Re: [RFC] Status of orinoco_usb

[Dan Williams <dcbw@redhat.com>]

On Tue, 2020-10-06 at 08:40 -0400, Jes Sorensen wrote:
> On 10/6/20 3:45 AM, Arend Van Spriel wrote:
> > + Jes
> > 
> > On 10/5/2020 4:12 PM, Kalle Valo wrote:
> > > Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org> writes:
> > > 
> > > > On Fri, Oct 02, 2020 at 01:53:58PM +0200, Sebastian Andrzej
> > > > Siewior
> > > > wrote:
> > > > > On 2020-10-02 13:37:25 [+0200], Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote:
> > > > > > > Is it possible to end up here in softirq context or is
> > > > > > > this a relic?
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > I think it's a relic of where USB host controllers
> > > > > > completed their
> > > > > > urbs
> > > > > > in hard-irq mode.  The BH/tasklet change is a pretty recent
> > > > > > change.
> > > > > 
> > > > > But the BH thingy for HCDs went in v3.12 for EHCI. XHCI was
> > > > > v5.5. My
> > > > > guess would be that people using orinoco USB are on EHCI :)
> > > > 
> > > > USB 3 systems run XHCI, which has a USB 2 controller in it, so
> > > > these
> > > > types of things might not have been noticed yet.  Who knows :)
> > > > 
> > > > > > > Should it be removed?
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > We can move it out to drivers/staging/ and then drop it to
> > > > > > see if
> > > > > > anyone
> > > > > > complains that they have the device and is willing to test
> > > > > > any
> > > > > > changes.
> > > > > 
> > > > > Not sure moving is easy since it depends on other files in
> > > > > that folder.
> > > > > USB is one interface next to PCI for instance. Unless you
> > > > > meant to move
> > > > > the whole driver including all interfaces.
> > > > > I was suggesting to remove the USB bits.
> > > > 
> > > > I forgot this was tied into other code, sorry.  I don't know
> > > > what to
> > > > suggest other than maybe try to fix it up the best that you
> > > > can, and
> > > > let's see if anyone notices...
> > > 
> > > That's what I would suggest as well.
> > > 
> > > These drivers for ancient hardware are tricky. Even if there
> > > doesn't
> > > seem to be any users on the driver sometimes people pop up
> > > reporting
> > > that it's still usable. We had that recently with one another
> > > wireless
> > > driver (forgot the name already).
> > 
> > Quite a while ago I shipped an orinoco dongle to Jes Sorensen which
> > he
> > wanted to use for some intern project if I recall correctly. Guess
> > that
> > idea did not fly yet.
> 
> I had an outreachy intern who worked on some of it, so I shipped all
> my
> Orinoco hardware to her. We never made as much progress as I had
> hoped,
> and I haven't had time to work on it since.

If anyone wants orinoco_usb, I think I still have one or two. I may
also have original orinoco hardware (PCMCIA) if anyone wants it.

Dan