FCP-0101: Deprecating most 10/100 Ethernet drivers

[Ian Lepore]

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.

-- Ian