freebsd stable - Aug 2013 - Why are cardbus drivers cbb(4) and pccard(4) still included in GENERIC?

In reference to this FreeBSD forums post:

http://forums.freebsd.org/showpost.php?p=231135&postcount=4

Would it be a good time to remove those from GENERIC since the
hardware they are for is becoming so seriously outdated?

There's always an option to load those drivers as modules if needed.

-Kimmo

On Thu, 29 Aug 2013 12:15:17 +0300, Kimmo Paasiala wrote:
 > To: FreeBSD current <freebsd-current at freebsd.org>,
 >     "freebsd-stable at freebsd.org" <freebsd-stable at
freebsd.org>,
 >     freebsd-hardware at freebsd.org

Just to -stable, as the OP in that forum post's thread was well advised.

 > In reference to this FreeBSD forums post:
 > 
 > http://forums.freebsd.org/showpost.php?p=231135&postcount=4
 > 
 > Would it be a good time to remove those from GENERIC since the
 > hardware they are for is becoming so seriously outdated?
 > 
 > There's always an option to load those drivers as modules if needed.

Hardware isn't 'outdated' because you don't use it; FreeBSD has
always
been thankfully pretty conservative on the planned obsolescence front.

If there's a problem with cbb or pccard in a GENERIC kernel that's using
neither that disturbs mfi(4), then shouldn't it be identified and fixed, 
rather than dropping devices from GENERIC to workaround the problem?

There's next to no information in that thread to identify the issue/s.

cheers, Ian

Hm! Are they dynamically loaded if you insert the cards?

(Ie, has devd been taught about them as appropriate?)


-adrian



On 29 August 2013 02:15, Kimmo Paasiala <kpaasial at gmail.com> wrote:
> In reference to this FreeBSD forums post:
>
> http://forums.freebsd.org/showpost.php?p=231135&postcount=4
>
> Would it be a good time to remove those from GENERIC since the
> hardware they are for is becoming so seriously outdated?
>
> There's always an option to load those drivers as modules if needed.
>
> -Kimmo
> _______________________________________________
> freebsd-current at freebsd.org mailing list
> http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-current
> To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-current-unsubscribe at
freebsd.org"
>

On Aug 29, 2013, at 3:15 AM, Kimmo Paasiala wrote:
> In reference to this FreeBSD forums post:
> 
> http://forums.freebsd.org/showpost.php?p=231135&postcount=4
> 
> Would it be a good time to remove those from GENERIC since the
> hardware they are for is becoming so seriously outdated?
> 
> There's always an option to load those drivers as modules if needed.
No. It is not a good time to remove them. They aren't as out-dated as you
might think, and there's literally dozens of other devices in GENERIC that
have even less use today...

Warner

> In reference to this FreeBSD forums post:
        
> http://forums.freebsd.org/showpost.php?p=231135&postcount=4
> Would it be a good time to remove those from GENERIC since the
> hardware they are for is becoming so seriously outdated?
        
> There's always an option to load those drivers as modules if needed.
        
> -Kimmo
These looked useless to me on a desktop computer, but proved necessary to retain
just to be able to compile NDIS support into the kernel.

This is for a USB wireless adapter by Hiro that uses Realtek RTL8191S chip.

Other responses on this topic reveal that these cardbus drivers are needed for
many other drivers too.


Tom