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From:   Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de>
Date:   Wed, 7 Mar 2018 22:24:23 +0100
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Subject: Re: [PATCH 00/13] Remove metag architecture
To:     James Hogan <jhogan@kernel.org>
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On Thu, Feb 22, 2018 at 12:38 AM, James Hogan <jhogan@kernel.org> wrote:
> These patches remove the metag architecture and tightly dependent
> drivers from the kernel. With the 4.16 kernel the ancient gcc 4.2.4
> based metag toolchain we have been using is hitting compiler bugs, so
> now seems a good time to drop it altogether.
>
> Quoting from patch 1:
>
> The earliest Meta architecture port of Linux I have a record of was an
> import of a Meta port of Linux v2.4.1 in February 2004, which was worked
> on significantly over the next few years by Graham Whaley, Will Newton,
> Matt Fleming, myself and others.
>
> Eventually the port was merged into mainline in v3.9 in March 2013, not
> long after Imagination Technologies bought MIPS Technologies and shifted
> its CPU focus over to the MIPS architecture.
>
> As a result, though the port was maintained for a while, kept on life
> support for a while longer, and useful for testing a few specific
> drivers for which I don't have ready access to the equivalent MIPS
> hardware, it is now essentially dead with no users.
>
> It is also stuck using an out-of-tree toolchain based on GCC 4.2.4 which
> is no longer maintained, now struggles to build modern kernels due to
> toolchain bugs, and doesn't itself build with a modern GCC. The latest
> buildroot port is still using an old uClibc snapshot which is no longer
> served, and the latest uClibc doesn't build with GCC 4.2.4.
>
> So lets call it a day and drop the Meta architecture port from the
> kernel. RIP Meta.

I've pulled it into my asm-generic tree now, which is also part of linux-next,
and followed up with patches removing frv, m32r, score, unicore32
and blackfin. I have not removed the device drivers yet, but I'm working
on that.

       Arnd