[Arm-netbook] Alioth project and kernel git repository available

[Frans Pop]

The alioth project [1] for arm-netbook is now active.

The git repository for the kernel [2] can be used read-only without needing 
an account on alioth. The same goes for the mailing lists (not yet 
created).

If you want to be able to push changes to the git repository or upload 
files or things like that, you will need to create an alioth account [3], 
set up SSH access, and request membership of the arm-notebook project.

The project website (currently only has the ChiTech firmware tarball) can 
be found at [4]. I will try to publish a (mostly) working kernel image 
there later.
The directory on alioth that corresponds to the website is [5].

We could create a project Wiki (using ikiwiki), but I wonder if it's not 
better to use existing Wikis and instead create a simple static home page 
that links to those.

Please remember that disk capacity on alioth, although huge, is still 
limited. Be friendly to the service and other projects and don't upload 
huge images or files if not needed.


About the kernel source repository
----------------------------------
There is currently one git repository: for kernel development. If needed we 
can create additional repositories for other purposes.

The repository currently has 11 branches. There is no 'master' branch, 
simply because we don't have a primary development branch yet.

Note that the whole repository is intended to be temporary. Once we have 
everything working properly and patches have been integrated upstream, the 
repository may be dropped.

The most relevant branch ATM is 'ct-pc89e/2.4.27/from-smartq'.
This branch is based on 2.4.27.7 + the Samsung and SmartQ patch sets +
the changes Luke and I (mostly Luke) have developed in the past week or so. 
It's possible to build a mostly working kernel from this branch.

See below for an explanation of the purpose of other branches.

We should keep development structured. Please do not push changes to any of 
the existing branches, but instead create your own branch and push that. 
This will allow discussion of patches (on IRC or by mail), but should 
avoid getting the main branches to messy with reverts and corrections.
Example: git checkout -b ct-pc89e/2.4.27/fjp ct-pc89e/2.4.27/from-smartq

I propose that I take care of merging any patches from others into the main 
branches. If need want to try someone else's patch earlier, you can always 
merge their branch into your own, or use 'git cherry-pick'.
I'll also keep the 'upstream' branches updated.

Explanation of branches
-----------------------
* ct-pc89e/2.4.27/from-smartq
Current "working" kernel for the CT-PC89E. See above.
It is based on the smartq/mer/smartq branch (see below).

* upstream/linus: the official upstream git tree, currently at 2.6.34-rc2
* upstream/devel/next-samsung: from Ben Dooks' repo for S3C support
* upstream/devel/next-spi: from Grant Likely's repo for SPI development
The last two branches have now been merged into Linus' tree, but are still 
useful on top of 2.6.33.

* ct-pc89e/2.4.33/base
Currently this branch is upstream v2.6.33.1 + next-samsung + next-spi.
There are no patches for the CT-PC89E committed yet, but this should become 
or next target. It's probably preferable for now to use this as a base 
rather than the still unstable 2.6.34.

The remaining branches are variations of what Luke and I have been using as 
basis for the ct-pc89e/2.4.27/from-smartq branch.
We found two sources, "qi" [6] and "mer" [7], for the "smartq 2.6.24.7" 
kernel, which looked similar to what ChiTech probably used as basis for 
their kernel.
The nice thing about the "mer" repository is that it has separate commits 
for the basic S3C support patch from Samsung and the additional changes 
developed for Smartq.

* smartq/qi/20091105
This is the tarball from [6] imported on top of 2.6.24.7.
* smartq/qi/20091126
This is the additional patch from [6] applied on top of that.

* smartq/mer/smartq
This is the same as the 'master' branch from [7]. They've based that not on 
Linus' tree, but on a MIPS repository. But for our purposes it's still 
essentially based on 2.6.24.7.
* smartq/mer/samsung
This is one commit "before" smartq/mer/smartq and marks the basic S3C 
support patch from Samsung.

* smartq/mer/samsung+qi-20091126
* smartq/mer/smartq+qi-20091126
I added these two branches only to be able to study the differences between 
the "mer" and "qi" source trees. My conclusion was that the "mer" smartq 
tree fits somewhere between the 20091105 and 20091126 versions from "qi". 
The difference between mer/smartq and qi/20091126 is fairly small and does 
not seem to contain anything relevant for us.

Cheers,
FJP

[1] https://alioth.debian.org/projects/arm-netbook/
[2] http://git.debian.org/?p=arm-netbook/arm-netbook.git
[3] https://alioth.debian.org/account/register.php
[4] http://arm-netbook.alioth.debian.org/
[5] /var/lib/gforge/chroot/home/groups/arm-netbook/htdocs/
[6] http://zenvoid.org/software/qi-smartq/
[7] http://gitorious.org/mer-smartq/mer-smartq-kernel