B3 w/ a vanilla kernel

[mistotebe]

Hi, the HDD in my B3 is slowly dying and this is a good time to worry about upgrading to wheezy/jessie.

What needs to be done to get the box bootable? Do the vanilla kernels work? What do I lose?
I am aware that Wi-Fi needs a separate driver but my B3 does not sport one, so a major roadblock is averted.

Or, to rephrase: what do I need to do to:

• have it boot? (is it that whatever is in /boot/uImage gets executed by u-boot? Any quirks needed during startup that a vanilla kernel does not do?)
• have control over the front light? (or have it permanently switched off after boot)
• last, but not least: be able to replace the current kernel? (to upgrade to a newer one in the future)

I'm fairly well versed in managing a Debian machine, able to build my own kernel if need be, but I'm not confident enough to start porting non-trivial modules from 2.6.39 over to 3.x. That would probably have me abandon the machine due to lack of time and buy something else (or another RPi, but they're woefully slow to do any dev work on, not to mention the lack of a HDD and GBit).

[osa]

Try arch linux http://archlinuxarm.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=6051

[Gordon]

User MouettE posted some messages related to upgrading to wheezy. Search for posts by his name on this forum.

In short: the current version of the boot procedure (which is in flash memory) prohibits running a recent kernel. If I remember correctly then the highest version he managed to boot the B3 with was 3.0

[ryz]

Check out this two posts

uboot update needed.

and

Minimal wheezy install images for b3