Linux To Drop ARCnet Support For Old ISA & PCMCIA Hardware
Posted by anh0516@reddit | linux | View on Reddit | 10 comments
Posted by anh0516@reddit | linux | View on Reddit | 10 comments
TheBendit@reddit
The 3c509 driver for 10Mbps ISA ethernet cards has been restored because a maintainer stepped up. Some of us have fond memories about that one because most of the competitors were terrible.
It might even get multi-CPU support.
580083351@reddit
I have one, but it hasn't been powered on in decades now.
I wonder if the maintainer stepped up out of nostalgia, or because people are actually using it still somewhere?
Klapperatismus@reddit
Actually, some of the 3C509 boards had been teribble as well. Problems with the PnP setup all the time. The 3C503 had to be jumpered but that worked.
Glittering_Abies4915@reddit
Pre-ethernet tech, so ... about time?
Any hardware capable of running kernel 7.x won't be running ARCnet anyway.
anh0516@reddit (OP)
7.0 is the last kernel to support i486, where many systems indeed have ISA and PCMCIA slots, so ackshually...
Glittering_Abies4915@reddit
It's going to be dropped from 7.1, which will also drop i486.
punyversalengineer@reddit
There are also much more recent chips with ISA built for industrial applications. I've seen at least LGA775 socketed motherboards with ISA slots.
Then again, those users will have over a decade of support left for kernels that support it due to the enterprise distributions being a thing.
jimicus@reddit
They’re likely being used in situations where “it works” is far more important than “it has vendor support”.
punyversalengineer@reddit
That's true as well. I still routinely have to service machines running Windows 7 and 8 in the wild for industrial customers. Though I've yet to see 2k or XP I'm sure those exist as well.
Not out of the question to see machines running Linux version 2.xx kernels or some ancient BSD either... So I'd very much be surprised if the customers that need it were pining for hardware support in current kernel versions.
jimicus@reddit
I've seen XP here and there - it's rare but it still exists, typically in devices that were computer-controlled but sold as a complete device that you weren't expected to upgrade the OS on.