[momzer]

> I don’t understand why other boards can’t get themselves fully on the Linux mainline

They're slowly getting pulled in kicking [1] and screaming [2]. I just installed the mainline arm64 version of Archlinux onto an Orange Pi Zero Plus, and I was pleasantly surprised that I only had to compile one out-of-tree driver (rtl8189fs for WiFi).

[1] https://linux-sunxi.org/Linux_mainlining_effort

[2] https://linux-sunxi.org/Mainline_U-Boot#Status