From: Dominik Brodowski <linux@dominikbrodowski.net>
To: Ethan Nelson-Moore <enelsonmoore@gmail.com>
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-mips@vger.kernel.org,
linux-pci@vger.kernel.org,
Thomas Bogendoerfer <tsbogend@alpha.franken.de>,
Madhavan Srinivasan <maddy@linux.ibm.com>,
Michael Ellerman <mpe@ellerman.id.au>,
Nicholas Piggin <npiggin@gmail.com>,
"Christophe Leroy (CS GROUP)" <chleroy@kernel.org>,
Thomas Gleixner <tglx@kernel.org>, Ingo Molnar <mingo@redhat.com>,
Borislav Petkov <bp@alien8.de>,
Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@linux.intel.com>,
x86@kernel.org, "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>,
Bjorn Helgaas <bhelgaas@google.com>,
Jakub Kicinski <kuba@kernel.org>, Theodore Ts'o <tytso@mit.edu>,
Eric Biggers <ebiggers@google.com>,
Simon Horman <horms@kernel.org>,
Lukas Bulwahn <lukas.bulwahn@redhat.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] drivers: pcmcia: remove obsolete host controller drivers
Date: Mon, 30 Mar 2026 07:45:28 +0200 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <acoN-BnAHBv73PcT@shine.dominikbrodowski.net> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20260309074226.25937-1-enelsonmoore@gmail.com>
Am Mon, Mar 09, 2026 at 12:41:48AM -0700 schrieb Ethan Nelson-Moore:
> PCMCIA is almost completely obsolete (the last computers supporting it
> natively were from ~2009), and the general consensus [1] seems to be
> that support for it should be gradually removed from the kernel.
>
> In 2023, an initial step of removing all the PCMCIA char drivers was
> taken in commit 9b12f050c76f ("char: pcmcia: remove all the drivers"),
> and that has not been reverted, so it seems logical to continue this
> process by removing more low-hanging fruit.
>
> These host controller drivers have had no meaningful changes since
> their status was discussed in 2022 [2], and are unlikely to have any
> remaining users. Remove them and a couple references to them
> in comments.
>
> The i82365 and tcic drivers are for ISA-attached host controllers,
> which are even less likely to be used nowadays than ones on other buses.
>
> The i82092 driver has almost certainly not been used in over 20 years.
> It was broken by a null pointer dereference since the dawn of Git
> history (2.6.12-rc2 in 2005) until someone fixed it in 2021 in commit
> e39cdacf2f66 ("pcmcia: i82092: fix a null pointer dereference bug").
> From their dmesg log [3], it is clear they were testing in an emulated
> environment and not on real hardware.
>
> i82365.h is used by drivers other than i82365 and is therefore retained.
>
> [1] https://lore.kernel.org/all/c5b39544-a4fb-4796-a046-0b9be9853787@app.fastmail.com/
> [2] https://lore.kernel.org/all/Y07d7rMvd5++85BJ@owl.dominikbrodowski.net/
> [3] https://lore.kernel.org/all/1624345891-4215-1-git-send-email-zheyuma97@gmail.com/
>
> Signed-off-by: Ethan Nelson-Moore <enelsonmoore@gmail.com>
Applied to pcmcia-next.
Thanks,
Dominik
prev parent reply other threads:[~2026-03-30 5:52 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 3+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2026-03-09 7:41 [PATCH] drivers: pcmcia: remove obsolete host controller drivers Ethan Nelson-Moore
2026-03-09 14:34 ` Dave Hansen
2026-03-30 5:45 ` Dominik Brodowski [this message]
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