From OpenZaurus

Contents 1 Status 2 Patches 3 Models 4 Why still 2.4?

Status

Kernel 2.4 on Zaurus is a nightmare to support. Very few developers are willing to work on it. It's quality is so low that it is nicknamed "2.4-crapix" by most developers.

It requires gcc 2.95 which is not available in OpenEmbedded (a separate 2.95 toolchain is used to compile the kernel for devices that cannnot run kernel 2.6 - more details @ OE Wiki).

Patches

We use 2.4.18 with an amount of misc patches:

• many fixes
• Wireless Extensions up to v18 - needed for WPA
• latest available Bluetooth patches
• detailed battery status
• OpenSwan
• some IrDa fixes
• some backports

Models

Currently only a few Zauruses supported by OpenZaurus use the 2.4 kernel:

• Collie
• Poodle
• Tosa

Why still 2.4?

There are a number of reasons why we still use 2.4 kernel. Most important are:

• lack of kernel hackers which will work on getting 2.6 working
• The Locomo chip in Collie, abused by Sharp to poorly handle SD, is totally undocumented. (note: some reverse engineered information is available here)