Re: [PATCH 0/2] net: ethernet: Remove the 8390 network drivers

[Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de>]

On Sun, Aug 8, 2021 at 10:39 PM Michael Schmitz <schmitzmic@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Two candidates I can see for removing would be smc-ultra and
> > wd80x3, both of them fairly rare ISA cards. The only other
> > ISA 8390 variant is the ne2000 driver (ne.c), which is probably
> > the most common ISA card overall, and I'd suggest leaving
> > that in place for as long as we support CONFIG_ISA.
>
> That particular driver is the one I rely on (via a weird ROM-port to ISA
> bridge). Would be useful even after ISA bus support is gone, in that
> case. Just saying. The Amiga and Mac drivers likewise. Though you may
> well argue that once ISA support has been removed, these can all be
> rewritten to support MMIO more directly (and more flexibly).

I don't think we are anywhere near removing ISA support (probably
not before removing EISA, which in turn is required for some platforms),
but that was what I implied: No point removing NE2000 support as long as
there are platforms or bus types using that driver (Q40, Atari, TX49xx),
and even the ISA version of NE2000 may outlive other CONFIG_ISA
itself because it is a typical emulation target.

> > There are a couple of other ISA-only network drivers (localtalk,
> > arcnet,  ethernet/amd) that may be candidates for removal,
> > or perhaps some PCMCIA ones.
>
> ethernet/amd has the other set of network card drivers used on m68k
> (*lance).

Same here, I specifically mean the drivers that are /only/ used for ISA
here: CONFIG_LANCE and CONFIG_NI65, not the various other lance
variants.

       Arnd