Re: [PATCH v2 00/53] MIPS: SGI-IP27: add support for the IP35 (Bedrock hub) machines

From: Imre Kaloz

Date: Wed Oct 21 2026 - 05:17:31 EST


On Tue, 20 Oct 2026 14:56:11 -0700 Jakub Kicinski wrote:
> I don't think you answered my question, or at least I'm too daft
> to catch what you mean. IP35 was not supported so nobody is using
> it with Linux today. You're adding the support, and since it's
> a platform discontinued 20 years ago there's 0 chance of real users
> of any of this code.
>
> What am I missing?

The users are the people running these machines, the same population
as for IP27 and IP30, and the ioc3-eth driver in net/ exists for them
today. The series was developed and tested on a Fuel and a Tezro in
regular use, so "nobody is using it with Linux" is true only in the
sense that the support isn't merged yet; that was equally true of IP30
when it went in for 5.5, and of every port before it.

The kernel's test for a platform isn't commercial relevance, it's a
maintainer, which Thomas is, and testers, which this series has. If
netdev doesn't want to spend time on it, say so and I'll ask Thomas to
take the two ioc3-eth patches through the MIPS tree.


Imre