Status/Progress of CherryTrail / BayTrail support in mainline Linux kernel

[Hanno Zulla]

Hi,

sorry for asking a possibly obvious question, but:

The support for Cherry Trail / Bay Trail devices is pretty bad in
mainline, at least if one tries to use a mainstream distribution (in my
case, Ubuntu 16.04 with Kernel 4.4).

I have browsed the archives of LKML and of related mailing lists and saw
that there is development here and there going on to improve this (huge
thanks for this!).

But is there a central place where can I see the current *status* and
progress of the support for these chipsets and where help is needed?


E.g., there is a Wifi driver in the works at

https://github.com/hadess/rtl8723bs/issues/96

and a newer version from the vendor at

https://github.com/hadess/rtl8723bs/issues/98
https://github.com/anthonywong/rtl8723bs

But it's unclear to me if these drivers will ever make it to mainline.
How can a non-kernel-dev / just-a-normal-user like myself help with
getting this driver up to speed? I *really* want this device's support
to be improved.


Recently, I bought a Win10 netbook to install Linux on. It's a
beautiful small device with a fanless Z3735F CPU. Just right for my
kids as their first own computer.

After using Intel hardware since several years without a hitch, it was
surprising to find this not being fully supported by current 2016 Linux
distributions.

The rtl8723bs wifi is not running at all, the netbook lost the network
with a wifi usb stick that works fine on RPi. And the system freezes
every now and then for no reproducible reasons. Googling around, all I
found were similar complaints by other Linux users and a confusing array
of incomplete third-party driver projects not ready for mainline.

Also, there's a litany of "don't buy Cherry Trail or Bay Trail devices
for Linux" articles, which probably would have been helpful to read
before buying that fateful device.

Oh, what a letdown. This is sad to watch, as I considered Intel a safe
choice when buying hardware for Linux. I tried to find a different
device for my kids, but all of the netbook-like devices on the market
now share this problem. A whole generation of very interesting devices
appears to be lost for Linux users.

Kind regards,

Hanno