Re: [PATCH 0/2] net: ethernet: Remove the 8390 network drivers

Hi Arnd,

On 9/08/21 7:49 am, Arnd Bergmann wrote:

On Sun, Aug 8, 2021 at 12:51 AM Michael Schmitz [off-list ref] wrote:

quoted

Removing the 8390 drivers would leave most m68k legacy systems without
networking support.

Unless there is a clear and compelling reason to do so, these drivers
should not be removed.

Right, any driver that is tied to a particular machine should generally
be left working as long as we support that machine.

Thanks - if it was any help to alleviate the maintenance burden, I'd be 
happy to help look after that section of the network drivers.

quoted

quoted

  MAINTAINERS                           |    6 -
  drivers/net/ethernet/8390/8390.c      |  103 --
  drivers/net/ethernet/8390/8390.h      |  236 ----
  drivers/net/ethernet/8390/8390p.c     |  105 --
  drivers/net/ethernet/8390/Kconfig     |  212 ---
  drivers/net/ethernet/8390/Makefile    |   20 -
  drivers/net/ethernet/8390/apne.c      |  619 ---------
  drivers/net/ethernet/8390/ax88796.c   | 1022 ---------------
  drivers/net/ethernet/8390/axnet_cs.c  | 1707 ------------------------
  drivers/net/ethernet/8390/etherh.c    |  856 -------------
  drivers/net/ethernet/8390/hydra.c     |  273 ----
  drivers/net/ethernet/8390/lib8390.c   | 1092 ----------------
  drivers/net/ethernet/8390/mac8390.c   |  848 ------------
  drivers/net/ethernet/8390/mcf8390.c   |  475 -------
  drivers/net/ethernet/8390/ne.c        | 1004 ---------------
  drivers/net/ethernet/8390/ne2k-pci.c  |  747 -----------
  drivers/net/ethernet/8390/pcnet_cs.c  | 1708 -------------------------
  drivers/net/ethernet/8390/smc-ultra.c |  629 ---------
  drivers/net/ethernet/8390/stnic.c     |  303 -----
  drivers/net/ethernet/8390/wd.c        |  574 ---------
  drivers/net/ethernet/8390/xsurf100.c  |  377 ------
  drivers/net/ethernet/8390/zorro8390.c |  452 -------

Two candidates I can see for removing would be smc-ultra and
wd80x3, both of them fairly rare ISA cards. The only other
ISA 8390 variant is the ne2000 driver (ne.c), which is probably
the most common ISA card overall, and I'd suggest leaving
that in place for as long as we support CONFIG_ISA.

That particular driver is the one I rely on (via a weird ROM-port to ISA 
bridge). Would be useful even after ISA bus support is gone, in that 
case. Just saying. The Amiga and Mac drivers likewise. Though you may 
well argue that once ISA support has been removed, these can all be 
rewritten to support MMIO more directly (and more flexibly).

There are a couple of other ISA-only network drivers (localtalk,
arcnet,  ethernet/amd) that may be candidates for removal,
or perhaps some PCMCIA ones.

ethernet/amd has the other set of network card drivers used on m68k 
(*lance).

Cheers,

     Michael

       Arnd