Re: Future of Octeon MIPS hardware support

Ben Hutchings <[email protected]> Fri, 06 Mar 2020 14:24:50 +0000

Newsgroups	gmane.linux.debian.ports.mips,gmane.linux.debian.devel.kernel
Message-ID	<[email protected]>

On Wed, 2020-03-04 at 18:26 +0800, YunQiang Su wrote:
> YunQiang Su <[email protected]> 于2020年3月4日周三 上午9:54写道：
> > Ben Hutchings <[email protected]> 于2020年3月4日周三 上午9:24写道：
> > > The main Ethernet driver for all Octeon MIPS SoCs has been disabled
> > > upstream in Linux 5.5, and will be removed in 5.6.  The driver has been
> > > in "staging" (i.e. it didn't meet the usual standards for kernel code)
> > > ever since it was added in 2009.  It recently stopped building, and
> > > didn't have a regular maintainer who could fix it.  (There is a
> > > separate Ethernet driver for the management port, which seems to be
> > > still maintained.)
> > > 
> > > The USB host driver for Octeon CN3xxx and CN5xxx SoCs will also be
> > > removed for similar reasons.
> > > 
> > > * DSA: The removal of the Ethernet driver will affect the EdgeRouter
> > > Pro used for the Debian mips porterbox and some buildds.  These do not
> > > seem to have any expansion slots useful for alternate network
> > > interfaces, so they will likely need to be replaced before buster EOL.
> > 
> > https://patchwork.kernel.org/cover/11365607/
> > 
> > There is a patchset for it.
> > Greg said that he will help to merge, while it has not really happen.
> > Let's ask for him whether he need some more info or anything.
> 
> This patchset has been in linux-next now.
> 
> https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/next/linux-next.git/log/?h=next-20200304&qt=author&q=Chris+Packham

Thanks for finding these.  I will cherry-pick them for 5.5 so we don't
lose the driver temporarily.

Ben.

> > > * MIPS porters: Given that these SoCs are designed primarily for
> > > networking and we will no longer support the on-board network
> > > interfaces, does it make sense to continue building kernel packages for
> > > them?
> > > 
> > > Ben.
> > > 
> > > --
> > > Ben Hutchings
> > > No political challenge can be met by shopping. - George Monbiot
> > > 
> > > 
> > 
> > --
> > YunQiang Su
> 
> 
-- 
Ben Hutchings
Klipstein's 4th Law of Prototyping and Production:
                               A fail-safe circuit will destroy others.

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