Re: [PATCH 10/10] [RFC] wifi: remove ipw2100/ipw2200 drivers

From: Kalle Valo
Date: Mon Oct 23 2023 - 10:39:21 EST


Arnd Bergmann <arnd@xxxxxxxxxx> writes:

> From: Arnd Bergmann <arnd@xxxxxxxx>
>
> These two drivers were used for the earliest "Centrino" branded Intel
> laptops during the late 32-bit Pentium-M era, roughly 2003 to 2005, which
> probably makes it the most modern platform that still uses the wireless
> extension interface instead of cfg80211. Unlike the other drivers that
> are suggested for removal, this one is still officially maintained.
>
> According to Johannes Berg, there was an effort to finish the move away
> from wext in the past, but the last evidence of this that I could find
> is from commit a3caa99e6c68f ("libipw: initiate cfg80211 API conversion
> (v2)") in 2009.
>
> Link: https://lore.kernel.org/all/87fs2fgals.fsf@xxxxxxxxxx/
> Cc: Stanislav Yakovlev <stas.yakovlev@xxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Linux Wireless <ilw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Signed-off-by: Arnd Bergmann <arnd@xxxxxxxx>
> ---
> I'm not convinced this should be in the same set of drivers as the
> rest, since this is clearly less obsolete than the other hardware
> that I would remove support for.

I am inclined to remove this one as well, it's just so old.

This patch didn't make it to the list, I guess it was too big. But it's
available from the pending branch:

https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/wireless/wireless-next.git/commit/?h=pending&id=81ba6b51c3a640b277274701407bbf557f12edac

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