HTC HD2 Linux Port Full Details

After looking up on almost all I can find about the new Linux port for the HTC HD2, I finally gave up and emailed one of the developers for a bit of info for you, the readers. Many people have been constantly requesting for an Android port on their HD2, so thet can be like the Evo4G. Sadly its not that simple, and some do not actually understand what the porting team’s goals are, and so here is a full statement from one of the main developer called dcordes, explaining quite a bit:

“These projects are all focused around the Linux Kernel. So -although most people do want android- it is misleading to speak of android porting projects. The real adjustments that need to be made are all on the kernel (driver) level. Userspace (running on top of the kernel) changes involve only minor workarounds and tweaking.
You can see that easily when you look at what is holding us back when it comes to providing the usable Linux based OS (let it be android) for HD2 which everybody is waiting for: There is a problem where the CPU crashes while performing certain operations. This problem is located obviously on a very low level where Linux kernel is in charge.
You need to find out what is different about your device (In this case we are basing on Nexus One Linux kernel source code) and have to patch the kernel accordingly. This is actually explaining the work flow of all this.
With some minor patches we got the HD2 Linux kernel to boot on different windows mobile qsd8250 based devices like Acer s200 or Toshiba tsunagi tg01. It will be interesting to see if the same problem will be observed on these devices.
Once we have that CPU crash problem sorted you can run anything that is running on top of the recent Linux kernel. Also android.
Of course at that point it will be useful to write a touchscreen driver for the hd2. One option is to use input devices via the working usb host.
More information and a small demo program for Linux on HD2 can be found on XDA: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=651632
If you want to donate to me personally I have a PayPal account at https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/websc…=NF3YYSMALGXUJ
be aware that there are always multiple persons working on this kind of project.”

Now that is quite a bit of information from the developer, and here is the recent changes the project has seen:

05/20/2010 new video player demo added
06/02/2010 nothing new. but we are still working…
06/10/2010 more attention to segfault/illegal instruction problem on lkml
06/12/2010 usb host mode works perfectly. patches and build following
06/12/2010 usb host mode changes committed, kernel build uploaded
06/20/2010 linux is booting on qsd8250 based acer s200 – let’s see if same cpu crash problem can be observed

Hopefully you better understand their situation, and can hopefully help.