Linux 5.4 Set To Remove Intel XScale IOP33X/IOP13XX CPU Support

Linux 5.4 is set to remove the Intel IOP33X and IOP13XX series of processors that are part of the company's former XScale product line for ARM-based CPUs.

The XScale IOP processors were intended for handling I/O offloading from the main device CPU. These sub-1.2GHz processors were part of Intel's ARMv8.5-based XScale product portfolio. But with no apparent users of the Intel IOP33X/IOP13XX hardware left -- at least anyone that would likely be riding new Linux kernel releases -- that support is going to be removed later this year with the Linux 5.4 release.

Those XSeries lines are set to be removed as part of the ARM changes for this next kernel version. The commit explains:

There are three families of IOP machines we support in Linux: iop32x (which includes EP80219), iop33x and iop13xx (aka IOP34x aka WP8134x).

All products we support in the kernel are based on the first of these, iop32x, the other families only ever supported the Intel reference boards but no actual machine anyone could ever buy.

While one could clearly make them all three work in a single kernel with some work, this takes the easy way out, removing the later two platforms entirely, under the assumption that there are no remaining users.

Earlier versions of OpenWRT and Debian both had support for iop32x but not the others, and they both dropped iop32x as well in their 2015 releases.