Re: FreeBSD 14: Poll armv6 deprecated or removed

tech-lists <[email protected]> Sun, 31 Oct 2021 03:34:59 +0000

Newsgroups	gmane.os.freebsd.architechture,gmane.os.freebsd.devel.arm
Message-ID	<[email protected]>

Hi,

On Thu, Oct 28, 2021 at 09:37:03AM -0600, Warner Losh wrote:
>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.

I'm still using freebsd with armv6. It's [rpib+] presently a console server to
the router, connected via a ttl cable. As to useful, it's useful to me ;) but 
i'd imagine theres still lots of uses for armv6 boards, particularly in a low-power 
or battery-operated situation. The hardware is durable. They can still be bought 
new, albeit on back order.

According to
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi#Series_and_generations they
[rpib+] aren't discontinued

>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).

How do you estimate the number of users? Millions of these (armv6)
boards were sold.

>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.

Would it be easier to build a much limited number of packages? Stuff
that's console-only? no xorg, browsers etc for -releng. 
But I agree with 2a for -stable, for any arch..

>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.

mine would be for 2a only for -stable. I think you might be wrong with
"very small number of users" though. If you do decide to go ahead with
it, if arm6 users still want *BSD, on netbsd it's a tier1 arch.

-- 
J.

signature.asc (application/pgp-signature, 833 B)