This removes the entire architecture code for blackfin, cris, frv, m32r,
metag, mn10300, score, and tile, including the associated device drivers.
I have been working with the (former) maintainers for each one to ensure
that my interpretation was right and the code is definitely unused in
mainline kernels. Many had fond memories of working on the respective
ports to start with and getting them included in upstream, but also saw
no point in keeping the port alive without any users.
In the end, it seems that while the eight architectures are extremely
different, they all suffered the same fate: There was one company
in charge of an SoC line, a CPU microarchitecture and a software
ecosystem, which was more costly than licensing newer off-the-shelf
CPU cores from a third party (typically ARM, MIPS, or RISC-V). It seems
that all the SoC product lines are still around, but have not used the
custom CPU architectures for several years at this point. In contrast,
CPU instruction sets that remain popular and have actively maintained
kernel ports tend to all be used across multiple licensees.
The removal came out of a discussion that is now documented at
https://lwn.net/Articles/748074/. Unlike the original plans, I'm not
marking any ports as deprecated but remove them all at once after I made
sure that they are all unused. Some architectures (notably tile, mn10300,
and blackfin) are still being shipped in products with old kernels,
but those products will never be updated to newer kernel releases.
After this series, we still have a few architectures without mainline
gcc support:
- unicore32 and hexagon both have very outdated gcc releases, but the
maintainers promised to work on providing something newer. At least
in case of hexagon, this will only be llvm, not gcc.
- openrisc, risc-v and nds32 are still in the process of finishing their
support or getting it added to mainline gcc in the first place.
They all have patched gcc-7.3 ports that work to some degree, but
complete upstream support won't happen before gcc-8.1. Csky posted
their first kernel patch set last week, their situation will be similar.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1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=fQ8z
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Merge tag 'arch-removal' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/arnd/asm-generic
Pul removal of obsolete architecture ports from Arnd Bergmann:
"This removes the entire architecture code for blackfin, cris, frv,
m32r, metag, mn10300, score, and tile, including the associated device
drivers.
I have been working with the (former) maintainers for each one to
ensure that my interpretation was right and the code is definitely
unused in mainline kernels. Many had fond memories of working on the
respective ports to start with and getting them included in upstream,
but also saw no point in keeping the port alive without any users.
In the end, it seems that while the eight architectures are extremely
different, they all suffered the same fate: There was one company in
charge of an SoC line, a CPU microarchitecture and a software
ecosystem, which was more costly than licensing newer off-the-shelf
CPU cores from a third party (typically ARM, MIPS, or RISC-V). It
seems that all the SoC product lines are still around, but have not
used the custom CPU architectures for several years at this point. In
contrast, CPU instruction sets that remain popular and have actively
maintained kernel ports tend to all be used across multiple licensees.
[ See the new nds32 port merged in the previous commit for the next
generation of "one company in charge of an SoC line, a CPU
microarchitecture and a software ecosystem" - Linus ]
The removal came out of a discussion that is now documented at
https://lwn.net/Articles/748074/. Unlike the original plans, I'm not
marking any ports as deprecated but remove them all at once after I
made sure that they are all unused. Some architectures (notably tile,
mn10300, and blackfin) are still being shipped in products with old
kernels, but those products will never be updated to newer kernel
releases.
After this series, we still have a few architectures without mainline
gcc support:
- unicore32 and hexagon both have very outdated gcc releases, but the
maintainers promised to work on providing something newer. At least
in case of hexagon, this will only be llvm, not gcc.
- openrisc, risc-v and nds32 are still in the process of finishing
their support or getting it added to mainline gcc in the first
place. They all have patched gcc-7.3 ports that work to some
degree, but complete upstream support won't happen before gcc-8.1.
Csky posted their first kernel patch set last week, their situation
will be similar
[ Palmer Dabbelt points out that RISC-V support is in mainline gcc
since gcc-7, although gcc-7.3.0 is the recommended minimum - Linus ]"
This really says it all:
2498 files changed, 95 insertions(+), 467668 deletions(-)
* tag 'arch-removal' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/arnd/asm-generic: (74 commits)
MAINTAINERS: UNICORE32: Change email account
staging: iio: remove iio-trig-bfin-timer driver
tty: hvc: remove tile driver
tty: remove bfin_jtag_comm and hvc_bfin_jtag drivers
serial: remove tile uart driver
serial: remove m32r_sio driver
serial: remove blackfin drivers
serial: remove cris/etrax uart drivers
usb: Remove Blackfin references in USB support
usb: isp1362: remove blackfin arch glue
usb: musb: remove blackfin port
usb: host: remove tilegx platform glue
pwm: remove pwm-bfin driver
i2c: remove bfin-twi driver
spi: remove blackfin related host drivers
watchdog: remove bfin_wdt driver
can: remove bfin_can driver
mmc: remove bfin_sdh driver
input: misc: remove blackfin rotary driver
input: keyboard: remove bf54x driver
...
f5a8eb632b