ghostoftiber - Slashdot User

Submission + - User Backlash Causes Samsung to Consider Android 4 (theverge.com)

Submitted by

ghostoftiber

on Wednesday December 28, 2011 @11:00AM

ghostoftiber writes: "The original SGH-T959 Galaxy S (AKA the T-Mobile Vibrant and others) was the redheaded step child of the Samsung device line. The device originally came with Eclair and was upgraded quietly to Frozen Yogurt not with an OTA update, but with Samsungs KIES software which required a download process and bricked more than a few phones. Users expected an OTA because patches had previously been delivered to the device Over The Air. Linux and Mac users were left out in the cold for the Froyo update. Finally Samsung announced over Christmas that the original Galaxy S was done, leaving it's faithful fans in a position of having another year on their contracts with no upgrade path. The reason? TouchWiz (Samsungs launcher) doesn't have enough memory to run in Ice Cream Sandwich. Users were predictably incensed, and it looks like Samsung changed their minds. There's always the Samsung Vibrant development forum if you need Ice Cream Sandwich running on your Vibrant right now."

Submission + - A Real Effort To Mainline Android Changes In Linux (phoronix.com) 2

Submitted by

ghostoftiber

on Wednesday December 21, 2011 @11:53AM

ghostoftiber writes: "From the article: "Tim Bird, a Sony engineering veteran and the chair of the Architecture Group of the Linux Foundation's CE Workgroup, has announced a new concerted effort to get Android's changes to the Linux kernel back into the mainline Linux kernel tree." Android has been using Linux 2.6.x for it's devices since it's release, with patches from Google. To date they haven't been merged back into the kernel mainline but existed on kernel.org. Some of the features such as wakelocks would help with Linux tablet projects, but other features aren't fully realized and support remains spotty. The radio interface layer — referred to as the RIL — still exists as an ati/nvidia-esque shimloader scheme with modem "drivers" being nothing more than ihex files loaded by open code."

Slashdot Top Deals