RFC: removing ndis(4)

[Yoshihiro Ota]

On Thu, 3 Dec 2020 06:28:00 +0300
Vladimir Kondratyev <vladimir at kondratyev.su> wrote:

> On 03.12.2020 03:12, Brooks Davis wrote:
> > I'd like to propose that we remove the ndis(4) driver prior to FreeBSD
> > 13.  It was a clever idea in the early 2000's when the market was
> > flooded with 10/100 NICs with Windows-only drivers, but that hasn't been
> > the case for ages and the driver has had no meaningful maintenance in
> > ages[0].  I'd be a bit surprised if it worked at all today (it surely
> > won't work with modern Windows drivers).
> >
> > To try to examine the popularity of ndis, I checked dmesgd.nycbug.org
> > and there are 5 total entries with the most recent being 2007.
> >
> > The PC Card attachments are currently marked for deletion prior to
> > FreeBSD 13.
> >
> > Unless there is surprising outcry I plan to add (and MFC) deprecation
> > notices in about a week's time and remove the driver shortly thereafter.
> >
> > -- Brooks
> >
> > [0] I noticed today that part of the ndis 802.11 ioctl handler has been
> > broken since 2005.
> 
> ndis(4) was functional at least in 2015 and at that time it was the only
> way to utilize BCM's wi-fi built in my "Asus EEEPC"

ndis is still functional and indeed I have one of Asus that only works NDIS BCM.
A problem is an old hardware needs existing code working although new hardware gets new hardware and driver.

It was indeed broken long while ago but my fix was merged.
If I remember correctly, my fix went to 11.0-RELEASE.
It will be nice if we can wait after 13-release branching.

Hiro