Re: FreeBSD 14: Poll armv6 deprecated or removed

On Thu, Oct 28, 2021 at 9:46 AM Robert Clausecker <[email protected]> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I have just bought an armv6 board a few days ago to improve package support
> for this platform.


Which armv6 board?

Warner


> 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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