netdev - Re: Status of orphaned ltq_etop ethernet driver: mainline vs. OpenWRT

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Message-ID: <d80fef86-ba14-4bd4-bce5-4d61a75d591b@hauke-m.de>
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2026 01:04:46 +0100
From: Hauke Mehrtens <hauke@...ke-m.de>
To: Heiner Kallweit <hkallweit1@...il.com>, John Crispin <john@...ozen.org>,
 Daniel Golle <daniel@...rotopia.org>, Jakub Kicinski <kuba@...nel.org>,
 Paolo Abeni <pabeni@...hat.com>, Eric Dumazet <edumazet@...gle.com>,
 David Miller <davem@...emloft.net>, Andrew Lunn <andrew+netdev@...n.ch>
Cc: "netdev@...r.kernel.org" <netdev@...r.kernel.org>,
 OpenWrt Development List <openwrt-devel@...ts.openwrt.org>
Subject: Re: Status of orphaned ltq_etop ethernet driver: mainline vs. OpenWRT

On 1/28/26 21:23, Heiner Kallweit wrote:
> This driver in mainline lost its in-tree user with commit
> cd93b4895ea5 ("MIPS: lantiq: drop mips_machine support")
> in 2012. Since then it has had no in-tree user.
> 
> Only (?) user seems to be OpenWRT, with several changes to
> the in-tree driver version:
> target/linux/lantiq/patches-6.12/035-owrt-lantiq-wifi-and-ethernet-eeprom-handling.patch
> target/linux/lantiq/patches-6.12/028-NET-lantiq-various-etop-fixes.patch
> target/linux/lantiq/patches-6.12/701-NET-lantiq-etop-of-mido.patch
> So it seems the driver is maintained in OpenWrt only
> (except tree-wide in-tree changes).
> 
> To me this leaves two questions:
> - Move this driver to OpenWRT completely?
> - Or mainline all downstream changes, maintain driver in
>    mainline, and mainline also the users of this driver?
> 

Hi,

I think dropping this from the mainline kernel is fine, if it causes 
efforts for you.
This is the Ethernet of the Lantiq Danube SoC, the SoC is probably EoL 
since 15 years. I assume that all users either use the vendor SDK with 
Linux 2.6.X or OpenWrt.

I will not spend much effort on this driver and others will probably 
also not spend much effort. We can move it completely into OpenWrt and 
keep it running there.

Hauke