Theo <
theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
Marco Moock <mo01@posteo.de> wrote:
Am 29.04.2023 um 23:49:15 Uhr schrieb Retrograde:
As noted back in March, the plan with Linux 6.4 is to start removing
old, unused and unmaintained PCMCIA drivers. As part of that process
to begin dropping old PCMCIA/CardBus driver code from the kernel, all
of the PCMCIA "char" drivers were on the chopping block. Linus
Torvalds pulled in the char/misc changes this week for Linux 6.4 and
indeed those drivers are now removed. Meanwhile this pull introduced
the new AMD CDX subsystem...
Does that affect all PCMCIA cards or just specific to some controllers?
It looks to be specific PCMCIA cards, mostly smartcard readers.
Long term it's pretty hard to tell because the only reference is
this kernel mailing list RFC that doesn't show any replies:
https://lore.kernel.org/all/Y07d7rMvd5++85BJ@owl.dominikbrodowski.net/
That suggests removing a lot more than just smartcard readers, but
offers three options, roughly: (a) "keep most", (b) "keep those that
look to be in use (based on development history)", and (c) "remove
PCMCIA support altogether". It's hard to tell whether the action
being taken is part of (a) or (b), but it doesn't look like it's
(c).
At the end a wide range of drivers are suggested for removal if
option (b) is taken. I don't see how commit history can be used to
judge usage. I've used one of the drivers marked "[-]" there for
removal. Should I have submitted a change to the driver adding a
comment: "/* Still works fine in kernel 6.2, nothing needs changing
*/", and then the driver would be retained becuase it's still
getting "activity" and therefore is in use? Seems like survival of
the least fit code to me.
But maybe they're not going with that approach anyway. It sounds
like the RFC message is just being used as justification by others
interested in dropping individual PCMCIA drivers at the moment.
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