linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] [RFC] wireless: move obsolete drivers to staging

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Date:   Wed, 11 Oct 2023 20:13:24 +0200
From:   Philipp Hortmann <philipp.g.hortmann@...il.com>
To:     Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...nel.org>, Kalle Valo <kvalo@...nel.org>,
        Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>
Cc:     Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de>,
        Nicolas Ferre <nicolas.ferre@...rochip.com>,
        Alexandre Belloni <alexandre.belloni@...tlin.com>,
        Claudiu Beznea <claudiu.beznea@...on.dev>,
        Jakub Kicinski <kuba@...nel.org>, Pavel Machek <pavel@....cz>,
        "David S. Miller" <davem@...emloft.net>,
        Larry Finger <Larry.Finger@...inger.net>,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, linux-wireless@...r.kernel.org,
        linux-arm-kernel@...ts.infradead.org, linux-staging@...ts.linux.dev
Subject: Re: [PATCH] [RFC] wireless: move obsolete drivers to staging

On 10/10/23 17:27, Arnd Bergmann wrote:
> From: Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de> While looking at the old drivers 
> using the obsolete .ndo_do_ioctl() callback, I found a number of network 
> drivers that are especially obsolete, in particular for 802.11b 
> (11Mbit/s) or even older wireless networks, using non-busmaster 
> ISA/PCMCIA style bus interfaces, and using the legacy wireless extension 
> ioctls rather than the netlink interfaces that were meant to replace 
> them in 2007. All of these drivers are obsolete or orphaned. We had 
> previously discussed this topic, but nobody ever moved the files, so I 
> now went through the list to my best knowledge. These are the drivers 
> that I would classify as "probably unused" by now:

I found a USB WLAN Stick with a rtl8192u. I got it last Saturday and 
found out that the firmware is missing in my ubuntu 20.04. I found it on 
the web and fixed it. When I started the driver my computer crashed. The 
missing part was: priv->priv_wq = alloc_workqueue("priv_wq", 0, 0); 
Fixing this the next error was a network = kzalloc(sizeof(*network), 
GFP_KERNEL); in wrong context with leads to a crash of my computer. 
Fixing this leads to another issue which lets my computer crash.

For me the firmware of rtl8192u was intentionally missing because of the 
issues with the driver.

What this has to do with your question?
Can we check for missing firmware in main distributions to know which 
drivers are considered to be old and unused?

Bye Philipp