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The Backports Project enables old kernels to run the latest drivers.
"Backporting" is the process of making new software run on something old. A version of something new that's been modified to run on something old is called a "backport".
The Backports Project develops tools to automate the backporting process for Linux drivers. These tools form the backports suite.
History
The Backports Project started in 2007 as compat-wireless. It was renamed to compat-drivers as the project's scope broadened beyond just wireless network drivers. Nowadays, the project is known simply as backports.
As of the 3.10-based release, over 830 device drivers had been backported.
Recent versions of backports support mainline kernels back to version 3.0. The older backports-3.14 supports all kernel versions back to version 2.6.26.
Resources
- Package releases: (download)
- Daily snapshots: (linux-next) (linux-stable)
- git repository
- Bugzilla bug tracker: (notes)
Documentation
- Linux kernel backports license
- User documentation
- Developer documentation
- Reporting bugs & security vulnerabilities
Papers
Videos
- Automatically Backporting the Linux Kernel - Luis Rodriguez (54 minutes)
- SUSE Labs Conference, České Budějovice, October 2014
- An Introduction to Coccinelle Bug Finding and Code Evolution for the Linux Kernel - Julia Lawall (1 hour 58 minutes)
- SUSE Labs Conference, České Budějovice, October 2014
- An Update on the Linux Backports Project - Luis R. Rodriguez, Qualcomm Atheros (43 minutes)
- LinuxCon and CloudOpen Conference, New Orleans, October 2013
Community
- Mailing list: (archives) (subscribe) (send)
- IRC: server "irc.libera.chat:6697" (TLS), channel "#kernel-backports"
- Twitter: @LinuxBackports
- identi.ca: @LinuxBackports
- Meetings
- Contributing
- This text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
