The Linux Kernel Preparing To Drop Infrastructure For Old & Obsolete Graphics Drivers - Phoronix
The Linux Kernel Preparing To Drop Infrastructure For Old & Obsolete Graphics Drivers - Phoronix
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So much for the legendary hardware support of Linux!
Edit: Forgot "/s", but look at this lively discussion!
Lol you haven't upgraded your GPU since the late 90's?
You know there's a whole hobby of keeping older hardware running, right?
You're free to use legacy kernels or run your own fork.
If only they contributed to the kernel maintenance workload.
You know that you can use older versions of the Linux kernel, right?
You know security vulnerabilities are a thing, right?
Linux 6.1 will be maintained for another 10 years by the CIP. The hardware in question will be almost 40 years old at that point. I don't have a violin small enough for users losing free support after 40 years from maintainers who most likely don't even own the same hardware to test on...
On the other hand, they were probably unchanged for decades. Did anything really change, or is this just a case of we need to remove 500k lines of code, what is most useless ? Let's cut that.
In other words, removed because it's a KPI to remove lines, and this makes number go up.
Keeping code around isn't free. Interfaces change, regressions pop up. You have to occasionally put in work just to keep it in a working state. Usually in cases like this there are discussions on the mailing list about who is going to maintain them and nobody volunteers. You can do that if you're so passionate about keeping these drivers around.
They were fine all this time, what changed suddenly ? I bet it's the security nerds stirring shit, making it all a liability and easier deleted than fixed.
So if it's been unchanged for decades then you can just add it yourself and recompile the kernel. Elsewhere you argue that you can't just add old drivers to a newer kernel, which implies these drivers require some nontrivial amount of maintaince. Which is it.
I know what you mean, I'm so pissed that my 1978 Space Invaders arcade machine doesn't even support WiFi-6.
Fuckin a
You know there's nothing to gain by hacking those old systems, right?
I doubt any hardware 25+ years can even run a modern vanilla linux kernel, you'd have to compile it yourself with some serious customization for it even work