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Groups > comp.os.linux.misc > #85827 > unrolled thread
| Started by | Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> |
|---|---|
| First post | 2026-04-22 23:55 +0000 |
| Last post | 2026-05-05 09:07 +0000 |
| Articles | 20 on this page of 68 — 19 participants |
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AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-04-22 23:55 +0000
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-04-22 20:28 -0400
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2026-04-24 08:10 +1000
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support Marco Moock <mm@dorfdsl.de> - 2026-04-23 16:15 +0200
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> - 2026-04-23 17:43 +0100
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2026-04-24 08:35 +1000
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-04-23 23:47 +0000
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support Computer Nerd Kev <not@telling.you.invalid> - 2026-04-24 18:31 +1000
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> - 2026-04-26 07:29 +0100
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support Marc Haber <mh+usenetspam2616@zugschl.us> - 2026-04-26 09:41 +0200
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> - 2026-04-26 08:59 +0100
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> - 2026-04-26 09:28 +0100
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2026-04-27 08:43 +1000
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-04-27 07:18 +0000
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-04-27 11:20 +0100
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com> - 2026-04-27 07:59 -0700
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-04-27 16:57 +0100
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-04-27 18:18 +0000
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2026-04-28 04:33 +0000
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-04-27 11:19 +0100
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support Marc Haber <mh+usenetspam2616@zugschl.us> - 2026-04-27 13:10 +0200
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2026-04-28 08:29 +1000
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-04-27 18:14 +0000
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support John Ames <commodorejohn@gmail.com> - 2026-04-27 12:10 -0700
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2026-04-28 08:48 +1000
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support Marc Haber <mh+usenetspam2616@zugschl.us> - 2026-04-28 07:51 +0200
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2026-04-29 08:59 +1000
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support Marc Haber <mh+usenetspam2616@zugschl.us> - 2026-04-29 07:52 +0200
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2026-04-29 10:28 +0000
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support Marc Haber <mh+usenetspam2616@zugschl.us> - 2026-04-29 12:56 +0200
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> - 2026-04-29 18:46 +0100
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2026-04-29 21:22 +0000
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-04-29 21:27 +0000
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support Stéphane CARPENTIER <sc@fiat-linux.fr> - 2026-05-01 09:20 +0000
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) - 2026-05-01 14:01 +0000
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support Stéphane CARPENTIER <sc@fiat-linux.fr> - 2026-05-01 15:46 +0000
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) - 2026-05-01 22:55 +0000
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2026-05-02 10:09 +1000
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-05-02 12:39 +0200
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support Computer Nerd Kev <not@telling.you.invalid> - 2026-05-02 22:35 +1000
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> - 2026-04-29 08:53 +0100
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2026-04-30 09:03 +1000
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> - 2026-04-30 08:53 +0100
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2026-05-01 08:53 +1000
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) - 2026-04-30 23:41 +0000
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-04-30 11:08 +0200
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-05-01 00:14 +0000
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) - 2026-04-30 13:46 +0000
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-04-30 16:50 +0100
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2026-05-01 09:04 +1000
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) - 2026-05-01 00:05 +0000
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-04-28 09:56 +0100
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support John Ames <commodorejohn@gmail.com> - 2026-04-28 08:27 -0700
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-04-28 18:37 +0000
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support Marc Haber <mh+usenetspam2616@zugschl.us> - 2026-04-28 22:44 +0200
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-04-29 03:42 +0000
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support Marc Haber <mh+usenetspam2616@zugschl.us> - 2026-04-28 22:43 +0200
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support John Ames <commodorejohn@gmail.com> - 2026-04-28 14:18 -0700
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2026-04-29 08:46 +1000
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com> - 2026-04-28 16:31 -0700
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-04-26 11:47 +0100
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-04-26 14:02 +0200
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support Harold Stevens <wookie@aspen.localdomain> - 2026-04-26 12:14 -0500
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-04-26 20:58 +0200
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-04-26 18:30 +0000
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-04-24 09:29 +0100
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support Anthk GM <anthk@disroot.org> - 2026-05-05 08:23 +0000
Re: AI Is Killing Some Legacy Hardware Support Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-05-05 09:07 +0000
Page 3 of 4 — ← Prev page 1 2 [3] 4 Next page →
| From | Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> |
|---|---|
| Date | 2026-04-29 08:53 +0100 |
| Message-ID | <wwvse8eurrp.fsf@LkoBDZeT.terraraq.uk> |
| In reply to | #86002 |
not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) writes: > Yes, which I repeat works very well on my old Thinkpad running current > Linux with its 3GB RAM and PCMCIA. "It won't run Linux anyway" is a > dumb excuse for removing PCMCIA support on any level. I’m not convinced ‘excuse’ is really an accurate framing here. If something is attracting trouble then the question is more whether there is a justification for keeping it than for removing it. Regardless of that, the problem is not just usage but maintenance. From [1]: | These are all ISA and PCMCIA Ethernet devices, mostly from the last | century, a couple from 2001 or 2002. It seems unlikely they are still | used. However, remove them one patch at a time so they can be brought | back if somebody still has the hardware, runs modern kernels and wants | to take up the roll of driver Maintainer. As you can see it does consider the possibility that the affected hardware is still used, but that is only part of the story: drivers will only stay in the kernel if someone is willing to maintain them. [1] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20260421-v7-0-0-net-next-driver-removal-v1-v1-0-69517c689d1f@lunn.ch/ -- https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/
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| From | not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) |
|---|---|
| Date | 2026-04-30 09:03 +1000 |
| Message-ID | <69f28e2d@news.ausics.net> |
| In reply to | #86009 |
Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote: > not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) writes: >> Yes, which I repeat works very well on my old Thinkpad running current >> Linux with its 3GB RAM and PCMCIA. "It won't run Linux anyway" is a >> dumb excuse for removing PCMCIA support on any level. > > I'm not convinced 'excuse' is really an accurate framing here. True it's really an excuse being given by people in this group rather than the kernel developers. Which makes the point I've been wasting my time by responding to them really. > If something is attracting trouble then the question is more > whether there is a justification for keeping it than for removing > it. Yes and if they don't think remaining users of older hardware justify that, yet BSD developers do, those users like me know where to look. > Regardless of that, the problem is not just usage but maintenance. > From [1]: > > | These are all ISA and PCMCIA Ethernet devices, mostly from the last > | century, a couple from 2001 or 2002. It seems unlikely they are still > | used. However, remove them one patch at a time so they can be brought > | back if somebody still has the hardware, runs modern kernels and wants > | to take up the roll of driver Maintainer. > > As you can see it does consider the possibility that the affected > hardware is still used, but that is only part of the story: drivers will > only stay in the kernel if someone is willing to maintain them. Yeah, which is why I say if they're not interested anymore, time to look elsewhere. Indeed beyond the process of removing PCMCIA itself, I see the statement in the other PCMCIA removal patch that computers from "~2009" are "almost completely obsolete" as a red flag that this is only going to continue with other drivers for hardware from that era. Then what? I spend $100 on a laptop from 2014 with a more annoying design (or more on an obscure old model that I don't find so bad) and set it all up, then five years later they say "driver xyz was for hardware last made ~2014 is unmaintained and due for removal" and I do it all again? So far people have been doing the maintenance work fairly blindly for drivers going back to the 1990s. If that's not happening anymore, how do I guess what to buy now if I don't want to start doing hardware upgrades routinely? https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=b3c26ea81ccc522e77ed0b1707add61fc9206216 Yes I get your point not to complain about what you get for free, but like I say the BSDs have the same price tag, and if Linux starts forcing me to spend time and money on upgrading to new (old) hardware every few years (or more money buying brand new hardware to get driver support for longer) when my old hardware still runs all the application software I use, is it really free for me? -- __ __ #_ < |\| |< _#
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| From | Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> |
|---|---|
| Date | 2026-04-30 08:53 +0100 |
| Message-ID | <wwvik98dguu.fsf@LkoBDZeT.terraraq.uk> |
| In reply to | #86019 |
not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) writes:
> Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> As you can see it does consider the possibility that the affected
>> hardware is still used, but that is only part of the story: drivers will
>> only stay in the kernel if someone is willing to maintain them.
>
> Yeah, which is why I say if they're not interested anymore, time to
> look elsewhere. Indeed beyond the process of removing PCMCIA itself,
> I see the statement in the other PCMCIA removal patch that computers
> from "~2009" are "almost completely obsolete" as a red flag that
> this is only going to continue with other drivers for hardware from
> that era. Then what? I spend $100 on a laptop from 2014 with a more
> annoying design (or more on an obscure old model that I don't find
> so bad) and set it all up, then five years later they say "driver
> xyz was for hardware last made ~2014 is unmaintained and due for
> removal" and I do it all again? So far people have been doing the
> maintenance work fairly blindly for drivers going back to the
> 1990s. If that's not happening anymore, how do I guess what to
> buy now if I don't want to start doing hardware upgrades routinely?
I may have made this point before but the removal of support for old
hardware is absolutely not a new thing. It’s currently impacting Linux
PCMCIA support but there’s been a steady reduction in support for 32-bit
platforms over the last few years, and going back further, various
applications (free and otherwise) have been withdrawing support for
commercial Unixes for most of the century. When I started my current job
over 20 years ago we’d already turned off OSF and (I think) IRIX
support; since then we’ve desupported Solaris, AIX and HP-UX (and HP-UX
in particular was a struggle to keep going since some of the OSS build
tools we used abandoned support for it years before we did). Today we
are down to just Linux and Windows (and a little bit of macOS).
In short, yes, if what you want is old hardware then you are going to be
constantly experiencing decline in support for it in modern software.
> https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=b3c26ea81ccc522e77ed0b1707add61fc9206216
That’s a revealing one to quote:
| 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.
i.e. one of the drivers went a minimum of 15 years with nobody noticing
that it was broken. Some of this stuff was already unmaintained to the
point of being broken 20 years ago or more.
(AFAIK the Linux kernel handles null pointer dereferences quite well so
this was probably just an availability bug rather than any kind of
vulnerability.)
> Yes I get your point not to complain about what you get for free, but
> like I say the BSDs have the same price tag, and if Linux starts
> forcing me to spend time and money on upgrading to new (old) hardware
> every few years (or more money buying brand new hardware to get driver
> support for longer) when my old hardware still runs all the
> application software I use, is it really free for me?
The point is not so much about complaining, nobody can stop you doing
that, but about the realistic expectations about maintenance and, in the
longer term, availability of drivers for very old hardware. If what you
want is ancient hardware then you get to deal with the consequences of
that, and those consequences are (at least very broadly) predictable.
The BSDs are maintained by different people with different priorities,
so the outcomes are likely to differ. But they do face related
pressures, and they do sometimes remove functionality for various
reasons.
For example here’s a PCMCIA driver being removed from OpenBSD in 2020;
it was broken and (I infer) nobody was sufficiently interested in it to
fix it.
https://github.com/openbsd/src/commit/1f9d569892d2e153e862c87145e03403415b4ee0
--
https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/
[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]
| From | not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) |
|---|---|
| Date | 2026-05-01 08:53 +1000 |
| Message-ID | <69f3dd7c@news.ausics.net> |
| In reply to | #86024 |
Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> In short, yes, if what you want is old hardware then you are going to be
> constantly experiencing decline in support for it in modern software.
This does not surprise me. In your terms all I was proposing is
that Linux support appears to be declining now faster than BSD, and
I believe that warrants my investigation. I was vaguely hoping for
a response like "yes I see the BSD I'm using fixed a similar issue
in driver x and has a group of people working on supporting
PCMCIA", or even "no way, all the BSDs never had those drivers or
dropped them years ago already" (I've since confirmed they do at
least still have a driver for my Xircom PCMCIA ethernet card that
Linux is dropping). Instead I got all these "duh, your hardware
must be from 30 years ago and useless anyway so who cares"
responses. Ho hum.
>> https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=b3c26ea81ccc522e77ed0b1707add61fc9206216
>
> That's a revealing one to quote:
>
> | 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.
>
> i.e. one of the drivers went a minimum of 15 years with nobody noticing
> that it was broken. Some of this stuff was already unmaintained to the
> point of being broken 20 years ago or more.
Though The Xircom driver was working for me and they're removing it
now, so I _know_ they consider useful (to me) drivers for removal
too and the significant thing is they are considering all the
PCMCIA drivers "almost completely obsolete", so the problem for me
is likely to get worse.
Plus I guessed (maybe ignorantly) they'd drop common 1990s PC
hardware drivers while keeping drivers from 2000s for a decade
after doing that. But if "~2009" is "almost completely obsolete"
that means their idea of "obsolete" has overtaken mine and
therefore I might be using the wrong OS. (yes I know the reasons
why they might define obsolete differently, including developer
resources and funding, in the end that doesn't really matter to
me _if_ the BSDs turn out to be different)
> (AFAIK the Linux kernel handles null pointer dereferences quite well so
> this was probably just an availability bug rather than any kind of
> vulnerability.)
>
>> Yes I get your point not to complain about what you get for free, but
>> like I say the BSDs have the same price tag, and if Linux starts
>> forcing me to spend time and money on upgrading to new (old) hardware
>> every few years (or more money buying brand new hardware to get driver
>> support for longer) when my old hardware still runs all the
>> application software I use, is it really free for me?
>
> The point is not so much about complaining, nobody can stop you doing
> that, but about the realistic expectations about maintenance and, in the
> longer term, availability of drivers for very old hardware. If what you
> want is ancient hardware then you get to deal with the consequences of
> that, and those consequences are (at least very broadly) predictable.
I _could_ use all your reasoning to predict that the very moment a
model of PC hardware device goes out of production and all the
associated manufacturers are no longer contractually or legally
obliged to support it, support will be removed from the Linux
kernel, at least once the first new bug is discovered. That clearly
has not been happening as a rule so far, or all these drivers would
have been dropped already decades ago. I would go out and buy new
hardware all the time pointlessly based on that. Much smarter to
look at what's actually happening, and my point is that this
includes looking at BSD too.
> The BSDs are maintained by different people with different priorities,
> so the outcomes are likely to differ. But they do face related
> pressures, and they do sometimes remove functionality for various
> reasons.
>
> For example here's a PCMCIA driver being removed from OpenBSD in 2020;
> it was broken and (I infer) nobody was sufficiently interested in it to
> fix it.
>
> https://github.com/openbsd/src/commit/1f9d569892d2e153e862c87145e03403415b4ee0
OK thanks, that's an interesting point of data, but unlike with the
Linux removals it's not obviously tied to claims about what PC
hardware the developers consider obsolete, or a broader project to
remove PCMCIA support entirely. Really it's the working drivers
being removed, like the Xircom one, that I care about, and Linux
just happens to have started with broken PCMCIA drivers before
moving on to them. Maybe the BSDs will do that too, it's what I
intend to investagate. So far that "esp" driver still seems to be
in NetBSD, working or not, FWIW.
--
__ __
#_ < |\| |< _#
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| From | cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) |
|---|---|
| Date | 2026-04-30 23:41 +0000 |
| Message-ID | <10t0pbm$f86$1@reader1.panix.com> |
| In reply to | #86046 |
In article <69f3dd7c@news.ausics.net>,
Computer Nerd Kev <not@telling.you.invalid> wrote:
>Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> In short, yes, if what you want is old hardware then you are going to be
>> constantly experiencing decline in support for it in modern software.
>
>This does not surprise me. In your terms all I was proposing is
>that Linux support appears to be declining now faster than BSD, and
>I believe that warrants my investigation. I was vaguely hoping for
>a response like "yes I see the BSD I'm using fixed a similar issue
>in driver x and has a group of people working on supporting
>PCMCIA", or even "no way, all the BSDs never had those drivers or
>dropped them years ago already" (I've since confirmed they do at
>least still have a driver for my Xircom PCMCIA ethernet card that
>Linux is dropping). Instead I got all these "duh, your hardware
>must be from 30 years ago and useless anyway so who cares"
>responses. Ho hum.
One might read the situation that way, but I think that's not a
great way to look at it. A better way would be that, of the set
of people who are doing maintenance on the Linux kernel, none
have are supporting that hardware. It may be that they are not
because they don't have access to it, or it's not a priority for
them, or something else entirely; the details don't really
matter all that much. The effect, however, is that they've
decided to remove that software because no one is maintaining it
and they're otherwise drowning in the review load for AI slop
patches for it.
The BSDs may continue to have support for those devices; it may
work, it may not. You are more than welcome to try it and see
for yourself.
>>> https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=b3c26ea81ccc522e77ed0b1707add61fc9206216
>>
>> That's a revealing one to quote:
>>
>> | 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.
>>
>> i.e. one of the drivers went a minimum of 15 years with nobody noticing
>> that it was broken. Some of this stuff was already unmaintained to the
>> point of being broken 20 years ago or more.
>
>Though The Xircom driver was working for me and they're removing it
>now, so I _know_ they consider useful (to me) drivers for removal
>too and the significant thing is they are considering all the
>PCMCIA drivers "almost completely obsolete", so the problem for me
>is likely to get worse.
>
>Plus I guessed (maybe ignorantly) they'd drop common 1990s PC
>hardware drivers while keeping drivers from 2000s for a decade
>after doing that. But if "~2009" is "almost completely obsolete"
>that means their idea of "obsolete" has overtaken mine and
>therefore I might be using the wrong OS. (yes I know the reasons
>why they might define obsolete differently, including developer
>resources and funding, in the end that doesn't really matter to
>me _if_ the BSDs turn out to be different)
Well, you could also roll up your sleeve and take on maintaining
the driver yourself, and attempt to get them re-added to the
kernel. It's not that they're not willing to accept them, it's
that no one was willing to support them. But if you step up and
do it, there is no structural reason they would not re-take the
code.
>> (AFAIK the Linux kernel handles null pointer dereferences quite well so
>> this was probably just an availability bug rather than any kind of
>> vulnerability.)
>>
>>> Yes I get your point not to complain about what you get for free, but
>>> like I say the BSDs have the same price tag, and if Linux starts
>>> forcing me to spend time and money on upgrading to new (old) hardware
>>> every few years (or more money buying brand new hardware to get driver
>>> support for longer) when my old hardware still runs all the
>>> application software I use, is it really free for me?
>>
>> The point is not so much about complaining, nobody can stop you doing
>> that, but about the realistic expectations about maintenance and, in the
>> longer term, availability of drivers for very old hardware. If what you
>> want is ancient hardware then you get to deal with the consequences of
>> that, and those consequences are (at least very broadly) predictable.
>
>I _could_ use all your reasoning to predict that the very moment a
>model of PC hardware device goes out of production and all the
>associated manufacturers are no longer contractually or legally
>obliged to support it, support will be removed from the Linux
>kernel, at least once the first new bug is discovered. That clearly
>has not been happening as a rule so far, or all these drivers would
>have been dropped already decades ago. I would go out and buy new
>hardware all the time pointlessly based on that. Much smarter to
>look at what's actually happening, and my point is that this
>includes looking at BSD too.
You could, but that would be a specious conclusion. Support has
little to do with what the manufacturers do, or legalities, or
what not, and a lot more to do with developer resources and
availability of hardware for testing and support.
>> The BSDs are maintained by different people with different priorities,
>> so the outcomes are likely to differ. But they do face related
>> pressures, and they do sometimes remove functionality for various
>> reasons.
>>
>> For example here's a PCMCIA driver being removed from OpenBSD in 2020;
>> it was broken and (I infer) nobody was sufficiently interested in it to
>> fix it.
>>
>> https://github.com/openbsd/src/commit/1f9d569892d2e153e862c87145e03403415b4ee0
>
>OK thanks, that's an interesting point of data, but unlike with the
>Linux removals it's not obviously tied to claims about what PC
>hardware the developers consider obsolete, or a broader project to
>remove PCMCIA support entirely. Really it's the working drivers
>being removed, like the Xircom one, that I care about, and Linux
>just happens to have started with broken PCMCIA drivers before
>moving on to them. Maybe the BSDs will do that too, it's what I
>intend to investagate. So far that "esp" driver still seems to be
>in NetBSD, working or not, FWIW.
The case with Linux and the OpenBSD removal are really two sides
of the same coin. If nothing else, OpenBSD is _more_ aggressive
about removing working code than Linux is; they're proactive
about pruning their tree when they don't think they can maintain
something for whatever reason (lack of hardware; lack of people;
etc). Same with Linux.
Also, it's not merely about whether the drivers work for your
use case, it is also whether or not are kept up to date as the
kernel evolves. No new laptops have shipped with PCMCIA slots
in ~20 years; it may all still "work" but if the people doing
the development and maintenance can't get equipment to test with
or build on, or if all the documentation disappears into the
void because a company folded, then it is simply more likely
that that hardware will eventually lose support.
Them's the breaks. The best way to ensure that does not happen
for hardware you care about is to do the maintenance yourself.
- Dan C
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| From | "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> |
|---|---|
| Date | 2026-04-30 11:08 +0200 |
| Message-ID | <kpibcmxoio.ln2@Telcontar.valinor> |
| In reply to | #86019 |
On 2026-04-30 01:03, Computer Nerd Kev wrote: > Yeah, which is why I say if they're not interested anymore, time to > look elsewhere. Indeed beyond the process of removing PCMCIA itself, > I see the statement in the other PCMCIA removal patch that computers > from "~2009" are "almost completely obsolete" as a red flag that > this is only going to continue with other drivers for hardware from > that era. Then what? I spend $100 on a laptop from 2014 with a more > annoying design (or more on an obscure old model that I don't find > so bad) and set it all up, then five years later they say "driver > xyz was for hardware last made ~2014 is unmaintained and due for > removal" and I do it all again? So far people have been doing the > maintenance work fairly blindly for drivers going back to the > 1990s. If that's not happening anymore, how do I guess what to > buy now if I don't want to start doing hardware upgrades routinely? Yes, this is going to be an issue. Hardware is going to be supported fewer years. On the other hand, maybe the AI review happens earlier and finds the trouble while the code is still young, used, and supported, so it gets corrected and there is no reason to remove it later. -- Cheers, Carlos. ES🇪🇸, EU🇪🇺;
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| From | Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> |
|---|---|
| Date | 2026-05-01 00:14 +0000 |
| Message-ID | <10t0r8q$12gnk$1@dont-email.me> |
| In reply to | #86026 |
On Thu, 30 Apr 2026 11:08:36 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote: > Yes, this is going to be an issue. Hardware is going to be supported > fewer years. The incident in question was only affecting hardware that hardly anybody was using any more. That made it difficult to verify the bug reports. As long as there are users around that still have hardware in use, it won’t be subject to quite the same issue.
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| From | cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) |
|---|---|
| Date | 2026-04-30 13:46 +0000 |
| Message-ID | <10svmfn$8kj$1@reader1.panix.com> |
| In reply to | #86019 |
In article <69f28e2d@news.ausics.net>, Computer Nerd Kev <not@telling.you.invalid> wrote: >Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote: >> [snip] >> As you can see it does consider the possibility that the affected >> hardware is still used, but that is only part of the story: drivers will >> only stay in the kernel if someone is willing to maintain them. > >[snip] >Yes I get your point not to complain about what you get for free, >but like I say the BSDs have the same price tag, and if Linux >starts forcing me to spend time and money on upgrading to new (old) >hardware every few years (or more money buying brand new hardware >to get driver support for longer) when my old hardware still runs >all the application software I use, is it really free for me? I hesitate to wade into this, but the issue isn't that Linux is forcing anyone to do anything. Rather, these changes are just an acknowledgement that the project as a whole doesn't have the resources to continue supporting this hardware. This may seem somewhat ironic, since Linux is arguably the most well-resourced and well-staffed operating system ever written; I would wager at this point that more people have contributed to the Linux kernel than have contributed to any other OS project in history, and that collectively, it has enjoyed access to more resources than any other, as well. It probably runs on more devices than any other system in history, as well (maybe some rinky dink RTOS beats it on sheer numbers, but I doubt it); it is certainly the most important operating system in the world. However, that does not mean that those resources are infinite, and the key here is that no one was maintaining the code. If someone had been, then I doubt any of this would have been removed. Most of the people working on Linux now days are doing so on behalf of some company, which implies that their incentives aren't merely to keep old hardware working simply for the sake of doing so. What this means is that, if one wants to use old hardware, and one wants to use it with a current version of Linux, then one should seek to ensure that support for that hardware is maintained. That can take several shapes: one might be doing the work oneself. If you're using hardware and you want to keep using that hardware, then perhaps taking on the burden of keeping the drivers for that hardware up to date and well maintained is appropriate. Another might be to contribute to funding the maintenance of those drivers. So, to answer the question, "is it free for me?" the answer is no, it is not. But it never has been. Yes, presumably you installed whatever distribution you are using gratis, and yes, it has worked for you for some time. But that's largely coincidence: if you had some obscure hardware device that had never been supported at all, you would be in largely the same situation. The reality is that it only ever "worked" because someone ate the cost of doing the work to make it work, and offered the result of that work up for no charge; but the cost was still paid in terms of someone's time and effort, with no guarantee of continued effort indefinitely into the future. What we are seeing now is that no one is stepping up to bear that continued cost, and so the effort has ceased; again, no one is "forcing" you to do anything. A way to look at it is you can't force developers to continue to support something on their own dime that you're not willing to pay for yourself, either monetarily or with your own time and effort. It's really no more complex than that, I'm afraid. - Dan C.
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| From | The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> |
|---|---|
| Date | 2026-04-30 16:50 +0100 |
| Message-ID | <10svto9$pcmf$2@dont-email.me> |
| In reply to | #86029 |
On 30/04/2026 14:46, Dan Cross wrote: > What we are seeing now is that no one is stepping up to bear > that continued cost, and so the effort has ceased; again, no > one is "forcing" you to do anything. A way to look at it is > you can't force developers to continue to support something on > their own dime that you're not willing to pay for yourself, > either monetarily or with your own time and effort. > > It's really no more complex than that, I'm afraid. > > - Dan C. Hear Hear! -- "Corbyn talks about equality, justice, opportunity, health care, peace, community, compassion, investment, security, housing...." "What kind of person is not interested in those things?" "Jeremy Corbyn?"
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| From | not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) |
|---|---|
| Date | 2026-05-01 09:04 +1000 |
| Message-ID | <69f3e010@news.ausics.net> |
| In reply to | #86029 |
Dan Cross <cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net> wrote: > So, to answer the question, "is it free for me?" the answer is > no, it is not. But it never has been. Yes, presumably you > installed whatever distribution you are using gratis, and yes, > it has worked for you for some time. But that's largely > coincidence: if you had some obscure hardware device that had > never been supported at all, you would be in largely the same > situation. The reality is that it only ever "worked" because > someone ate the cost of doing the work to make it work, and > offered the result of that work up for no charge; but the cost > was still paid in terms of someone's time and effort, with no > guarantee of continued effort indefinitely into the future. Sure, I agree, and if BSD might still do that I should look at them. That's all I've been proposing to do. > What we are seeing now is that no one is stepping up to bear > that continued cost, and so the effort has ceased; again, no > one is "forcing" you to do anything. A way to look at it is > you can't force developers to continue to support something on > their own dime that you're not willing to pay for yourself, > either monetarily or with your own time and effort. > > It's really no more complex than that, I'm afraid. Yes nobody's forcing me to use Linux, hence I'm not arguing with the Linux developers about what they should spend their time on, but looking at what the BSD developers are spending their time on, in case it now fits my needs better. -- __ __ #_ < |\| |< _#
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| From | cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) |
|---|---|
| Date | 2026-05-01 00:05 +0000 |
| Message-ID | <10t0qno$skf$1@reader1.panix.com> |
| In reply to | #86047 |
In article <69f3e010@news.ausics.net>, Computer Nerd Kev <not@telling.you.invalid> wrote: >Dan Cross <cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net> wrote: >> So, to answer the question, "is it free for me?" the answer is >> no, it is not. But it never has been. Yes, presumably you >> installed whatever distribution you are using gratis, and yes, >> it has worked for you for some time. But that's largely >> coincidence: if you had some obscure hardware device that had >> never been supported at all, you would be in largely the same >> situation. The reality is that it only ever "worked" because >> someone ate the cost of doing the work to make it work, and >> offered the result of that work up for no charge; but the cost >> was still paid in terms of someone's time and effort, with no >> guarantee of continued effort indefinitely into the future. > >Sure, I agree, and if BSD might still do that I should look at >them. That's all I've been proposing to do. Go for it! >> What we are seeing now is that no one is stepping up to bear >> that continued cost, and so the effort has ceased; again, no >> one is "forcing" you to do anything. A way to look at it is >> you can't force developers to continue to support something on >> their own dime that you're not willing to pay for yourself, >> either monetarily or with your own time and effort. >> >> It's really no more complex than that, I'm afraid. > >Yes nobody's forcing me to use Linux, hence I'm not arguing with >the Linux developers about what they should spend their time on, >but looking at what the BSD developers are spending their time on, >in case it now fits my needs better. Welp, good luck with it. You may even find it more to your taste on general grounds. - Dan C.
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| From | The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> |
|---|---|
| Date | 2026-04-28 09:56 +0100 |
| Message-ID | <10spsoo$30uh9$1@dont-email.me> |
| In reply to | #85987 |
On 27/04/2026 23:48, Computer Nerd Kev wrote: > That's the CPU the newest laptop I use uses, an old Thinkpad with > lots of features you don't get with the new ones. You can easily > run Linux with its 3GB RAM, and in fact far less. I mean they're > still selling Raspberry Pi Zeros (and Zero 2s) with 512MB RAM to > run Linux on ( But not a GUI desktop > actually you can still boot it with 20MB RAM or > less), so nobody's really thinking about these dumb statements that > Linux would never run on laptops with PCMCIA anyway. I basically > read it as "doesn't affect me so piss off!". Well, those of us who have tried to run Linux with a GUI and a browser on a 1GB machine know whet we are talking about and what you clearly do not -- When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it. Frédéric Bastiat
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| From | John Ames <commodorejohn@gmail.com> |
|---|---|
| Date | 2026-04-28 08:27 -0700 |
| Message-ID | <20260428082728.0000457a@gmail.com> |
| In reply to | #85994 |
On Tue, 28 Apr 2026 09:56:56 +0100 The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote: > Well, those of us who have tried to run Linux with a GUI and a > browser on a 1GB machine know whet we are talking about and what you > clearly do not Depends on the GUI - the freenix world has *plenty* of lighter-weight options than the megalithic whizbang duzitall GNOME/KDE type everything- suites. I find WindowMaker and SpaceFM on my "portable typewriter" (an Asus Eee 904 with 1GB RAM) perfectly comfortable, and those aren't even particularly bare-bones. Adding a browser to the criteria changes the equation, and it greatly depends on what kind of sites you're trying to browse, but there are still options. ELinks and Netsurf do me just fine for static sites (and even in this day and age, more places than you'd think will function without JS,) and while fancier stuff is more of a challenge, it'll still handle Chromium and webnovel sites (e.g. ScribbleHub) with only a bit of panting and wheezing. Good enough for my purposes!
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| From | rbowman <bowman@montana.com> |
|---|---|
| Date | 2026-04-28 18:37 +0000 |
| Message-ID | <n5cd2pF62viU1@mid.individual.net> |
| In reply to | #85995 |
On Tue, 28 Apr 2026 08:27:28 -0700, John Ames wrote: > Depends on the GUI - the freenix world has *plenty* of lighter-weight > options than the megalithic whizbang duzitall GNOME/KDE type everything- > suites. I find WindowMaker and SpaceFM on my "portable typewriter" (an > Asus Eee 904 with 1GB RAM) perfectly comfortable, and those aren't even > particularly bare-bones. I have antiX on my 701. It works. I had been running Q4OS with the Trinity desktop which was a little more polished. antiX would install on the 4 GB SSD drive but there wasn't enough free space to update, let alone install much so I set it up to use the SD card.
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| From | Marc Haber <mh+usenetspam2616@zugschl.us> |
|---|---|
| Date | 2026-04-28 22:44 +0200 |
| Message-ID | <10sr66s$o289$1@news1.tnib.de> |
| In reply to | #85996 |
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote: >On Tue, 28 Apr 2026 08:27:28 -0700, John Ames wrote: > >> Depends on the GUI - the freenix world has *plenty* of lighter-weight >> options than the megalithic whizbang duzitall GNOME/KDE type everything- >> suites. I find WindowMaker and SpaceFM on my "portable typewriter" (an >> Asus Eee 904 with 1GB RAM) perfectly comfortable, and those aren't even >> particularly bare-bones. > >I have antiX on my 701. It works. I had been running Q4OS with the Trinity >desktop which was a little more polished. antiX would install on the 4 GB >SSD drive but there wasn't enough free space to update, let alone install >much so I set it up to use the SD card. Are you actually WORKING with that machine? What's your browser? -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Marc Haber | " Questions are the | Mailadresse im Header Rhein-Neckar, DE | Beginning of Wisdom " | Nordisch by Nature | Lt. Worf, TNG "Rightful Heir" | Fon: *49 6224 1600402
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| From | rbowman <bowman@montana.com> |
|---|---|
| Date | 2026-04-29 03:42 +0000 |
| Message-ID | <n5dd11Fb2q2U1@mid.individual.net> |
| In reply to | #85998 |
On Tue, 28 Apr 2026 22:44:12 +0200, Marc Haber wrote: > Are you actually WORKING with that machine? What's your browser? SeaMonkey. Is it my daily driver? No. Is it something I can throw into a motorcycle saddlebag and take to the library or Break Espresso? Definitely.
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| From | Marc Haber <mh+usenetspam2616@zugschl.us> |
|---|---|
| Date | 2026-04-28 22:43 +0200 |
| Message-ID | <10sr662$o27j$1@news1.tnib.de> |
| In reply to | #85995 |
John Ames <commodorejohn@gmail.com> wrote: >On Tue, 28 Apr 2026 09:56:56 +0100 >The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote: >> Well, those of us who have tried to run Linux with a GUI and a >> browser on a 1GB machine know whet we are talking about and what you >> clearly do not > >Depends on the GUI - the freenix world has *plenty* of lighter-weight >options than the megalithic whizbang duzitall GNOME/KDE type everything- >suites. I find WindowMaker and SpaceFM on my "portable typewriter" (an >Asus Eee 904 with 1GB RAM) perfectly comfortable, and those aren't even >particularly bare-bones. > >Adding a browser to the criteria changes the equation, and it greatly >depends on what kind of sites you're trying to browse, but there are >still options. ELinks and Netsurf do me just fine for static sites (and >even in this day and age, more places than you'd think will function >without JS,) and while fancier stuff is more of a challenge, it'll >still handle Chromium and webnovel sites (e.g. ScribbleHub) with only a >bit of panting and wheezing. Good enough for my purposes! People who actually work with the machine usually can't choose which web sites to visit, and a _typical_ 2026 workload will make the browser's memory footprint so HUGE that the resource "hunger" of the GUI doesn't matter any more. It is a typical case that those "my machine has 2 GB of RAM and works fine" people come around with info like quoted above, admitting that their workload is FAR from what an average user in $YEAR does. Greetings Marc -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Marc Haber | " Questions are the | Mailadresse im Header Rhein-Neckar, DE | Beginning of Wisdom " | Nordisch by Nature | Lt. Worf, TNG "Rightful Heir" | Fon: *49 6224 1600402
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| From | John Ames <commodorejohn@gmail.com> |
|---|---|
| Date | 2026-04-28 14:18 -0700 |
| Message-ID | <20260428141838.00005ef0@gmail.com> |
| In reply to | #85997 |
On Tue, 28 Apr 2026 22:43:46 +0200 Marc Haber <mh+usenetspam2616@zugschl.us> wrote: > People who actually work with the machine usually can't choose which > web sites to visit, and a _typical_ 2026 workload will make the > browser's memory footprint so HUGE that the resource "hunger" of the > GUI doesn't matter any more. > > It is a typical case that those "my machine has 2 GB of RAM and works > fine" people come around with info like quoted above, admitting that > their workload is FAR from what an average user in $YEAR does. I never said it was average - in fact, I said the opposite of that, in referring to a laptop PC as a "portable typewriter" (i.e. I use it as a text editor plus some light and mainly research-oriented Web browsing.) What I *did* say is that it depends on the workload, which is entirely correct. And it remains as nonsensical as ever to claim that GUI bloat "doesn't matter" next to the bloat of modern browsers and the modern Web, when in fact it's exactly this that eats away what might otherwise be a comfortable margin for system resources to spare on novel/pretty but non-necessary GUI frippery.
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| From | not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) |
|---|---|
| Date | 2026-04-29 08:46 +1000 |
| Message-ID | <69f138e2@news.ausics.net> |
| In reply to | #85994 |
The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote: > On 27/04/2026 23:48, Computer Nerd Kev wrote: >> That's the CPU the newest laptop I use uses, an old Thinkpad with >> lots of features you don't get with the new ones. You can easily >> run Linux with its 3GB RAM, and in fact far less. I mean they're >> still selling Raspberry Pi Zeros (and Zero 2s) with 512MB RAM to >> run Linux on ( > > But not a GUI desktop I've run X on a RPi Zero, and it can display a remote Firefox window running on a PC with more RAM. Firefox will also run on the RPi Zero itself (I think v145 was the most recent one I tested, on a RPi Zero 2), but you do run out of RAM quickly on sites that need Javascript. Dillo, Links, etc. will run fine. >> actually you can still boot it with 20MB RAM or >> less), so nobody's really thinking about these dumb statements that >> Linux would never run on laptops with PCMCIA anyway. I basically >> read it as "doesn't affect me so piss off!". > > Well, those of us who have tried to run Linux with a GUI and a browser > on a 1GB machine know whet we are talking about and what you clearly do not I guess you're probably trying to run the latest Linux MINT on it or something. I run JWM for a window manager and do most of my web browsing in Dillo, ragardless of how much RAM the PC I'm using has. For that, it's not a problem. -- __ __ #_ < |\| |< _#
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| From | Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com> |
|---|---|
| Date | 2026-04-28 16:31 -0700 |
| Message-ID | <10srg0v$3h8mb$1@dont-email.me> |
| In reply to | #86001 |
On 4/28/26 15:46, Computer Nerd Kev wrote: > The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote: >> On 27/04/2026 23:48, Computer Nerd Kev wrote: >>> That's the CPU the newest laptop I use uses, an old Thinkpad with >>> lots of features you don't get with the new ones. You can easily >>> run Linux with its 3GB RAM, and in fact far less. I mean they're >>> still selling Raspberry Pi Zeros (and Zero 2s) with 512MB RAM to >>> run Linux on ( >> >> But not a GUI desktop > > I've run X on a RPi Zero, and it can display a remote Firefox > window running on a PC with more RAM. Firefox will also run on the > RPi Zero itself (I think v145 was the most recent one I tested, on > a RPi Zero 2), but you do run out of RAM quickly on sites that need > Javascript. Dillo, Links, etc. will run fine. > >>> actually you can still boot it with 20MB RAM or >>> less), so nobody's really thinking about these dumb statements that >>> Linux would never run on laptops with PCMCIA anyway. I basically >>> read it as "doesn't affect me so piss off!". >> >> Well, those of us who have tried to run Linux with a GUI and a browser >> on a 1GB machine know whet we are talking about and what you clearly do not > > I guess you're probably trying to run the latest Linux MINT on it > or something. I run JWM for a window manager and do most of my web > browsing in Dillo, ragardless of how much RAM the PC I'm using has. > For that, it's not a problem. > I ran Mandriva 2009.1 on a Dell Inspiron 4000 with a single core pentium at 700 MegaHertz and less then a gigabyte of Ram and a single Gui KDE Desktop environment. I cut back to one Virtual Desktop because the machine had been designed for only one desktop. It worked well enough for quite some time but had been loaned to a friend who was careless in its upkeep eventually it died beyond repair. So with something like Joe's DE or is it Window manager a lot of old stuff can do a lot more on Linux than people think. bliss
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