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The Linux Kernel Is Moving Closer To Saying Goodbye To A Lot Of ISDN Network Code

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  • The Linux Kernel Is Moving Closer To Saying Goodbye To A Lot Of ISDN Network Code

    Phoronix: The Linux Kernel Is Moving Closer To Saying Goodbye To A Lot Of ISDN Network Code

    The Linux kernel will likely soon see a lot of old ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) subsystem/driver code deprecated and ultimately removed considering there aren't even many (or any in some places) ISDN public data networks...

    Phoronix, Linux Hardware Reviews, Linux hardware benchmarks, Linux server benchmarks, Linux benchmarking, Desktop Linux, Linux performance, Open Source graphics, Linux How To, Ubuntu benchmarks, Ubuntu hardware, Phoronix Test Suite

  • #2
    I remember being in awe over my next door neighbour having an ISDN line and a whole 64Kbps digital connection which their work paid for whilst I was stuck on very variable 56K dial up - 20 years later I'm quite chuft with my 1Gbps Hyperoptic connection

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    • #3
      Hmm, Wikipedia says ISDN is still widely used with best case phase out by 2025. I wonder why very few Linux systems are connected directly to ISDN. Cheap bridges/modems/routers?

      Other kinda question- can it be moved out of kernel into userspace? Is there enough demand for it?

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      • #4
        Originally posted by coder111 View Post
        Hmm, Wikipedia says ISDN is still widely used with best case phase out by 2025. I wonder why very few Linux systems are connected directly to ISDN. Cheap bridges/modems/routers?
        Because it's only used on that one Windows 2000 Pro box that collects dust in the corner because 4 fortran programs from 1989 haven't been ported beyond Win16 and they don't work with Wine or DOSBox.

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        • #5
          Originally posted by coder111 View Post
          Hmm, Wikipedia says ISDN is still widely used with best case phase out by 2025. I wonder why very few Linux systems are connected directly to ISDN. Cheap bridges/modems/routers?

          Other kinda question- can it be moved out of kernel into userspace? Is there enough demand for it?
          ISDN's popularity came before Linux was ready for it. By the time it was well established, Linux's support was probably too late, while existing setups were already stable enough to get the job done (so, not much point in switching). Just my guess anyway, maybe I'm wrong.

          I'm sure anyone who still cares about it might as well just use an older kernel. I'm sure they're not going to miss out on anything.

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          • #6
            Originally posted by FireBurn View Post
            I remember being in awe over my next door neighbour having an ISDN line and a whole 64Kbps digital connection which their work paid for whilst I was stuck on very variable 56K dial up - 20 years later I'm quite chuft with my 1Gbps Hyperoptic connection
            20 years ago I remember when the phone company installed a substation 400ft away from my friend's house and we were able to override the 56k voltage limit and managed to download stuff from Kazaa at 14kbps.

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            • #7
              Originally posted by FireBurn View Post
              I remember being in awe over my next door neighbour having an ISDN line and a whole 64Kbps digital connection which their work paid for whilst I was stuck on very variable 56K dial up - 20 years later I'm quite chuft with my 1Gbps Hyperoptic connection
              I had a ZyXEL ISDN modem, it could bundle two lines into a 128Kbps connection. But best of all; connecting took 1-2 seconds on ISDN, it was amazing.

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              • #8
                This is premature since there are still ISDN lines especially in corporate environments. I know they are still used in broadcasting . Since its a kernel module i dont know what the harm is in leaving it there. Of course might be better to move it to a userspace process, especially so its not exposed to Linux's undependable and inconsistent kernel APIs.

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                • #9
                  <---------- Works in telecoms

                  ISDN is still widely used but almost all instances now are for voice systems. You'll very rarely see true data usage on ISDN anymore.

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                  • #10
                    Originally posted by jpg44 View Post
                    This is premature since there are still ISDN lines especially in corporate environments. I know they are still used in broadcasting . Since its a kernel module i dont know what the harm is in leaving it there. Of course might be better to move it to a userspace process, especially so its not exposed to Linux's undependable and inconsistent kernel APIs.
                    Considering the pull request explicitly states that the ISDN subsystem has been "unusable" in the kernel for "some time" I'd say it's not really premature at all. If there were a problem in it being in bad shape and basically broken for a long time now if there were any users they would have spoken up by now in asking why Linux ISDN support didn't work. It's being moved out of the mainstream build menu into the staging/experimental knob list so people will know that the code is unstable and potentially broken, which is simply acknowledging reality. This is how you implicitly ask users if anyone uses this any more and if so will they step up to maintain it. If no one steps up to claim it then it will be removed, which is exactly how development is supposed to work.

                    As scottishduck mentioned, while ISDN is still widely used it's mostly not in moving data around, but rather voice systems which use their own firmware/software stacks. The rest are likely legacy systems for more secure data ports back to a central data center point to point and most of those are going to be a combination of a mainframe (likely IBM) and an old Windows PC or a dumb terminal for front end. None of which involves Linux.

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