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Staging drivers outStaging drivers outPosted Oct 29, 2009 11:48 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304)Parent article: Staging drivers out
This does mean that if you have an old machine with obscure hardware and want to be sure it's not silently dropped, you *have* to run upstream kernels or watch LKML: distributor kernels won't cut it. (They probably don't build modules for obscure hardware, so you probably have to do that anyway.)
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Staging drivers out Posted Oct 29, 2009 13:48 UTC (Thu) by jzbiciak (✭ supporter ✭, #5246) [Link] I wonder if it makes sense to have an "CONFIG_ENABLE_DEPRECATED_DRIVERS" to hide these guys behind once they start down this "staging out" path. ie. do something so that anyone trying to run a deprecated driver is more likely to notice that their driver is (potentially) going away.
Staging drivers out Posted Oct 29, 2009 13:49 UTC (Thu) by johill (subscriber, #25196) [Link]
If you can even run the latest kernel on that machine ...
Also, for the wireless drivers in question, you have to find at least _two_ machines for it to make sense. And then I suspect not all drivers support ad-hoc mode or whatever it was at the time, so maybe you even have to find an AP for them?
Staging drivers out Posted Oct 30, 2009 0:16 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] you have to find at least _two_ machines for it to make sense. ... I don't think the concern is that someone will have a wireless card in a closet for ten years and then decide to build a system with it. It's that someone has a system running continuously for ten years using that wireless card, which means he also has other machines and APs as required, and then suddenly wants to switch to a new Linux kernel to add a feature. It would be nice if he didn't have to choose between the new kernel-provided feature and the old wireless card (and probably a dozen other old components that are tied to it). If you can even run the latest kernel on that machine ... That's exactly the question -- whether new Linux will be compatible with old machines.
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