Cavium OCTEON Driver Support For Linux Is Coming Back From The Dead

It looks like the Cavium/Marvell OCTEON MIPS-based processor support is being restored for Linux systems after some of its drivers were briefly removed.

For the current Linux 5.6 cycle, some OCTEON drivers were dropped. Those drivers had been living in the kernel's staging area but fell into disrepair and with no one at the time taking over the maintenance burden, they were removed for Linux 5.6 as part of cleaning up the staging area.

Now though a developer has stepped up to restore the OCTEON driver support with patches to restore the staging drivers and correct the build issues with the code that led to their recent dismissal. Additionally, he's approached Cavium/Marvell about potentially taking a more active stake in this Linux kernel code and ideally seeing them promoted out of staging.

The revival can be found here. Staging maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman has already pulled those patches into staging-next for Linux 5.7. We'll see if Cavium/Marvell ends up stepping to the plate or if this OCTEON code will ultimately fall into disrepair once more.