Re: [PATCH 1/3] tty: move remaining serial drivers into the serial/ directory

Re: [PATCH 1/3] tty: move remaining serial drivers into the serial/ directory

[Jiri Slaby]

On 05. 05. 26, 3:20, Ethan Nelson-Moore wrote:
> A few TTY drivers are outside the serial/ directory despite being for
> serial devices.

Yes, but serial/ (historically) contains drivers using serial_core. tty/ 
contains drivers using tty_driver (which all of three unfortunately do).

There was a patchset from Crescent Hsieh (Moxa) to convert mxser [1]. 
Amiserial should be likely converted too -- Amiga users still around? 
There is no MAINTAINERS entry for Amiga, trying to CC m68k...

I am not sure even about users of Moxa Intellio. I think I prompted long 
time ago. Oh yes, Ray Chen (CCed) from Moxa wrote me back in 2021:
=== 8< ===
For the Intellio cards, we phased them out in 2017.
You may find the discontinuance notification as attached.
We will keep the software support for 5 years, to 2023.
=== 8< ===

I believe we can mark it as BROKEN to let someone convert it to 
serial_core. Or drop it for good already.

[1] 
https://lore.kernel.org/all/20251130104222.63077-1-crescentcy.hsieh@moxa.com/

thanks,
-- 
js
suse labs

Re: [PATCH 1/3] tty: move remaining serial drivers into the serial/ directory

[Crescent Hsieh]

On Tue, May 05, 2026 at 07:59:29AM +0200, Jiri Slaby wrote:
> On 05. 05. 26, 3:20, Ethan Nelson-Moore wrote:
> > A few TTY drivers are outside the serial/ directory despite being for
> > serial devices.
> 
> Yes, but serial/ (historically) contains drivers using serial_core. tty/
> contains drivers using tty_driver (which all of three unfortunately do).
> 
> There was a patchset from Crescent Hsieh (Moxa) to convert mxser [1].

Yes, I have been working on converting mxser.c into an 8250-based serial
driver for some time, and it is still in progress.

> I am not sure even about users of Moxa Intellio. I think I prompted long
> time ago. Oh yes, Ray Chen (CCed) from Moxa wrote me back in 2021:
> === 8< ===
> For the Intellio cards, we phased them out in 2017.
> You may find the discontinuance notification as attached.
> We will keep the software support for 5 years, to 2023.
> === 8< ===
> 
> I believe we can mark it as BROKEN to let someone convert it to serial_core.
> Or drop it for good already.

As for Moxa Intellio (moxa.c), I have confirmed internally that both the
hardware and software support have already been phased out.

Therefore, it would be reasonable to drop it at this point. I can help
with preparing a removal patch if this is the preferred direction.

---
Sincerely,
Crescent Hsieh