From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1752138AbaHTCqp (ORCPT ); Tue, 19 Aug 2014 22:46:45 -0400 Received: from rhlx01.hs-esslingen.de ([129.143.116.10]:54932 "EHLO rhlx01.hs-esslingen.de" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751977AbaHTCqo (ORCPT ); Tue, 19 Aug 2014 22:46:44 -0400 Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2014 04:46:38 +0200 From: Andreas Mohr To: Dmitry Torokhov Cc: linux-input@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Vojtech Pavlik , Jiri Kosina , Takashi Iwai Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/2] SOUND: kill gameport bits Message-ID: <20140820024638.GA25240@rhlx01.hs-esslingen.de> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.23 (2014-03-12) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Reply-To: In-Reply-To: <1408466497-25640-1-git-send-email-dmitry.torokhov@gmail.com> X-Priority: none Hi, > Gameport support hasn't been working well ever since cpufreq became > mainstream and it becomes increasingly hard to find hardware and > software > that would run on such old hardware. Given that I'm puzzled why one would want to deprecate a whole subsystem which appears to be supported by a whole 14 different PCI sound card drivers (where the ones I'm owning hardware of are intended to be in active maintenance) and only 3 ISA-based ones, I'm missing several details and justifications of that decision here (perhaps there was a prior discussion/activity that I'm missing?). Also, I'm left wondering why e.g. my Athlon XP system (a very popular choice for longer times) would be affected by Cpufreq... And there are no details on how exactly cpufreq is a problem or how this timing issue could be fixed... The obvious workaround for such an ensuing dearth of hardware support could be USB 15-pin gameport adapters - but are they even supported on Linux? Haven't seen info on this... And even if supported, these adapters (at least the non-perfect ones, as can be seen from reviews on a well-known online shop site) are said to be hit-or-miss. http://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/showthread.php?238938-joystick-GamePort-to-USB-adapter-question http://reviews.thesource.ca/9026/2600164/nexxtech-usb-gameport-adapter-reviews/reviews.htm If we keep removing functionality like this, then why stop short of removing x86 32bit as a whole? By having Linux support nicely restricted to hardware made within the last 5 years, we would surely be doing the planned-obsolescence Micro$oft "ecosystem" (what was ecological about this again?) a huge favour... We already have an IMHO dangerous state in support of somewhat less mainstream hardware, so do we want to keep furthering that? Could we have more details/discussion prior to activities to remove whole subsystems? Thanks, Andreas Mohr -- GNU/Linux. It's not the software that's free, it's you.