Re: [PATCH 0/2] net: ethernet: Remove the 8390 network drivers

[Arnd Bergmann]

On Sun, Aug 8, 2021 at 12:51 AM Michael Schmitz <schmitzmic@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Removing the 8390 drivers would leave most m68k legacy systems without
> networking support.
>
> Unless there is a clear and compelling reason to do so, these drivers
> should not be removed.

Right, any driver that is tied to a particular machine should generally
be left working as long as we support that machine.

> >  MAINTAINERS                           |    6 -
> >  drivers/net/ethernet/8390/8390.c      |  103 --
> >  drivers/net/ethernet/8390/8390.h      |  236 ----
> >  drivers/net/ethernet/8390/8390p.c     |  105 --
> >  drivers/net/ethernet/8390/Kconfig     |  212 ---
> >  drivers/net/ethernet/8390/Makefile    |   20 -
> >  drivers/net/ethernet/8390/apne.c      |  619 ---------
> >  drivers/net/ethernet/8390/ax88796.c   | 1022 ---------------
> >  drivers/net/ethernet/8390/axnet_cs.c  | 1707 ------------------------
> >  drivers/net/ethernet/8390/etherh.c    |  856 -------------
> >  drivers/net/ethernet/8390/hydra.c     |  273 ----
> >  drivers/net/ethernet/8390/lib8390.c   | 1092 ----------------
> >  drivers/net/ethernet/8390/mac8390.c   |  848 ------------
> >  drivers/net/ethernet/8390/mcf8390.c   |  475 -------
> >  drivers/net/ethernet/8390/ne.c        | 1004 ---------------
> >  drivers/net/ethernet/8390/ne2k-pci.c  |  747 -----------
> >  drivers/net/ethernet/8390/pcnet_cs.c  | 1708 -------------------------
> >  drivers/net/ethernet/8390/smc-ultra.c |  629 ---------
> >  drivers/net/ethernet/8390/stnic.c     |  303 -----
> >  drivers/net/ethernet/8390/wd.c        |  574 ---------
> >  drivers/net/ethernet/8390/xsurf100.c  |  377 ------
> >  drivers/net/ethernet/8390/zorro8390.c |  452 -------

Two candidates I can see for removing would be smc-ultra and
wd80x3, both of them fairly rare ISA cards. The only other
ISA 8390 variant is the ne2000 driver (ne.c), which is probably
the most common ISA card overall, and I'd suggest leaving
that in place for as long as we support CONFIG_ISA.

There are a couple of other ISA-only network drivers (localtalk,
arcnet,  ethernet/amd) that may be candidates for removal,
or perhaps some PCMCIA ones.

      Arnd