Re: FreeBSD 14: Poll armv6 deprecated or removed

Hi,

I have just bought an armv6 board a few days ago to improve package support
for this platform.  But alas apart from maintaining an assembly code base
with specific support for armv6 FreeBSD [1], that's really the only thing
I'm doing with it.

So not really important for me either way, but if you ask I'm in favour of
keeping armv6 support.

Yours,
Robert Clausecker

[1]: https://mecrisp.sourceforge.net

Am Thu, Oct 28, 2021 at 09:37:03AM -0600 schrieb Warner Losh:
> Greetings,
> 
> Given that the number of available and useful armv6 boards has fallen to
> almost zero, the time has come to look hard at armv6.
> 
> There's a number of options.
> 
> 1. Keep it as is. This will only happen if there's a lot more users than we
> think (and we think there's nearly zero users of FreeBSD 13 and newer that
> would want to run FreeBSD 14).
> 
> 2. Stop building packages. Given it's small to non-existent user base, it
> makes no sense to provide a package building service for it.
> 2a. We should likely do this anyway for all stable branches since it's a
> net negative in terms of cost/benefit analysis: lots of effort to produce,
> very little use.
> 
> 3. Disconnect it from universe: This will mean it will rot, though. It's a
> necessary step in removal.
> 
> 4. Remove support for armv6 in base entirely. This will orphan any RPiB and
> RPi0 users out there. However, the RPiB hasn't been sold in a few years,
> and the RPI0's connectivity is severely lacking given no SDIO support.
> 
> So, which of these steps do we do before FreeBSD 14 and which before
> FreeBSD 15?
> 
> My vote would be to do 1-4 for 14 including 2a.
> 
> Warner

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