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Why are the drivers limited to kernel 2.4.x?

April 26, 2017Drivers Kernel limited

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Why are the drivers limited to kernel 2.4.x?

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Kernel 2.4.x has been out for 2 years and is very solid. To make the drivers work for previous releases a considerable amount of conditional compilation would have to be built into the code to account for the differences in the kernel layout and the functionality. Fortunately the changes necessary to make it work with 2.5 are backwards compatible with 2.4 with the exception of the USB drivers. The USB interface has changed so significantly in 2.5 that a new driver for the PowerLinc will be necessary. Additionally, the makefile system for 2.5 has been modified so that it no longer has a Rules.make file that I can use to create the compiler flags. I have figured out the Makefile strategy, but it is far from pretty. Considering the constant changes in the kernel code, I will wait till 2.6 is actually released to release the drivers for 2.6.