linux-kernel - Re: [GIT PULL] TTY/Serial driver updates for 6.3-rc1

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Date:   Sun, 26 Feb 2023 14:58:44 -0500
From:   "Theodore Ts'o" <tytso@....edu>
To:     Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
Cc:     Greg KH <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>,
        Tharun Kumar P <tharunkumar.pasumarthi@...rochip.com>,
        Kumaravel Thiagarajan <kumaravel.thiagarajan@...rochip.com>,
        Andy Shevchenko <andriy.shevchenko@...ux.intel.com>,
        Jiri Slaby <jslaby@...e.cz>,
        Stephen Rothwell <sfr@...b.auug.org.au>,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, linux-serial@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [GIT PULL] TTY/Serial driver updates for 6.3-rc1

On Sat, Feb 25, 2023 at 06:14:11PM -0800, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> On Sat, Feb 25, 2023 at 3:40 PM Theodore Ts'o <tytso@....edu> wrote:
> >
> > For what it's worth, in the VM world (e.g., qemu, AWS, GCP, Azure,
> > Linode, etc.)  serial consoles are quite common way of debugging VM's,
> > and as an emergency login path when the networking has been screwed up
> > for some reason....
> 
> Everybody seems to be missing the point.
> 
> We don't make new drivers "default y" (or, in this case, "default SERIAL_8250".
> 
> It does not matter ONE WHIT if you have a serial device in your
> machine. If your old driver was enabled and worked for you and you
> used it daily, that is ENTIRELY IMMATERIAL to a new driver, even if
> that new driver then happens to use some of the same infrastructure as
> the old one did.

Oh, agreed, I wasn't responding to that part of your message.  New
serial drivers should never be enabled by default.

I was responding to your musing about whether it still made sense to
enable the COM1/2/3/4 serial ports by default on x86.  It's true that
on desktops COM1/2/3/4 serial ports are rarely used, and some other
boards might not even have them any more.  But for x86 VM's, they are
used quite a lot.

Cheers,

				- Ted