Re: sk98lin for 2.6.23-rc1

From: Bill Davidsen
Date: Mon Sep 10 2007 - 10:31:05 EST


Adrian Bunk wrote:
On Sat, Sep 08, 2007 at 01:44:20PM -0400, Bill Davidsen wrote:
...
That was with 2.6.22.5 (or so), dropped back to an old kernel with sk98lin, previously had uptimes in three digit days. Up for a week or so now.

There is a real long-term advantage of removing drivers like sk98lin because it forces people to report bugs if the new driver doesn't work instead of giving them the workaround of using the obsolete driver.

The issue is that sk98lin is only obsolete because you say so! skge crashes the system, as Chris reports, sky2 just stops passing bits and behaves as if the network cable were idle, no error messages of any nature, ping claims it's sending packets, tcpdump claims packets are being sent, the switch never blinks and systems on the switch see no packets. Again, no error messages, no dumps, nothing which would help you debug it, and it happens after some undefined time.

skge and sky2 are up to eight or ten versions now, and they still don't work. Just because a driver works doesn't mean it's obsolete.
And this has the (at first sight surprising) effect that removing code results in an improvement of the kernel.

Haven't tried later kernels, don't intend to, while no network is really secure, it not really useful.

You are a regular reader of linux-kernel, and therefore the sk98lin removal can hardly be a surprise for you. If you prefer whining over helping to improve the kernel that's your choice...

I am trying to "improve the kernel" by advocating not removing reliable drivers in favor of unreliable drivers. Saying a driver is better because it has a clean design and good code is something I would expect from someone who hadn't written or used code. If skge and sky2 were so clean you wouldn't still be chasing obscure bugs after the driver had been in the kernel for six+ versions, you wouldn't have me wasting time trying to get a more secure kernel which is still reliable, wouldn't have Willy Tarreau suggesting you should be marking sk98lin as obsolete and leaving it in, wouldn't have someone maintaining sk98lin as a patch, wouldn't have Chris Stromsoe getting hard lock-ups. No matter how ugly sk98lin looks, and how well designed skge and sky2 may be, reliability is not a beauty contest.

The volume of complaint should give you a hint that in this case the new drivers aren't usefully stable for many people, and that you are advocating a removal which is at least premature. If you can't admit you're wrong on this one, you can say you have reconsidered the timing of removal in light of new information.

--
bill davidsen <davidsen@xxxxxxx>
CTO TMR Associates, Inc
Doing interesting things with small computers since 1979

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