A belated Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year, to one and all! Since the release of the first WB image, (back in February), a lot has happened, a lot has changed, a heap of development work has been done, there have been sleepless nights, much pulling out of hair, (the random kernel "issues" caused by the compiler/binutils upgrade on the machine used to compile the F19 3.0.35 "release" kernels, comes to mind), but mostly the feeling that things are not moving forward as quickly as they could, that there aren't enough hours in the day, and recently, the despair of thinking that you have something finished, (the CS F20 Wandboard arm image), only to keep finding "show-stopping" reasons at one minute to midnight, just as you are about to type a release announcement, why it cannot be released! ;)
We have too much invested, (or I do), in going forward, using a mainline kernel, that going backwards isn't really an option. (Or no matter how bleak things in front of me look, I also know that going backwards isn't a zero cost option, work is required to do that). Perhaps I was a little optimistic several months ago, by thinking that by the time upstream released the 3.12 kernel, most of the functionality we needed for the WB would be included, and that at most I would be carrying a few patches, specifically the audio driver for our, (John Swenson designed), Community Squeeze DAC carrier board. F20 shipped with a 3.11 kernel, and a 3.12.5 kernel was pushed as an update soon after release. From our point of view, if we could just live with ethernet and a working serial console, that "stock", Fedora provided 3.12.5 kernel release would see us through. It's stable! Wan't HDMI, SATA, Wi-Fi, SPDIF..... Sorry, you are out of luck, even though the code for that functionality exists, Fedora has a policy of not including kernel functionality via a bunch of patches. It's a case of waiting until that functionality has arrived upstream. (And functionality hasn't been upstreamed as quickly as I had anticipated.) Well, that's still not an issue.... I have a set of 120 patches that I am applying to that "base" Fedora 3.12.5 kernel, that gives us most, (but not all), of the functionality that we have grown used to with the FSL 3.0.35 kernel. But.... Having nailed userspace issues, I'm struggling with something very similar to the scenario earlier in the year, the 3.0.35 random lock-up issues, and I've been trying to narrow it down to a single patch, (80 eliminated so far), that is causing the random lock-up, that does not occur with the unpatched, stock, Fedora provided 3.12.5 kernel. I do want to move forward. I do want to release a F20 image. But what I do not want to do is release an unstable F20 image! The F19 image may be lacking in functionality, it may have bugs, but it is stable! I'm currently mulling over the benefits vs. the downsides of releasing a F20 image as a beta, with the stock Fedora 3.12.5 kernel, with the proviso that the only people who should be using it for the time being, (until I can get the kernel functionality back to par with the FSL 3.0.35 kernel and stable at the same time), are people who can do without HDMI, the jivelite controller, and Wi-Fi. ie. your use case is headless, ethernet and a USB DAC, and in case of issues, you have a serial cable and can use the serial console. One of the downsides of doing this, is creating more work for me. If I'm providing support for known issues, I'm not working on resolving those issues. (Also, once you let the genie out of the bottle, it's impossible to get it back in.... Expectations have increased. That much has become clear of late. Also we, and by we I mean Community Squeeze, are becoming more visible and being noticed. I am becoming almost paranoid about undoing the good work that has been done so far, by releasing what I would deem to be sub-par. The bar has been raised.) Anyway, what started as a post to wish everyone who has participated, whether by running the software or contributing development work, a Happy New Year..... seems to have turned into "the current thoughts of a lunatic on releasing a Community Squeeze F20 image for the Wandboard", when the reality is, we have a working, supported F19 image, the only person who does need a working F20 image with the mainline kernel and the drivers for his hardware is John, so we can move forward on the hardware side! HAPPY NEW YEAR! PS. One more thing I have to say, (which I might as well while I'm at it), and this needs to be said publicly, rather than a quiet word in private. *Thank you, Triode!* Over the years, I have had the pleasure of working with some very smart people, (way smarter than me), world-class developers...... Some of them even had egos to match their skill set! ;) The point being, that I may not be blessed with genius, but I think I have a pretty good handle on recognising someone exceptional when it comes to software development.... Adrian might be quiet, understated, never one to blow his own trumpet, but what does need to be appreciated if it isn't already widely known, Adrian is a world-class developer, and the wider Squeezebox community and especially the Community Squeeze "project" already owes him an immeasurable debt of gratitude, for all his squeezebox related work! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ JackOfAll's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3069 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=99395 _______________________________________________ unix mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/unix
