward porting the existing Hardware Adaptation (by Jolla) to a recent Sony vendor kernel; rather (or rather, “for sure”) the opposite.
Note that looking at the Hardware Adaptation work Jolla did for the Xperia XA2s, 10s and 10 II (all using newer Sony vendor kernels) might be helpful (specifically for Linux 4.14, which was not possible (because non-existent) two years ago).

Also note that Sony released their “final” software stack for the Xperia X (suzu, loire, plus Xperia X Compact: kugo) based on AOSP 10 (Linux 4.14) in May 2020.

I started collecting all relevant resources for this endeavour, but do not think I will have the time to do significant work based on this: https://github.com/Olf0/sfos-xperiax-aosp10

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#4

…but Android 10 can run with a Linux 4.9 kernel. Not that i know for a fact that the relation is that tight, but surely that must help.

As mentioned before, re-porting the phone on a more modern kernel should be the better, probably easier, solution. And it has been answered time and time again that it is not happening in an official capacity - however licensing the value-add bits for community ports may be happening.