Originally posted by espi
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Linux Looks Toward Dropping Very Old WiFi Drivers
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Linux Hardware drivers should have included metadata with info such a release date of the targeted hardware.
At build time, we could disable some drivers per time period leading to some good optimization.
Otherwise, good choice to remove that. If you want to use a prehistoric machine, then don’t target the latest software.
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Originally posted by jeisom View Post
I like this idea. Put all the depreciated drivers/features there, preferably add to the info area why(lack of known users/unmaintained) and when it is likely to be removed. If it is lack of a maintainer and someone were wanting to find some way to contribute they could start in the unstaging area. And honestly they should have a policy on depreciating and how long till something is removed. ie, 1 year or 2 years, whatever and right after an lts release.
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I think this is not great. Using Linux on ancient machines is very good for the whole ecosystem. Maybe there should be a new kernel type that has all the unmaintained crap included for these special use cases. Reddit is full of people dusting off their P3 machines & then installing Linux on them, there is no reason why their whatever obscure sound card or S3 GPU shouldn't be supported, just because someone decided to drop unmaintained code.
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Originally posted by Gabbb View PostI think this is not great. Using Linux on ancient machines is very good for the whole ecosystem. Maybe there should be a new kernel type that has all the unmaintained crap included for these special use cases. Reddit is full of people dusting off their P3 machines & then installing Linux on them, there is no reason why their whatever obscure sound card or S3 GPU shouldn't be supported, just because someone decided to drop unmaintained code.
If nobody can be bothered to take care of the driver, why should rest of the kernel keep API-s that have been deprecated for years just so driver XYZ works?
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Originally posted by Gabbb View PostI think this is not great. Using Linux on ancient machines is very good for the whole ecosystem. Maybe there should be a new kernel type that has all the unmaintained crap included for these special use cases. Reddit is full of people dusting off their P3 machines & then installing Linux on them, there is no reason why their whatever obscure sound card or S3 GPU shouldn't be supported, just because someone decided to drop unmaintained code.
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Originally posted by robimarko View Post
This won't work in practice as in many cases these drivers are the sole users of various deprecated APIs that get dropped as well with the driver.
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Originally posted by billyswong View Post
A easier solution might be someone creating a distribution that let one stay with older kernels but update most other software timely.
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Originally posted by rmfx View PostLinux Hardware drivers should have included metadata with info such a release date of the targeted hardware.
At build time, we could disable some drivers per time period leading to some good optimization.
Otherwise, good choice to remove that. If you want to use a prehistoric machine, then don’t target the latest software.
Check whether you have the following modules loaded:- ac97_bus (AC97 first released around ... 1997)
- bluetooth (exists for over two decades now)
- i2c_piix4 (at least three decades old)
- nvme (exists for over a decade)
- snd_hda_codec (almost two decades old)
- ata_generic (almost three decades old)
Last edited by avis; 14 October 2023, 04:41 PM.
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