netdev - Re: [RFC 1/6] pccard: remove bcm63xx socket driver

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Message-ID: <8d6896f5-3710-0b35-582a-fb482e5f4196@gmail.com>
Date:   Mon, 27 Feb 2023 13:33:32 -0800
From:   Florian Fainelli <f.fainelli@...il.com>
To:     Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...nel.org>,
        Dominik Brodowski <linux@...inikbrodowski.net>,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, Maxime Bizon <mbizon@...ebox.fr>
Cc:     Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de>, Bjorn Helgaas <bhelgaas@...gle.com>,
        Florian Fainelli <f.fainelli@...il.com>,
        H Hartley Sweeten <hsweeten@...ionengravers.com>,
        Ian Abbott <abbotti@....co.uk>,
        Jakub Kicinski <kuba@...nel.org>,
        Kevin Cernekee <cernekee@...il.com>,
        Lukas Wunner <lukas@...ner.de>,
        Manuel Lauss <manuel.lauss@...il.com>,
        Oliver Hartkopp <socketcan@...tkopp.net>,
        Olof Johansson <olof@...om.net>,
        Robert Jarzmik <robert.jarzmik@...e.fr>,
        YOKOTA Hiroshi <yokota@...lab.is.tsukuba.ac.jp>,
        bcm-kernel-feedback-list@...adcom.com,
        linux-arm-kernel@...ts.infradead.org, linux-can@...r.kernel.org,
        linux-mips@...r.kernel.org, linux-pci@...r.kernel.org,
        linux-wireless@...r.kernel.org, netdev@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [RFC 1/6] pccard: remove bcm63xx socket driver

+Maxime,

On 2/27/2023 5:34 AM, Arnd Bergmann wrote:
> From: Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de>
> 
> The bcm63xx pcmcia driver is the only nonstandard cardbus implementation,
> everything else is handled by the yenta_socket driver. Upon a closer
> look, this seems entirely unused, because:
> 
>   - There are two ports for bcm63xx in arch/mips, both of which
>     support the bcm6358 hardware, but the newer one does not
>     use this driver at all.
> 
>   - The only distro I could find for bcm63xx is OpenWRT, but they
>     do not enable pcmcia support. However they have 130 patches,
>     a lot of which are likely required to run anything at all.
> 
>   - The device list at https://deviwiki.com/wiki/Broadcom only
>     lists machines using mini-PCI cards rather than PCMCIA or
>     Cardbus devices.
> 
>   - The cardbus support is entirely made up to work with the
>     kernel subsystem, but the hardware appears to just be a normal
>     PCI host that should work fine after removing all the cardbus
>     code.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de>

This is probably fine because PCMCIA on BCM63xx was only needed for the 
very old and early devices like the 6348 which modern kernels are 
unlikely to be able to run on since they are usually RAM constrained 
with 16MB or 32MB of DRAM populated. Maxime, do you care if this driver 
gets removed?
-- 
Florian