MediaTek Releases Full Kernel Source for First Android One Devices

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Those who might have thought that MediaTek would never release working kernel source might have to wipe their eyes right about now. It’d be best for such readers to sit down as all of you are in for a treat. As we talked about some time ago, MediaTek has been making great strides in supporting the development community. And now, MediaTek has honored that commitment with the release of the full source code for the first batch of Android One devices. Start your Linux machines and make sure that there is a lot of coffee on tap, as some serious development will take place for these budget-friendly devices.

Despite MediaTek’s best efforts, the OEMs behind many devices featuring MediaTek chipsets have failed to comply with the GPL-mandated kernel source code release policies. But now, MediaTek has bypassed this problem by pushing code for the 3.4.67 Linux kernel into the kernel/mediatek repo on Google’s Android repo. This means that developers planning to work on Android One devices can clone the source tree and add different governors, overclock, undervolt, and do whatever else they need to do to get development up and running on Android One devices. We hope that Google will also push the device trees of Micromax Canvas A1, Karbonn Sparkle V and Spice Dream Uno like they did with the whole Nexus line, but this has yet to be seen.

You can get the kernel source by entering this command, work on it locally and then push to your own online git repo like Github:

git clone https://android.googlesource.com/kernel/mediatek/ -b android-mediatek-sprout-3.4-kitkat-mr2

Hopefully, we will continue to see more progress like this from MediaTek in the coming weeks and months ahead!