Hisilicon: Kirin 980 Driver =link=

The Ultimate Guide to Hisilicon Kirin 980 Drivers: Installation, Troubleshooting, and Performance Optimization

10. Maintenance, Updates, and Long-term Support

• OTA and security updates:
  • Drivers should be built with forward compatibility in mind; ABI stability for vendor interfaces is rare, so kernel upgrades often require significant adaptation.
  • Backporting security fixes into older kernels is a common maintenance strategy for long-lived devices.
• Community support:
  • Devices with Kirin 980 saw active custom ROM communities; however, closed-source components can limit full functionality (camera, modem).
  • Documentation of register-level behavior and vendor init sequences is invaluable for sustained support.

4. Windows on ARM (WOA) – A Dead End

Unlike Snapdragon 845/855, there is no WoA project for Kirin 980. The UEFI firmware required does not exist, and Hisilicon has not released any ACPI tables. Do not attempt to install Windows; you will brick your device.

7. Reverse‑engineering / custom drivers

If you’re writing your own driver:

• UART is the first thing to enable (debug UART on pads).
• Documentation – look at Documentation/arm/hisilicon.rst in kernel.
• Existing code – study drivers/soc/hisilicon/ and vendor kernel source (Huawei releases kernel source for GPL compliance).

Vendor kernel source can be found on:

• Huawei’s official site (search “Kirin 980 kernel source”)
• GitHub: Huawei-Dev or Android-Kirin repos