From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Alan Cox Subject: Re: [PATCH net-next] drivers/net: delete old 8bit ISA 3c501 driver. Date: Sat, 19 May 2012 13:30:38 +0100 Message-ID: <20120519133038.282d0a7d@bob.linux.org.uk> References: <1337362769-4676-1-git-send-email-paul.gortmaker@windriver.com> <201205182016.51489.linux@rainbow-software.org> <20120518220305.GC15256@windriver.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Ondrej Zary , , To: Paul Gortmaker Return-path: Received: from mga09.intel.com ([134.134.136.24]:43104 "EHLO mga09.intel.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753264Ab2ESMPP (ORCPT ); Sat, 19 May 2012 08:15:15 -0400 In-Reply-To: <20120518220305.GC15256@windriver.com> Sender: netdev-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: > You miss the point. We've got someone with a modern i7 machine who is > getting confused by seeing messages from some ancient 3c501 driver, > but he doesn't have the context to know it is ancient and the message > is a red herring. Will it fix a distro's broken init that tries to > modprobe everything? No. Will it help by not muddying the waters > with meaningless printk from 3c501 that confuse users? Yes. That seems a totally bogus reason for removing stuff. The kernel cannot manage every possible distribution and user screw up. They have more variety so they will always win the battle. Removing it because nobody is running one even in a museum might be a good reason, but then the driver still works fine. Also btw: the 3c501 isn't all TTL it's integrated. The 3c500 is all TTL and an amazing beast, its so big it won't fit a 16bit slot as it has to drop down after the connector to get all the chips on. (and yes I have a 3c500) However I don't think this is the right way to tackle the ethernet history situation. As with MCA we should pull *all* the real historical interest only bits in one go so it's immediately obvious where the break point is for all devices. That or we'll replace confused distros and uses with confused ancient machine owners, and the latter can be far more persistent and irritating ;) So should we dump ISA ? Alan