There have been a number of questions on how to correctly maintain a linux port for a particular board. The following link gives a good grounding the steps needed. http://www.linux-arm.org/pub/LinuxKernel/WebHome/aleph-porting.pdf specifically this applies to board maintainers rather than the "general public"
Porting linux the RIGHT way
bob, Thanks for that link. The machine ID part was helpful information . . . the rest well beyond me! In the other post I mentioned that there is a machine ID (1999), but I assume from your comments that it refers to an older (?) piece of hardware. Cheers, Dave