Re: Removing ARCNET stuffs
Radoslaw Kujawa <[email protected]>
| Newsgroups | gmane.os.netbsd.ports.amiga,gmane.os.netbsd.devel.kernel,gmane.os.netbsd.devel.network |
|---|---|
| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
> On 28 May 2015, at 10:30, Ryota Ozaki <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 3:58 PM, Frank Wille <[email protected]> wrote: >> On Thu, 28 May 2015 11:57:11 +0900 >> Ryota Ozaki <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>>> As far as I can see Arcnet is only used by the Amiga bah(4) driver. >>>> Isn't it possible to keep it somehow, as an MP-safe network stack would >>>> be irrelevant for the Amiga platform? >>> >>> We could keep it with some pain, but we cannot keep it working if there is >>> really no user. (I'm not sure if it works or not even now.) Is it still >>> worthwhile? >> >> I will not insist in keeping it when there is pain to do so. And you may >> be right that there is no user, but this is valid for a lot of platforms >> and drivers. >> >> >>> Anyway I don't proceed this attempt ignoring your request. >>> I wish there were actual users though... >> >> Maybe we can wait for a few days to give more potential users the chance >> to read these messages on the port-amiga list? > > Sure. I was a bit eager. > >> >> In the meantime I will talk with other Amiga users if anybody owns such >> a board. Probably is@ still got one, as he was working on the driver many >> years ago. > > Thanks! > >> >> When nothing happens and nobody is able to test it, we can remove the code. > > Okay, I'm waiting more. There are companies still making PCI Express ARCnet interface cards, hubs and converter devices: http://www.ccontrols.com/arccontrol/nims.htm I'm not entirely sure that removing support for a standard that is still actually used out in the world is a good idea. Maybe it is not used much with NetBSD, since we only have amiga-specific driver. One more downside, is that anything ARCnet related is rather expensive now (around $400 for a single new PCI interface card). I wish I had more free time... fixing ARCnet and implementing support for newer interface cards seems like an interesting project. Support for several legacy protocols was removed in recent years. I fear that our networking stack is becoming more and more IP and Ethernet centric. -- Best regards, Radoslaw Kujawa