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    SubjectRe: Old platforms: bring out your dead
    Date
    Hi Arnd!

    (Please let's have this cross-posted for more visibility. I only learned about this
    while reading Phoronix news)

    > I also looked at non-ARM platforms while preparing for my article. Some of
    > these look like they are no longer actively maintained or used, but I'm not
    > doing anything about those unless the maintainers would like me to:
    >
    > * h8300: Steven Rostedt has repeatedly asked about it to be removed
    > or fixed in 2020 with no reply. This was killed before in 2013, added back
    > in 2015 but has been mostly stale again since 2016

    As far as I know, Yoshinori Sato is actively maintaining H8300 support, see:

    > https://osdn.net/projects/uclinux-h8/

    > * c6x: Added in 2011, this has seen very few updates since, but
    > Mark still Acks patches when they come. Like most other DSP platforms,
    > the model of running Linux on a DSP appears to have been obsoleted
    > by using Linux on ARM with on-chip DSP cores running bare-metal code.
    > * sparc/sun4m: A patch for removing 32-bit Sun sparc support (not LEON)
    > is currently under review

    I don't think this has reached any agreement yet. Multiple people want it to stay.

    > * powerpc/cell: I'm the maintainer and I promised to send a patch to remove it.
    > it's in my backlog but I will get to it. This is separate from PS3,
    > which is actively
    > maintained and used; spufs will move to ps3
    > * powerpc/chrp (32-bit rs6000, pegasos2): last updated in 2009

    I'm still using this. Please keep it.

    > * powerpc/amigaone: last updated in 2009
    > * powerpc/maple: last updated in 2011
    > * m68k/{apollo,hp300,sun3,q40} these are all presumably dead and have not
    > seen updates in many years (atari/amiga/mac and coldfire are very much
    > alive)

    Dito. I have both sun3 and hp300 machines.

    > * mips/jazz: last updated in 2007
    > * mips/cobalt: last updated in 2010
    >
    > There might be some value in dropping old CPU support on architectures
    > and platforms that are almost exclusively used with more modern CPUs.
    > If there are only few users, those can still keep using v5.10 or v5.4 stable
    > kernels for a few more years. Again, I'm not doing anything about them,
    > except mention them since I did the research.
    > These are the oldest one by architecture, and they may have reached
    > their best-served-by-date:
    >
    > * 80486SX/DX: 80386 CPUs were dropped in 2012, and there are
    > indications that 486 have no users either on recent kernels.
    > There is still the Vortex86 family of SoCs, and the oldest of those were
    > 486SX-class, but all the modern ones are 586-class.
    > * Alpha 2106x: First generation that lacks some of the later features.
    > Since all Alphas are ancient by now, it's hard to tell whether these have
    > any fewer users.

    I don't see the point in crippling Alpha support. Does this achieve anything?

    > * IA64 Merced: first generation Itanium (2001) was quickly replaced by
    > Itanium II in 2002.
    > * MIPS R3000/TX39xx: 32-bit MIPS-II generation, mostly superseded by
    > 64-bit MIPS-III (R4000 and higher) starting in 1991. arch/mips still
    > supports these in DECstation and Toshiba Txx9, but it appears that most
    > of those machines are of the 64-bit kind. Later MIPS32 such as 4Kc and
    > later are rather different and widely used.
    > * PowerPC 601 (from 1992) just got removed, later 60x, 4xx, 8xx etc
    > are apparently all still used.
    > * SuperH SH-2: We discussed removing SH-2 (not J2 or SH-4)
    > support in the past, I don't think there were any objections, but
    > nobody submitted a patch.

    Isn't SH-2 basically J-2? I'm not sure what we would gain here.

    > * 68000/68328 (Dragonball): these are less capable than the
    > 68020+ or the Coldfire MCF5xxx line and similar to the 68360
    > that was removed in 2016.

    Adrian

    --
    .''`. John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
    : :' : Debian Developer - glaubitz@debian.org
    `. `' Freie Universitaet Berlin - glaubitz@physik.fu-berlin.de
    `- GPG: 62FF 8A75 84E0 2956 9546 0006 7426 3B37 F5B5 F913

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