Re: FCP-101: obsolete driver removal planned for 2019-05-18

Eugene Grosbein wrote:
> 11.05.2019 22:59, Julian H. Stacey wrote:
> 
> >> 11.05.2019 21:32, Julian H. Stacey wrote:
> >>
> >>>> I've posted a review to remove obsolete 10 and 10/100 Ethernet drivers
> >>>> as previous approved in FCP-101.
> >>>> The following drivers are slated for
> >>>> removal from FreeBSD-HEAD (to be FreeBSD-13):
> >>>>
> >>>> ae, bm, cs, de, ed, ep, ex, fe, pcn, sf, sn, tl, tx, txp, vx, wb, xe
> >>>
> >>> OMG ! ed ! That EOL's loads of PC boxes I have (& a show box of
> >>> spare)  that will never be able to upgrade.
> >>
> >> Do those boxes have 10M-only or 100Mbps variants of ed(4)?
> >> What kind of hardware do they have (CPU and memory-wise)?
> > 
> > Thanks for question.  I ran a quick check:
> > cd /usr/src; 
> > #	Apply my patches:
> > #	customise `pwd` 
> > #	http://www.berklix.com/~jhs/bin/.csh/customise
> > cd /sys/amd64/conf
> > grep device [A-Z][A-Z][A-Z][A-Z].small | grep ed
> > DUAL.small:device ed
> > FILM.small:device ed
> > KING.small:device ed
> > LAPA.small:device ed
> > LAPD.small:device ed
> > LAPL.small:device ed
> > LAPN.small:device ed
> > LOFT.small:device ed
> > MINI.small:device ed
> > SCAN.small:device ed0 at isa? port 0x280 irq 15 iomem 0xd0000 iosiz 0x10000
> > SLIM.small:device ed
> > SNOW.small:device ed0 at isa? port 0x280 irq 5 iomem 0xc8000
> > WIND.small:device ed
> 
> I've asked not for configuration files but for description of hardware.
> ed(4) supports many different models. Some of them do 10Mbps only
> but some are 100M-capable including PCI-connected.
> 
> And it's interesting to know what is CPU and memory type/amount of boxes.

Info I had long pre saved, exported here:
	http://www.berklix.com/~jhs/src/bsd/fixes/FreeBSD/hosts/
Many boxes run newer releases than logs show, but eg dmesg shows memory etc.


Re Gary's:
> 2) what versions of FBSD is Julian now running on his hardware?
> 3) does he ever plan to upgrade this hardware to >= FBSD 13?

Not many, if any of them; I should idealy find time to purge some,
but I also have sundry newer PCs, & spare ed etc cards, so a pity to loose ed.


More generaly It won't be just me with ed.  With 13 I can power up any time,
(+ other pcmcia & PCI & ISA cards in boxes) there's probably many more globaly.

But sys admins often don't have time to read developer lists like
current_at_ & arch_at_.  So developer considering zapping things, will
not be seen by users it will hit later.

First many will know is seeing in a RELNOTES "XYZ will be removed
in release [0-9].[0-9]" No chance to answer an earlier "Are many
still using XYZ, we're thinking of deleting it ?"

If ed is the biggest legacy NIC, best be cautious ?

(BTW I also have 2 boxes running today's current, not just old Rels here.)

Cheers,
Julian
-- 
Julian Stacey, Consultant Systems Engineer, BSD Linux Unix, Munich Aachen Kent
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