Sunday, December 3, 2017

Kernel Sources Released for the Huawei Mate 10 and Honor 7X

Huawei isn't that well-known in the United States, but outside of the U.S. the company's market share has rapidly grown in the past few years thanks in part to its line-up of affordable devices sold under the Honor brand. The Honor 7X, for instance, was launched last month and features a 5.93″ 18:9 display at a low $200. Last month also saw the debut of the company's flagship Mate 10 series packing the HiSilicon Kirin 970 SoC which emphasizes the company's progress in the field of AI.

Although Huawei phones aren't as popular among users on our forums, there is still a sizable development community for phones such as the Honor 8 and Honor 9. We can attribute this success to the affordable pricing of these devices (meaning that developers are more likely to buy them) as well as the efforts of developers such as those on Team OpenKirin. But without access to kernel sources, development on custom AOSP-based ROMs is a non-starter.

Since the kernel shipped on Android devices is based on the Linux kernel, device makers are obligated under the GPL v2 to release the source code for the kernel. That obligation doesn't force device makers to release kernel sources in a timely manner, however, as many devices are released without the accompanying kernel source for weeks or even months. It took 6 months for the Mate 9's kernel sources to be released after all, but it appears that Huawei is recently making efforts to release kernel sources more quickly.

The Huawei Mate 10 and Honor 7X kernel sources are available for download on Huawei's website. The sources were actually available pretty much right after the devices were announced, which is surprising given how long it took for the source code to be released for earlier Huawei/Honor devices. We hope that this trend continues for the company and that they follow through on their software update promises for their devices.

Fortunately for users, access to the kernel source code may not even be fully necessary in order to enjoy an AOSP-based custom ROM, at least on Huawei or Honor devices running Android Oreo. Thanks to Project Treble, it's possible to boot nearly fully functional AOSP ROMs onto devices such as the Mate 9 without a single modification to the kernel. Team OpenKirin is hard at work making the first custom ROMs that are Treble-compatible, so stay tuned to the XDA Portal for more Project Treble-related news.


Download Kernel Sources for the Huawei Mate 10 Download Kernel Sources for the Honor 7X



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