FCP-101: obsolete driver removal planned for 2019-05-18

[Rodney W. Grimes]

> Eugene Grosbein wrote:
> > 11.05.2019 22:59, Julian H. Stacey wrote:
> > 
> > >> 11.05.2019 21:32, Julian H. Stacey wrote:
> > >>
> > >>>> I've posted a review to remove obsolete 10 and 10/100 Ethernet drivers
> > >>>> as previous approved in FCP-101.
> > >>>> The following drivers are slated for
> > >>>> removal from FreeBSD-HEAD (to be FreeBSD-13):
> > >>>>
> > >>>> ae, bm, cs, de, ed, ep, ex, fe, pcn, sf, sn, tl, tx, txp, vx, wb, xe
> > >>>
> > >>> OMG ! ed ! That EOL's loads of PC boxes I have (& a show box of
> > >>> spare)  that will never be able to upgrade.
> > >>
> > >> Do those boxes have 10M-only or 100Mbps variants of ed(4)?
> > >> What kind of hardware do they have (CPU and memory-wise)?
> > > 
> > > Thanks for question.  I ran a quick check:
> > > cd /usr/src; 
> > > #	Apply my patches:
> > > #	customise `pwd` 
> > > #	http://www.berklix.com/~jhs/bin/.csh/customise
> > > cd /sys/amd64/conf
> > > grep device [A-Z][A-Z][A-Z][A-Z].small | grep ed
> > > DUAL.small:device ed
> > > FILM.small:device ed
> > > KING.small:device ed
> > > LAPA.small:device ed
> > > LAPD.small:device ed
> > > LAPL.small:device ed
> > > LAPN.small:device ed
> > > LOFT.small:device ed
> > > MINI.small:device ed
> > > SCAN.small:device ed0 at isa? port 0x280 irq 15 iomem 0xd0000 iosiz 0x10000
> > > SLIM.small:device ed
> > > SNOW.small:device ed0 at isa? port 0x280 irq 5 iomem 0xc8000
> > > WIND.small:device ed
> > 
> > I've asked not for configuration files but for description of hardware.
> > ed(4) supports many different models. Some of them do 10Mbps only
> > but some are 100M-capable including PCI-connected.
> > 
> > And it's interesting to know what is CPU and memory type/amount of boxes.
> 
> Info I had long pre saved, exported here:
> 	http://www.berklix.com/~jhs/src/bsd/fixes/FreeBSD/hosts/
> Many boxes run newer releases than logs show, but eg dmesg shows memory etc.

It would help if you could run this from the hosts directory above and
post the output here, I doubt anyone besides me well bother looking
any further than this email at this data, but they well if you post
this output:

find . -type f | grep /dmesg | xargs egrep 'CPU:|real memory|Ethernet'

That should give us machine name by file path, CPU type, memory and
what ethernet cards are in it.

I found one box, the second one I looked at,
http://www.berklix.com/~jhs/src/bsd/fixes/FreeBSD/hosts/logs/blak/dmesg0
that clearly has enough CPU and memory to run 13:
CPU: Pentium II/Pentium II Xeon/Celeron (334.09-MHz 686-class CPU)
real memory  = 536858624 (511 MB)
ed0: <PLUG & PLAY ETHERNET CARD> at port 0x240-0x25f iomem 0xcc000-0xcffff irq 5 pnpid EDI0119 on isa0
ed0: [ITHREAD]
ed0: WARNING: using obsoleted if_watchdog interface
ed0: Ethernet address: 00:00:b4:36:a5:04

> Re Gary's:
> > 2) what versions of FBSD is Julian now running on his hardware?
> > 3) does he ever plan to upgrade this hardware to >= FBSD 13?
> 
> Not many, if any of them; I should idealy find time to purge some,
> but I also have sundry newer PCs, & spare ed etc cards, so a pity to loose ed.
> 
> 
> More generaly It won't be just me with ed.  With 13 I can power up any time,
> (+ other pcmcia & PCI & ISA cards in boxes) there's probably many more globaly.
> 
> But sys admins often don't have time to read developer lists like
> current@ & arch at .  So developer considering zapping things, will
> not be seen by users it will hit later.
> 
> First many will know is seeing in a RELNOTES "XYZ will be removed
> in release [0-9].[0-9]" No chance to answer an earlier "Are many
> still using XYZ, we're thinking of deleting it ?"

I believe all of the proposed cards have been announcing
they are gone in FreeBSD 13 starting at FreeBSD 12.

I am NOT clear if these gonein notices got backported to
11, if not they should be ASAP as getting notice out to
the 11.3 users is important too.

> If ed is the biggest legacy NIC, best be cautious ?

I agree to some extent, but have no hard use evedence.

> (BTW I also have 2 boxes running today's current, not just old Rels here.)
> 
> Cheers,
> Julian
> -- 
> Julian Stacey, Consultant Systems Engineer, BSD Linux Unix, Munich Aachen Kent
>  http://stolenvotes.uk  Brexit ref. stole votes from 700,000 Brits in EU.
>  Lies bought; Groups fined; 1.9 M young had no vote, 1.3 M old leavers died.
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-- 
Rod Grimes                                                 rgrimes at freebsd.org