Date: Wed, 6 Jan 2021 23:20:38 -0500 From: Yoshihiro Ota <ota@j.email.ne.jp> To: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Subject: Re: RFC: removing ndis(4) Message-ID: <20210106232038.9fd928646cb34933578fd29c@j.email.ne.jp> In-Reply-To: <178622db-7dcd-fcae-743c-883711121733@kondratyev.su> References: <20201203001247.GF18452@spindle.one-eyed-alien.net> <178622db-7dcd-fcae-743c-883711121733@kondratyev.su>
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On Thu, 3 Dec 2020 06:28:00 +0300 Vladimir Kondratyev <vladimir@kondratyev.su> wrote: > On 03.12.2020 03:12, Brooks Davis wrote: > > I'd like to propose that we remove the ndis(4) driver prior to FreeBSD > > 13. It was a clever idea in the early 2000's when the market was > > flooded with 10/100 NICs with Windows-only drivers, but that hasn't been > > the case for ages and the driver has had no meaningful maintenance in > > ages[0]. I'd be a bit surprised if it worked at all today (it surely > > won't work with modern Windows drivers). > > > > To try to examine the popularity of ndis, I checked dmesgd.nycbug.org > > and there are 5 total entries with the most recent being 2007. > > > > The PC Card attachments are currently marked for deletion prior to > > FreeBSD 13. > > > > Unless there is surprising outcry I plan to add (and MFC) deprecation > > notices in about a week's time and remove the driver shortly thereafter. > > > > -- Brooks > > > > [0] I noticed today that part of the ndis 802.11 ioctl handler has been > > broken since 2005. > > ndis(4) was functional at least in 2015 and at that time it was the only > way to utilize BCM's wi-fi built in my "Asus EEEPC" ndis is still functional and indeed I have one of Asus that only works NDIS BCM. A problem is an old hardware needs existing code working although new hardware gets new hardware and driver. It was indeed broken long while ago but my fix was merged. If I remember correctly, my fix went to 11.0-RELEASE. It will be nice if we can wait after 13-release branching. Hiro
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