FCP-0101: Deprecating most 10/100 Ethernet drivers

[Warner Losh]

On Thu, Oct 4, 2018 at 11:47 AM Ian Lepore <ian at freebsd.org> wrote:

> On Thu, 2018-10-04 at 11:38 -0600, Warner Losh wrote:
> > On Thu, Oct 4, 2018 at 11:26 AM Ian Lepore <ian at freebsd.org> wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > On Thu, 2018-10-04 at 10:21 -0600, Warner Losh wrote:
> > > >
> > > > On Thu, Oct 4, 2018 at 10:15 AM Michelle Sullivan
> > > > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > tech-lists wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I'm astonished you're considering removing rl given how common
> it is.
> > > > > >
> > > > > I'll second that comment - though no disrespect to Brooks.  Brooks
> as
> > > > > far as I can see is just the messenger.
> > > > >
> > > > Absent good data, one has to make one's best guesses. I guessed wrong
> > > here
> > > >
> > > > in my comments to Brooks about which ones were must keeps. I knew it
> was
> > > > popular back in the day (~2000), but had thought it's popularity had
> > > waned
> > > >
> > > > much more than it apparently has. I last deployed systems with rl in
> them
> > > > around 2007, and at the time it was trailing edge gear (the SBCs we
> used
> > > at
> > > >
> > > > Timing Solutions tended to use popular, but ~5-year-old technology
> > > because
> > > >
> > > > that market segment wanted longevity of spare availability...).
> > > >
> > > > Warner
> > > 11 years later, we (Timing Solutions, now a division of Microchip) are
> > > still using SBCs with rl(4) hardware and still shipping software
> > > updates with that driver built into the kernel. We build systems with a
> > > lifespan in the field of 20 years or more, and the stability and
> > > compatibility across OS upgrades over that kind of span is a BIG reason
> > > to use freebsd rather than linux for such things.
> > >
> > OK. I'd have thought those SBCs would have gone out of production years
> > ago.... It's a good datapoint to know that there's multiple users of
> > FreeBSD using these parts in products that are still shipping. That's a
> > clear and compelling benefit to the project that offsets the efforts that
> > it's taken them to keep things current with rl.
> >
> > In this case, though, rl is off the list, so that hardware should still
> be
> > good. The only other SBC I was aware of at Timing Solutions was one that
> > had an 'ed' chip on it (an ISA realtek part IIRC) that was used in around
> > 2001, but in a 'one off' custom setup that I don't think will ever be
> > upgraded.... But I have to ask since I know how things worked during my
> > time there and systems that 'would never be upgraded' often times were
> > later...
> >
> > I'd also suggest that rl stands in stark contrast to the cs, wb, sn, smc,
> > sf, tl, tx and vr drivers, which nobody has mentioned in this thread, and
> > which I doubt are in use in any FreeBSD system of any age today.
> >
> > Warner
>
> I checked all our various kernel configs, and the only one on the list
> we still use appears to be rl.
>
> One driver I was surprised to see was not on the list was vte. So I'll
> just preemptively mention that we do use that one too.
>

I'll assume that you've deployed more than 5 of these systems and that you
may someday upgrade them as well?  Which of the Vortex86 processors are you
using, if you can answer that...

Warner