[nos-bbs] Linux Kernel Drops AX.25 and Amateur Radio Subsystem Support

[Boudewijn (Bob) Tenty]

This is from Southgate Amateur Radio News,

Earlier today Linus Torvalds merged <https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=64edfa65062dc4509ba75978116b2f6d392346f5> a pull request to remove AX.25 and hamradio subsystem support from the Linux kernel <https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.1-Removes-Old-Net>. While the headline sounds ominous, most modern AX.25 implementations occur in software at the user level without relying on the kernel level implementation. Direwolf <https://github.com/wb2osz/direwolf>, for example, does not require kernel level AX.25 support. Other software relying on AX.25 may take advantage of dedicated AX.25 Python libraries.

The change comes as a result of AI based bug detection services capable of identifying critical issues among code that may no longer be maintained or utilized by end users. Torvalds stated <https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=64edfa65062dc4509ba75978116b2f6d392346f5> that the amateur radio related code in the Linux kernel no longer had any active maintainers:

    Amateur radio did have occasional users (or so I think) but most users switched to user space implementations since its all super slow stuff. Nobody stepped up to maintain the kernel code.

According to typesense <https://linux-commits-search.typesense.org/?commits%5Bquery%5D=ax25> the last Linux kernel commit related to AX.25 was 6 years ago.

Additional code removed includes ISDN support, bus mouse <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_mouse> support, and various network drivers including support for old 3Com devices.

Source: Phoronix <https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.1-Removes-Old-Net>

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We are toasted because all my programs are glued together by the ax25 utilities.

Boudewijn VE3TOK


-- 
There is nothing permanent except change
  
                                 Heraclitus
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