| Message ID | 20230111112418.687882-1-hverkuil-cisco@xs4all.nl (mailing list archive) |
|---|---|
| Headers | show |
| Series | staging/media: remove most deprecated drivers | expand |
Hi Hans, I only learned about this yesterday, so I hope I'm not too late. Please don't do that. You're about to remove working drivers used by a lot of people. If you remove them from the Linux kernel, you will leave *lots* of DVB-C and DVB-S card users behind. They will update their TV recording machines to a newer system at one point and suddenly their ability to record from TV is gone forever. I'm personally affected by this as well. We're using a machine with four Technotrend S2-3200 Budget DVB-S2 cards for TV recordings using the VDR package. This card is apparently handled by the code under drivers/staging/media/deprecated/saa7146. If this code goes away, we will have to keep the machine running on an old kernel for a long time. I'm fortunate that I even learned about this developement, being a developer myself, but how's a normal user to know that a Linux driver they are using every day is about to be removed from the kernel? Again, please don't break the equipment of us users of these DVB-C and DVB-S cards for the future. Thanks for listening, Corinna
Hans, On 16-01-2023 10:53, Corinna Vinschen wrote: > Hi Hans, > > I only learned about this yesterday, so I hope I'm not too late. > > Please don't do that. You're about to remove working drivers used by a > lot of people. > > If you remove them from the Linux kernel, you will leave *lots* of DVB-C > and DVB-S card users behind. They will update their TV recording > machines to a newer system at one point and suddenly their ability to > record from TV is gone forever. > > I'm personally affected by this as well. We're using a machine with > four Technotrend S2-3200 Budget DVB-S2 cards for TV recordings using > the VDR package. This card is apparently handled by the code under > drivers/staging/media/deprecated/saa7146. This being the case (from another user), should those drivers be deprecated? Cheers Rudy
Hi Corinna, On 16/01/2023 10:53, Corinna Vinschen wrote: > Hi Hans, > > I only learned about this yesterday, so I hope I'm not too late. > > Please don't do that. You're about to remove working drivers used by a > lot of people. > > If you remove them from the Linux kernel, you will leave *lots* of DVB-C > and DVB-S card users behind. They will update their TV recording > machines to a newer system at one point and suddenly their ability to > record from TV is gone forever. > > I'm personally affected by this as well. We're using a machine with > four Technotrend S2-3200 Budget DVB-S2 cards for TV recordings using > the VDR package. This card is apparently handled by the code under > drivers/staging/media/deprecated/saa7146. > > If this code goes away, we will have to keep the machine running on > an old kernel for a long time. > > I'm fortunate that I even learned about this developement, being a > developer myself, but how's a normal user to know that a Linux driver > they are using every day is about to be removed from the kernel? Again, > please don't break the equipment of us users of these DVB-C and DVB-S > cards for the future. I've dropped the PR for now. Is the concern specifically for the saa7146 based hardware? I.e., from Red Hat's point of view, are there any concerns about removing vpfe_capture, tm6000, zr364xx, stkwebcam, fsl-viu, cpia2 and meye? The core problem with saa7146 (and the other deprecated drivers) is that it is using the old videobuf framework, which has known problems and we want (need!) to get rid of it, either by dropping drivers or converting them. One partial solution would be to drop analog video support from saa7146, since that's the bit that uses this framework. DVB would remain working, but analog video support would die, unless someone steps up to do the conversion from vb1 to vb2. So support for the old MXB, Hexium Gemini and Hexium Orion would die, but for the other DVB devices it would stay alive. I'm honestly quite surprised that these old DVB PCI cards are still in use, I did not expect that. Regards, Hans
Hi Hans, On Jan 16 11:08, Hans Verkuil wrote: > Hi Corinna, > > On 16/01/2023 10:53, Corinna Vinschen wrote: > > Hi Hans, > > > > I only learned about this yesterday, so I hope I'm not too late. > > > > Please don't do that. You're about to remove working drivers used by a > > lot of people. > > > > If you remove them from the Linux kernel, you will leave *lots* of DVB-C > > and DVB-S card users behind. They will update their TV recording > > machines to a newer system at one point and suddenly their ability to > > record from TV is gone forever. > > > > I'm personally affected by this as well. We're using a machine with > > four Technotrend S2-3200 Budget DVB-S2 cards for TV recordings using > > the VDR package. This card is apparently handled by the code under > > drivers/staging/media/deprecated/saa7146. > > > > If this code goes away, we will have to keep the machine running on > > an old kernel for a long time. > > > > I'm fortunate that I even learned about this developement, being a > > developer myself, but how's a normal user to know that a Linux driver > > they are using every day is about to be removed from the kernel? Again, > > please don't break the equipment of us users of these DVB-C and DVB-S > > cards for the future. > > I've dropped the PR for now. I'm really glad to read that. > Is the concern specifically for the saa7146 > based hardware? > > I.e., from Red Hat's point of view, are there any concerns about removing > vpfe_capture, tm6000, zr364xx, stkwebcam, fsl-viu, cpia2 and meye? I'm not part of the Red Hat media team, so I can't answer that, sorry. The problem is that there are no usage numbers anywhere. I don't know which of these drivers are still in use and which aren't. I only know for certain for our saa7146 based cards @home. Terratec was the market leader for quite some time, so there are lots of Terratec cards and budget cards from third party vendors in the wild. > The core problem with saa7146 (and the other deprecated drivers) is that > it is using the old videobuf framework, which has known problems and we > want (need!) to get rid of it, either by dropping drivers or converting > them. > > One partial solution would be to drop analog video support from saa7146, > since that's the bit that uses this framework. DVB would remain working, > but analog video support would die, unless someone steps up to do the > conversion from vb1 to vb2. Maybe I'm biased, but who has actually still access to analog TV? I'm not sure about that, but in Germany, analog TV over terrestrial antenna has been dropped about 2005. Analog satellite has gone 2012. Analog cable took until 2019. I don't know about other regions. > So support for the old MXB, Hexium Gemini and Hexium Orion would die, but > for the other DVB devices it would stay alive. So, yeah, from my POV this might be an option. > I'm honestly quite surprised that these old DVB PCI cards are still in > use, I did not expect that. There isn't a really well-working alternative, unless you plug in lots of USB devices instead. Even more important these days, the cards are still working, despite their age. There's really no good reason to throw them into the dustbin and buy something new, instead of trying to use working equipment as long as possible to save waste. Thanks, Corinna
On 16/01/2023 14:35, Corinna Vinschen wrote: > Hi Hans, > > On Jan 16 11:08, Hans Verkuil wrote: >> Hi Corinna, >> >> On 16/01/2023 10:53, Corinna Vinschen wrote: >>> Hi Hans, >>> >>> I only learned about this yesterday, so I hope I'm not too late. >>> >>> Please don't do that. You're about to remove working drivers used by a >>> lot of people. >>> >>> If you remove them from the Linux kernel, you will leave *lots* of DVB-C >>> and DVB-S card users behind. They will update their TV recording >>> machines to a newer system at one point and suddenly their ability to >>> record from TV is gone forever. >>> >>> I'm personally affected by this as well. We're using a machine with >>> four Technotrend S2-3200 Budget DVB-S2 cards for TV recordings using >>> the VDR package. This card is apparently handled by the code under >>> drivers/staging/media/deprecated/saa7146. >>> >>> If this code goes away, we will have to keep the machine running on >>> an old kernel for a long time. >>> >>> I'm fortunate that I even learned about this developement, being a >>> developer myself, but how's a normal user to know that a Linux driver >>> they are using every day is about to be removed from the kernel? Again, >>> please don't break the equipment of us users of these DVB-C and DVB-S >>> cards for the future. >> >> I've dropped the PR for now. > > I'm really glad to read that. > >> Is the concern specifically for the saa7146 >> based hardware? >> >> I.e., from Red Hat's point of view, are there any concerns about removing >> vpfe_capture, tm6000, zr364xx, stkwebcam, fsl-viu, cpia2 and meye? > > I'm not part of the Red Hat media team, so I can't answer that, sorry. > > The problem is that there are no usage numbers anywhere. I don't know > which of these drivers are still in use and which aren't. I only know > for certain for our saa7146 based cards @home. Terratec was the market > leader for quite some time, so there are lots of Terratec cards and > budget cards from third party vendors in the wild. > >> The core problem with saa7146 (and the other deprecated drivers) is that >> it is using the old videobuf framework, which has known problems and we >> want (need!) to get rid of it, either by dropping drivers or converting >> them. >> >> One partial solution would be to drop analog video support from saa7146, >> since that's the bit that uses this framework. DVB would remain working, >> but analog video support would die, unless someone steps up to do the >> conversion from vb1 to vb2. > > Maybe I'm biased, but who has actually still access to analog TV? I'm > not sure about that, but in Germany, analog TV over terrestrial antenna > has been dropped about 2005. Analog satellite has gone 2012. Analog > cable took until 2019. I don't know about other regions. Analog TV is almost certainly still used in places. But it's not so much about TV as it is about analog video in general, so also capturing from S-Video or composite connectors. That's definitely still used. > >> So support for the old MXB, Hexium Gemini and Hexium Orion would die, but >> for the other DVB devices it would stay alive. > > So, yeah, from my POV this might be an option. > >> I'm honestly quite surprised that these old DVB PCI cards are still in >> use, I did not expect that. > > There isn't a really well-working alternative, unless you plug in lots > of USB devices instead. Even more important these days, the cards are > still working, despite their age. There's really no good reason to > throw them into the dustbin and buy something new, instead of trying to > use working equipment as long as possible to save waste. OK, I'll make a new PR that keeps the saa7146 for now, and work on removing analog video support from saa7146. Regards, Hans
On Jan 16 15:39, Hans Verkuil wrote: > On 16/01/2023 14:35, Corinna Vinschen wrote: > > On Jan 16 11:08, Hans Verkuil wrote: > >> On 16/01/2023 10:53, Corinna Vinschen wrote: > >>> I only learned about this yesterday, so I hope I'm not too late. > >>> > >>> Please don't do that. You're about to remove working drivers used by a > >>> lot of people. > >>> [...] > >>> I'm fortunate that I even learned about this developement, being a > >>> developer myself, but how's a normal user to know that a Linux driver > >>> they are using every day is about to be removed from the kernel? Again, > >>> please don't break the equipment of us users of these DVB-C and DVB-S > >>> cards for the future. > >> > >> I've dropped the PR for now. > > > > I'm really glad to read that. > > > >> [...] > >> One partial solution would be to drop analog video support from saa7146, > >> since that's the bit that uses this framework. DVB would remain working, > >> but analog video support would die, unless someone steps up to do the > >> conversion from vb1 to vb2. > > > > Maybe I'm biased, but who has actually still access to analog TV? I'm > > not sure about that, but in Germany, analog TV over terrestrial antenna > > has been dropped about 2005. Analog satellite has gone 2012. Analog > > cable took until 2019. I don't know about other regions. > > Analog TV is almost certainly still used in places. > > But it's not so much about TV as it is about analog video in general, so > also capturing from S-Video or composite connectors. That's definitely > still used. Ok. I was too TV focused, apparently. Yeah, S-Video recording still makes sense. > >> So support for the old MXB, Hexium Gemini and Hexium Orion would die, but > >> for the other DVB devices it would stay alive. > > > > So, yeah, from my POV this might be an option. > > > >> I'm honestly quite surprised that these old DVB PCI cards are still in > >> use, I did not expect that. > > > > There isn't a really well-working alternative, unless you plug in lots > > of USB devices instead. Even more important these days, the cards are > > still working, despite their age. There's really no good reason to > > throw them into the dustbin and buy something new, instead of trying to > > use working equipment as long as possible to save waste. > > OK, I'll make a new PR that keeps the saa7146 for now, and work on removing > analog video support from saa7146. That sounds great to me. Thanks for your understanding! Best, Corinna
Hi. W dniu 16.01.2023 o 15:39, Hans Verkuil pisze: > On 16/01/2023 14:35, Corinna Vinschen wrote: >> Hi Hans, >> >> On Jan 16 11:08, Hans Verkuil wrote: >>> Hi Corinna, >>> >>> On 16/01/2023 10:53, Corinna Vinschen wrote: >>>> Hi Hans, >>>> >>>> I only learned about this yesterday, so I hope I'm not too late. >>>> >>>> Please don't do that. You're about to remove working drivers used by a >>>> lot of people. >>>> >>>> If you remove them from the Linux kernel, you will leave *lots* of DVB-C >>>> and DVB-S card users behind. They will update their TV recording >>>> machines to a newer system at one point and suddenly their ability to >>>> record from TV is gone forever. >>>> >>>> I'm personally affected by this as well. We're using a machine with >>>> four Technotrend S2-3200 Budget DVB-S2 cards for TV recordings using >>>> the VDR package. This card is apparently handled by the code under >>>> drivers/staging/media/deprecated/saa7146. >>>> >>>> If this code goes away, we will have to keep the machine running on >>>> an old kernel for a long time. >>>> >>>> I'm fortunate that I even learned about this developement, being a >>>> developer myself, but how's a normal user to know that a Linux driver >>>> they are using every day is about to be removed from the kernel? Again, >>>> please don't break the equipment of us users of these DVB-C and DVB-S >>>> cards for the future. >>> >>> I've dropped the PR for now. >> >> I'm really glad to read that. Thanks from me as well. >>> Is the concern specifically for the saa7146 >>> based hardware? >>> >>> I.e., from Red Hat's point of view, are there any concerns about removing >>> vpfe_capture, tm6000, zr364xx, stkwebcam, fsl-viu, cpia2 and meye? >> >> I'm not part of the Red Hat media team, so I can't answer that, sorry. >> >> The problem is that there are no usage numbers anywhere. I don't know >> which of these drivers are still in use and which aren't. I only know >> for certain for our saa7146 based cards @home. Terratec was the market >> leader for quite some time, so there are lots of Terratec cards and >> budget cards from third party vendors in the wild. I've got six of saa7146 based DVB-S2 budget cards still in use. Apparently You can still buy a new one[1] which is supported by budget driver. >>> The core problem with saa7146 (and the other deprecated drivers) is that >>> it is using the old videobuf framework, which has known problems and we >>> want (need!) to get rid of it, either by dropping drivers or converting >>> them. >>> >>> One partial solution would be to drop analog video support from saa7146, >>> since that's the bit that uses this framework. DVB would remain working, >>> but analog video support would die, unless someone steps up to do the >>> conversion from vb1 to vb2. There is ongoing discussion in VDR community about converting to vb2, albeit it's very slow and I don't know yet if it'll reach a conclusion. And, as proposed, keeping it in staging area or keeping the driver with stripped analog video capabilities would definitely help. >> Maybe I'm biased, but who has actually still access to analog TV? I'm >> not sure about that, but in Germany, analog TV over terrestrial antenna >> has been dropped about 2005. Analog satellite has gone 2012. Analog >> cable took until 2019. I don't know about other regions. > > Analog TV is almost certainly still used in places. > > But it's not so much about TV as it is about analog video in general, so > also capturing from S-Video or composite connectors. That's definitely > still used. > >> >>> So support for the old MXB, Hexium Gemini and Hexium Orion would die, but >>> for the other DVB devices it would stay alive. >> >> So, yeah, from my POV this might be an option. >> >>> I'm honestly quite surprised that these old DVB PCI cards are still in >>> use, I did not expect that. >> >> There isn't a really well-working alternative, unless you plug in lots >> of USB devices instead. Even more important these days, the cards are >> still working, despite their age. There's really no good reason to >> throw them into the dustbin and buy something new, instead of trying to >> use working equipment as long as possible to save waste. > > OK, I'll make a new PR that keeps the saa7146 for now, and work on removing > analog video support from saa7146. Thank You, that would certainly make me satisfied. Would that mean that after removing analog video support, driver would go out of staging, back to maintained area? Best Regards 1. https://www.omicom.info/PayPal_Omicom_S2_PCIr3.html
On 17/01/2023 16:38, Tomasz Maciej Nowak wrote: > Hi. > > W dniu 16.01.2023 o 15:39, Hans Verkuil pisze: >> On 16/01/2023 14:35, Corinna Vinschen wrote: >>> Hi Hans, >>> >>> On Jan 16 11:08, Hans Verkuil wrote: >>>> Hi Corinna, >>>> >>>> On 16/01/2023 10:53, Corinna Vinschen wrote: >>>>> Hi Hans, >>>>> >>>>> I only learned about this yesterday, so I hope I'm not too late. >>>>> >>>>> Please don't do that. You're about to remove working drivers used by a >>>>> lot of people. >>>>> >>>>> If you remove them from the Linux kernel, you will leave *lots* of DVB-C >>>>> and DVB-S card users behind. They will update their TV recording >>>>> machines to a newer system at one point and suddenly their ability to >>>>> record from TV is gone forever. >>>>> >>>>> I'm personally affected by this as well. We're using a machine with >>>>> four Technotrend S2-3200 Budget DVB-S2 cards for TV recordings using >>>>> the VDR package. This card is apparently handled by the code under >>>>> drivers/staging/media/deprecated/saa7146. >>>>> >>>>> If this code goes away, we will have to keep the machine running on >>>>> an old kernel for a long time. >>>>> >>>>> I'm fortunate that I even learned about this developement, being a >>>>> developer myself, but how's a normal user to know that a Linux driver >>>>> they are using every day is about to be removed from the kernel? Again, >>>>> please don't break the equipment of us users of these DVB-C and DVB-S >>>>> cards for the future. >>>> >>>> I've dropped the PR for now. >>> >>> I'm really glad to read that. > > Thanks from me as well. > >>>> Is the concern specifically for the saa7146 >>>> based hardware? >>>> >>>> I.e., from Red Hat's point of view, are there any concerns about removing >>>> vpfe_capture, tm6000, zr364xx, stkwebcam, fsl-viu, cpia2 and meye? >>> >>> I'm not part of the Red Hat media team, so I can't answer that, sorry. >>> >>> The problem is that there are no usage numbers anywhere. I don't know >>> which of these drivers are still in use and which aren't. I only know >>> for certain for our saa7146 based cards @home. Terratec was the market >>> leader for quite some time, so there are lots of Terratec cards and >>> budget cards from third party vendors in the wild. > > I've got six of saa7146 based DVB-S2 budget cards still in use. > Apparently You can still buy a new one[1] which is supported by budget > driver. > >>>> The core problem with saa7146 (and the other deprecated drivers) is that >>>> it is using the old videobuf framework, which has known problems and we >>>> want (need!) to get rid of it, either by dropping drivers or converting >>>> them. >>>> >>>> One partial solution would be to drop analog video support from saa7146, >>>> since that's the bit that uses this framework. DVB would remain working, >>>> but analog video support would die, unless someone steps up to do the >>>> conversion from vb1 to vb2. > > There is ongoing discussion in VDR community about converting to vb2, > albeit it's very slow and I don't know yet if it'll reach a conclusion. > And, as proposed, keeping it in staging area or keeping the driver with > stripped analog video capabilities would definitely help. > >>> Maybe I'm biased, but who has actually still access to analog TV? I'm >>> not sure about that, but in Germany, analog TV over terrestrial antenna >>> has been dropped about 2005. Analog satellite has gone 2012. Analog >>> cable took until 2019. I don't know about other regions. >> >> Analog TV is almost certainly still used in places. >> >> But it's not so much about TV as it is about analog video in general, so >> also capturing from S-Video or composite connectors. That's definitely >> still used. >> >>> >>>> So support for the old MXB, Hexium Gemini and Hexium Orion would die, but >>>> for the other DVB devices it would stay alive. >>> >>> So, yeah, from my POV this might be an option. >>> >>>> I'm honestly quite surprised that these old DVB PCI cards are still in >>>> use, I did not expect that. >>> >>> There isn't a really well-working alternative, unless you plug in lots >>> of USB devices instead. Even more important these days, the cards are >>> still working, despite their age. There's really no good reason to >>> throw them into the dustbin and buy something new, instead of trying to >>> use working equipment as long as possible to save waste. >> >> OK, I'll make a new PR that keeps the saa7146 for now, and work on removing >> analog video support from saa7146. > > Thank You, that would certainly make me satisfied. Would that mean that > after removing analog video support, driver would go out of staging, back > to maintained area? Yes, since there is no reason to keep it in staging once that's done. Regards, Hans > > Best Regards > > 1. https://www.omicom.info/PayPal_Omicom_S2_PCIr3.html >
- Some user feedback about ttpci and ttbudget removal... Hi everyone. First I have to apologize for the late reaction and hope it is not too late now. I'm primary a user and normally not subscribed to this list. I just got aware of the possible removal of the ttpci and ttbudget driver by a thread in the german "vdr-portal.de" forum (1). I own a several different of the SAA7146 based cards and use them daily in my VDR-system. In germany many channels are free-to-air in the DVB-S version only. DVB-S-Cards are still useful today, at least in combination with a DVB-S2 Card. Just like DVB-C and DVB-S2 Cards, AFAIK are their capabilities still up to date. Only the DVB-T cards are already obsolete (al least in germany). My system contains different types of DVB-S/S2 cards, SAA7146 based and others. All carefully selected to have mainline kernel support. I never expected the tt* drivers will be removed so early. Replacing the SAA7146 is not a real option. DVB-cards with kernel support are rare, still expensive and now a days hard to obtain too. And I don't want to scrap working hardware. My plans are to use this cards as long as the DVB-S situation doesn't change. That will be at least 2 more years. The SAA7146 cards were very popular in the VDR-Community, there must be more users out there. I suspect, most of them will notice the driver removal, when the cards stop working after a update. Initially I thought an API upgrade is not a big deal, but it seems to be a mayor change to the driver. Unfortunately that exceeds my skills. But I may provide help with testing on the DVB-S FF and budget-cards if desired. Best Regards