Andrew Lunn, maintainer of 9 subsystems responsible for network drivers in the Linux kernel, has published a set of patches that remove all drivers for Ethernet adapters with ISA and PCMCIA interfaces from the kernel. It is noted that previously, maintaining old drivers required little effort, but with the emergence of advanced AI tools and fuzz testing systems used by newcomers to identify bugs in the kernel, the burden on maintainers has increased.
Andrew sees little point in fixing old drivers that are likely no longer in use, and he proposes their removal from the kernel. The set of patches presented for review removes 18 drivers for Ethernet devices with ISA and PCMCIA interfaces that were released before 2002. If approved by Linus Torvalds, the removal could take place in the Linux kernel 7.2, scheduled for mid-August.
Drivers proposed for removal:
- 3com 3c509, 3c515, 3c574, 3c589 and 3c59x for 3Com EtherLinkIII, EtherLink XL 'Corkscrew', 'RoadRunner' and 'Vortex'.
- amd hplance, mvme147, 7990 lance, and nmclan for HP300, Motorola MVME147 SBC, AMD PCnet32 (AT1500, NE2100), Allied Telesis AT1500, HP J2405A, Alchemy Semi AU1X00.
- smsc smc9194 and smc91c92, used in DELL laptops with docking stations and in Ethernet cards from Megahertz, Motorola, Ositech, and Psion Dacom.
- cirrus cs89x0 and mac89x0 for cards with Crystal Semiconductor (Cirrus Logic) CS89[02]0 chips, which were used in iMX21ADS boards, Macintosh computers, and integrated into CPU EP93xx.
- fujitsu fmvj18x for Ethernet cards with Fujitsu FMV-J18x chips.
- xircom xirc2ps for 16-bit PCMCIA cards from Xircom produced in the late 1990s.
- 8390 AX88190, pcnet, ultra and wd80x3 — for NE2000-compatible Ethernet cards based on Asix AX88190, NS8390, SMC Ultra, SMC EtherEZ, WD8003 and WD8013 chips, such as D-Link DE-650, Linksys EthernetCard, Accton EN2212, RPTI EP400, PreMax PE-200, Thomas Conrad and Kingston KNE-PCM.
After the patches were published, several users joined the discussion, stating that they have equipment in their infrastructures that uses the drivers proposed for removal. For example, Motorola MVME147, mac89x0, and 3com 3C905-B are still in use. It is also mentioned that the removed drivers may be required for retro systems Alpha, SPARC, PA-RISC, and 68000.
Source: opennet.ru
