New kernel for Zaurus

A cross-post from "zaurus-general" list...

I've noticed that the kernel used by Sharp and OZ is quite old. Well, it's
actually more than a year old if you consider that linux-2.4.6-rmk1-np2
kernel is dated July 2001, embedix patch is dated December 2001 and the
latest Sharp diff is dated March 2002. And you should also consider that the
kernel is lamost identical for 5000 and 5500 models.

The question is - why are we stuck with old kernel and embedix distibution?
There were so many bugs fixed since 2.4.6 and so many new features added...
I just feel myself like using a year old machine rather than a brand new
SL-5500 ;-)

Can't we just build a kernel for 5500 using the sources from
http://www.arm.uk.linux.org/developer/release-2.4.0.shtml ? The interesting
fact is that if you build 1.13 Sharp ROM version for 5000 it seems to use
Tom Riker's config files (while 2.12 for 5500 uses Sharp's config).

I've never tried to cross-compile anything before (never needed to do so)
but now I'm wondering how difficult will it be to insert new kernel into the
Sharp's or OZ distro? It should be very easy to copy the root file system
from running Zaurus and using it "as is". Then take a new ARM-Linux kernel,
cross-compile it on Linux desktop, merge the modules with root fs, put
everything back into SL-5500. I realise it is not and easy task but not
impossible since I'm talking about the kernel only (OZ guys did a nice job
of building everything else).

The main questions are:

1. Am I missing something fundamental?
2. Both OZ and Sharp use Embedix code for Zaurus. Is there a good reson for
that? Can't we move away from Lineo and use ARM-Linus source tree?
3. Although I do have some programming experience, I've never wrote anything
for Linux before and not very good at C programming (I'm more into Delphi,
Java and PHP stuff). Will it make my attempt to build a new kernel for
Zaurus using ARM-Linux sources almost impossible?





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