Re: [PATCH 00/13] Remove metag architecture

[Arnd Bergmann]

On Thu, Feb 22, 2018 at 12:38 AM, James Hogan <jhogan@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> These patches remove the metag architecture and tightly dependent
> drivers from the kernel. With the 4.16 kernel the ancient gcc 4.2.4
> based metag toolchain we have been using is hitting compiler bugs, so
> now seems a good time to drop it altogether.
>
> Quoting from patch 1:
>
> The earliest Meta architecture port of Linux I have a record of was an
> import of a Meta port of Linux v2.4.1 in February 2004, which was worked
> on significantly over the next few years by Graham Whaley, Will Newton,
> Matt Fleming, myself and others.
>
> Eventually the port was merged into mainline in v3.9 in March 2013, not
> long after Imagination Technologies bought MIPS Technologies and shifted
> its CPU focus over to the MIPS architecture.
>
> As a result, though the port was maintained for a while, kept on life
> support for a while longer, and useful for testing a few specific
> drivers for which I don't have ready access to the equivalent MIPS
> hardware, it is now essentially dead with no users.
>
> It is also stuck using an out-of-tree toolchain based on GCC 4.2.4 which
> is no longer maintained, now struggles to build modern kernels due to
> toolchain bugs, and doesn't itself build with a modern GCC. The latest
> buildroot port is still using an old uClibc snapshot which is no longer
> served, and the latest uClibc doesn't build with GCC 4.2.4.
>
> So lets call it a day and drop the Meta architecture port from the
> kernel. RIP Meta.

Since I brought up the architecture removal independently, I could
pick this up into a git tree that also has the removal of some of the
other architectures.

I see your tree is part of linux-next, so you could also just put it
in there and send a pull request at the merge window if you prefer.

The only real reason I see for a shared git tree would be to avoid
conflicts when we touch the same Kconfig files or #ifdefs in driver,
but Meta only appears in

config FRAME_POINTER
        bool "Compile the kernel with frame pointers"
        depends on DEBUG_KERNEL && \
                (CRIS || M68K || FRV || UML || \
                 SUPERH || BLACKFIN || MN10300 || METAG) || \
                ARCH_WANT_FRAME_POINTERS

and

include/trace/events/mmflags.h:#elif defined(CONFIG_PARISC) ||
defined(CONFIG_METAG) || defined(CONFIG_IA64)

so there is little risk.

      Arnd