Getting to the latest kernel tree of the beagleboard

This is a tricky one.

"The BeagleBone currently relies on a number of out-of-tree kernel patches in order to boot. These patches are maintained by Koen Kooi (CircuitCo) and come from many sources, including TI employees and various mailing lists." from the Beagleboard GSoC ideas page.

A cursory look at https://github.com/beagleboard/kernel will show you a patch script file you need to run. A closer look inside it shows that it builds the 3.2 kernel version. I knew that the current version under development was 3.8 so I figured out that something is fishy.



Turns out the 3.8 tree is being developed in a branch (i think. still not comfortable with git). Selecting the 3.8 branch from the branches will show the current kernel being maintained by Koen.

Edit: Epiphany. I'm guessing the 3.2 branch is stable with respect to various drivers! That is why the master points to the 3.2 kernel tree.

For the 3.8 tree, using git clone on the main link

git clone https://github.com/beagleboard/kernel

will give you the current head which points to 3.2 version. Then you have to

git checkout origin/3.8 -b 3.8

in the same folder. This will change the head to point it to the 3.8 branch.

Then you will need to run ./patch.sh which will generate a working kernel tree for you.

I'm updating the log as I go. I'm pretty certain git will work its magic and I'm about to see a functioning kernel tree in my directory.

All this should be basic stuff for gurus and developers comfortable with git.
I'm writing from a novice perspective..


Cheers
Zubair

p.s. One thing I have realized is that date stamps are very important. Old blog posts can only be treated as reference material. The open source community has a fast pace.