• Linus Torvalds's avatar
    Merge tag 'arch-removal' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/arnd/asm-generic · f5a8eb63
    Linus Torvalds authored
    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       - unicore32 and hexagon both have very outdated gcc releases, but the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
      ...
    f5a8eb63
kernel-parameters.txt 164 KB