From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <20180911105233.GA8018@sirena.org.uk> In-Reply-To: <20180911105233.GA8018@sirena.org.uk> From: Linus Walleij Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2018 13:22:03 +0200 Message-ID: To: Mark Brown , =?UTF-8?B?U1ogTGluICjmnpfkuIrmmbop?= , =?UTF-8?B?SG9sc2V0eSBDaGVuICjpmbPmhrLovJ0p?= , =?UTF-8?B?SGFycnkgWUogSmhvdSAo5ZGo5Lqe6KuEKQ==?= , =?UTF-8?B?SmltbXkgQ2hlbiAo6Zmz5rC46YGUKQ==?= Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Cc: Ksummit-discuss@lists.linuxfoundation.org, Alexander Sverdlin , Lukasz Majewski , Jonas Jensen Subject: Re: [Ksummit-discuss] [MAINTAINERS SUMMIT] Deprecation / Removal of old hardware support List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Found some moxa.com mail addresses in the kernel log, so including them. You can speak about the status of the MOXA ART deployments if you like, I am talking about On Tue, Sep 11, 2018 at 12:52 PM Mark Brown wrote: > On Tue, Sep 11, 2018 at 10:37:36AM +0200, Linus Walleij wrote: > > > Sometimes I get the feeling that people focused on desktops > > or servers suffer from velocitate (speed blindness) and think > > everybody is like them. (Well don't we all.) > > Conversely, the approaches that keep stable kernels going also get > applied to designing hardware that people intend to be stable - if > it works well enough now why try something new, especially where that > new stuff is most likely going to be more expensive to either buy or > work with? Exactly. I think this is what happened at MOXA with the ART SoC. It seems that MOXA made that with a bunch of consultants from Faraday in Taiwan supplying their IP blocks and know-how. Since then they have had zero incentive to upgrade the SoC to a newer version, as this SoC handles the ethernet, GPIO and serial lines they need just fine. They recently made a new design using Freescale (now NXP) LS1021a dualcore A7, but I can see that the ART (ARMv4) in EM-1240 and their EP93xx products (ARMv4T) are still in active deployment and even recommended for new projects, samples can be easily obtained.[1] And this is good stuff, it's rock solid at this point. I just wish and hope that they really invest in using the very latest kernels also for these elder boards even though I rarely hear from them on the mailing lists. At companies that have their internal ASIC design teams I sometimes get the feeling that these are churning out newer and more powerful ASICs as a therapeutic exercise just to keep their skills up. But I hope it is pure prejudice on my part. Yours, Linus Walleij [1] https://www.moxa.com/product/compact_fanless_computers.htm