So apparently Xperia 10, 10 Plus, XA2, XA2 Plus and XA2 is now completely(?) mainlined. What would happen if SFOS moved to a 5.9 kernel?
Would we lose the ability to have Android support? (i.e. how tied is that to being the correct Kernel version for the Android version in question) Would we lose a whole host of drivers for devices that are too deeply tied to it being an Android-flavored kernel? Or did we just get one step closer to de-tangling OS and hardware in the mobile space?
AFAI understand (which can be wrong) the issue is and always be modems and drivers in general. I don’t thing they offer source and the blobs are compiled for android kernels.
Yes some things got better ie we have code for some arm GPUs but there are a lot of other stuff you cant do nothing about.
GPU drivers are covered by Freedreno drivers AFAIK. What else is missing, to be able to use mainline kernel for SFOS on these devices? GNSS? Sensors? Modem?
Still, given the problems Purism has on a almost-mainline kernel for their iMX platform, I guess running my XA2 in any practical capability on a mainline kernel remains a pipe dream.
Both GNSS and modem are quite doable and those are already working on mainline kernel for some Qualcomm based devices. Sensors are in theory possible via QMI protocol but I have had trouble getting sensors functional on a device I have been working on mainlining.
The current support now added to mainline kernel for Sony Xperia devices is very basic and still would need a lot of work to be usable.