A (nearly) mainline kernel running on the Nexus 7

This is really great, because we now have a very-close to mainline test bed on a actual consumer device. So we can make sure upstream doesn't introduce any regressions (just recently, two ABI breaks that affected android were recently caught) and allows us to make sure when we push Android functionality upstream, that any interface changes required by maintainers can be properly tested to make sure what lands upstream really works.

As was discussed at the 2015 Kernel Summit, there are essentially no commercial Android devices running mainline kernels. At the recently concluded Linaro Connect event, though, John Stultz demonstrated a Nexus 7 tablet running mainline with just a few patches. It even has accelerated graphics via the freedreno driver. " Log in to post comments)