I'd like to axe some drivers

[John-Mark Gurney]

John Baldwin wrote this message on Thu, Nov 20, 2014 at 16:31 -0500:
> I'm >< close to removing timeout/untimeout from the tree.  As part of this I 
> have updated several older drivers to use callout(9), but most of those 
> patches were untested.  Keeping old code around that no one uses does add 
> future work as tree-wide API changes are made as well as things like locking 
> (note that several of these drivers weren't locked until I recently changed 
> them).  To that end, here is my short list of things that I think we can bid 
> farewell to in 11.  Note that many of these are for ISA devices.
> 
> asr(4):   This is a driver for a set of older Adaptec PCI RAID adapters.  This
> 		  driver is _really_ crufty and is the only thing I didn't convert to
> 		  callout(9) because it has no notion of software state for a given
>           request.  It is also 32-bit only since it stuff kernel pointers into
> 	      32 bit fields in hardware-defined structures.
> 
> mcd(4):   This is a driver for a pre-ATAPI ISA CD-ROM adapter.  As noted in
>           the manpage, this driver is only useful as a backend to cdcontrol to
>           play audio CDs since it doesn't use DMA, so its data performance is
>           "abysmal" (and that was true in the mid 90's).
> 
> scd(4):   Similar to mcd(4), this is a pre-ATAPI ISA CD-ROM adapter.  (Note
>           that the more-popular matcd(4) driver that was used for the CD-ROM
>           controller on certain SoundBlaster cards was removed in 2002.)
> 
> si(4):    This is a driver for an older ISA/EISA/PCI multiport serial card.
>           It doesn't use bus_space.  It was hacked up to use new tty, but
>           still uses Giant.  I have a partial set of outstanding patches to
>           this to fix it to use bus_space, but when I sent them out for
>           testing on current and stable, no one replied.
> 
> wds(4):   This is an ISA SCSI HBA that does not use DMA (only PIO).  I
>           actually had one of these a long time ago to use with a SCSI
>           ZIP drive.  Even if I still have it in a box somewhere, I'm not
>           digging it out.
> 
> wl(4):    This is a driver for an ancient pre-802.11 wireless adapter.  It
> 	      also includes wlconfig(8).  Warner promises he won't test any
>           patches for this.  It's older and slower than wi(4) and that driver
>           hasn't really worked in years.  (One could make the case for axing
>           an(4) and wi(4) as well, but I'm just pushing for wl(4).)
> 
> spic(4):  At one point the Sony VAIO was "the" cool laptop, and this driver
>           controlled the "jogdial" found on it and presented it as a mouse.
>           This is a tiny driver and is less invasive in terms of future
>           maintenance than others perhaps, but my recent calls for testing
>           on current@ and stable@ found no takers.  It's a fairly obscure
>           device and not one that exists on any recently shipped hardware.
> 
> ie(4):    Unfortunately, someone actually found one of these and tested it
>           several years ago when I added locking to it.  It is the only ISA
>           NIC driver that doesn't have a pccard attachment (you can in theory
>           still use a pccard NIC in a cardbus slot (though not ExpressCard)).
>           This also only does 10Mb using PIO (no DMA).  It doesn't use
>           bus_space.

I'm fine w/ removing these...  Should we do some house cleaning on
amd64's GENERIC too?

amd64's GENERIC has a lot of ISA or 100Mbit ethernet cards that are
clearly not going to be used on these machines...

My recommended list to remove:
ae, bfe, dc, fxp, hme?, pcn, rl, tx, vr, wb, xl, cs, ed, ex, ep, fe,
sn, xe

All of these are modules, so if someone really needs them, they can
load the module...

-- 
  John-Mark Gurney				Voice: +1 415 225 5579

     "All that I will do, has been done, All that I have, has not."