Re: [PATCH net-next] drivers/net: delete old 8bit ISA 3c501 driver.

From: Paul Gortmaker <redacted>
Date: Fri, 18 May 2012 13:39:29 -0400

It was amusing that linux was able to make use of this 1980's
technology on machines long past its intended lifespan, but
it probably should go now -- it is causing issues in some
distros[1], and while that might be fixable, it is just not
worth it.

To set the context, the 3c501 was designed in the 1980's to be
used on 8088 PC-XT 8bit ISA machines.  It was built using
discrete TTL components and truly looks like a relic of the past.

But from a functional point of view, the real issue, as stated
in the (also obsolete) Ethernet-HowTo, is that "...the 3c501 can
only do one thing at a time -- while you are removing one packet
from the single-packet buffer it cannot receive another packet,
nor can it receive a packet while loading a transmit packet."

You know things are not good when the Kconfig help text suggests
you make a cron job doing a ping every minute.

Hardware that old and crippled is simply not going to be used by
anyone in a time where 10 year old 100Mbit PCI cards (that are
still functional) are largely give-away items.

[1] http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-networking-3/3com-3c501-card-not-detecting-934344/

Cc: Alan Cox <redacted>
Signed-off-by: Paul Gortmaker <redacted>

Alan, any objections?