On Wed, Aug 20, 2014 at 08:09:49AM +0200, Takashi Iwai wrote: > At Tue, 19 Aug 2014 22:18:15 -0700, > Dmitry Torokhov wrote: > > > > Hi Andreas, > > > > On Wed, Aug 20, 2014 at 04:46:38AM +0200, Andreas Mohr wrote: > > > > > 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) > > > > Are you actively testing gameport interfaces with real joysticks/gamepads on > > these cards? And what software is still in use that runs on these old boxes > > (with mainline kernel)? > > MPlayer and some programs have the joystick interface (even often > activated as default), IIRC. I don't use it. But I tested it > sometime ago.
But we are not dropping joystick support, you can still use USB, BT, etc joysticks. It is only gameport joysticks that I think are pretty much extinct by now. > > > > 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?). > > > > There was a post to linux-input a few days ago when I ased if anyone woudl > > cry > > over gameport going away. > > Well, asking the usage in the devel ML isn't enough, I'm afraid. > ML is only for a small group of developers, where no user cares unless > they hit a problem. That is true, but what is better venue? Even disabling in Kconfig won't help much as distros will re-enable it and users do not compile their own kernels. > > > > 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... > > > > If you take a look at gameport_measure_speed() in gameport.c you will see > > that > > it counts cycles for timing, which obviously does not work that well when > > CPU > > frequency changes. > > > > The bugs have been opened in bugzilla/reported on lists ages ago but nobody > > stepped up to fix that. > > Hm, can't we just use the standard ktime for measuring the time diff? We could use high-res timers, if they are available. Are they available on such old hardware and are they sufficiently fast to provide needed timings? I definitely do not have any hardware to est with. > And, I guess only few programs care the speed parameter. It is not programs that care about speed parameter, it is joystick kernel drivers that need it to time access. > > > > > 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 > > > > > > > They have better chance of being supported ;) I had a couple a few years > > back > > and they did work for me. > > > > > 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... > > > > I really do not care about Microsoft and favors, I just go by the fact that > > this hardware is becoming naturally extinct. And not only hardware, but also > > software that uses it. Do you still play a lot of games with joysticks on > > such > > hardware? > > IMO, the number of users is less relevant for such an action. Even if > there're only a few users, users do exist. > > But, if the code maintenance becomes a too big burden, it's time to > think of code removal. Is this the case? Really difficult to keep > the code? We can keep it, but it is pretty much broken, so why? Thanks. -- Dmitry -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majord...@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
