Two month ago, we had start working on Gingerbread (Android 2.3) on Samsung Galaxy. More a proof of concept than a real working system, we encountered many problems (sleep issue, rild cpu consumption issue…).

The main problem of this version is the kernel. Samsung Galaxy (donut, eclair, froyo) uses the old 2.6.27 kernel. With some wrapper, we fighted some compatibility problem with success. But today, with gingerbread, compatiblity problem are too big, we can’t fight against them so easily…

The only solution is to port a new kernel to our galaxy. Huge job. But Bukington did it (follow his work on twitter/github)! He sucessfully port cyanogenmod 2.6.35 kernel with Samsung Galaxy I7500 drivers.

Devices Status on 2.6.35 (extract from wiki)

Device Status Done
NAND/MTD Completed 100%
MMC/SDIO Almost Completed 90%
Vibrator Completed 100%
Headset Completed 100%
Touchscreen Completed 100%
Screen Almost Completed 80%
3D/FB Issues to fix 70%
Sound Almost Completed 95%
Radio Tests to do 90%
Wifi Almost Completed 90%
BlueTooth ?? ??
GPS Almost Completed 95%
USB Almost Completed 95%
Sensors Tests needed 95%
Camera Not ported 0%

Global performances are close to Froyo, but with a little bit smoother on Launcher and menu (ie : slide).

Screen, phone, sensors, gps, sdcard, tether (usb and wifi), sound, are working (some of them need tweak or small fix), but there’s still some work to do, 3D/mmc is a little bit slower than Froyo, camera drivers need to be ported, there is some tiny issues on screen wakup, ect (check wiki for more informations).

With this new kernel, we will be able to resume our work on Gingerbread.

A first beta will be released soon, will let you try Gingerbread by yourselves. For the brave, source code is already available on github.