On Mon, 2019-03-25 at 15:19 -0400, Joshua Kinard wrote: > Throwing a question out there on whether to keep both the net-fs/ncpfs and > net-misc/ipx-utils packages around any longer. Kernel upstream removed both > the IPX (Internetwork Packet eXchange) protocol and NCPFS (NetWare Core > Protocol Filesystem) support back in ~4.18 due to lack of maintenance. I > know the code in both generally worked fine back then, as I have a few > NetWare VMs that I was able to mount filesystems from in Linux, even on my > MIPS hardware. > > However, it is effectively a dead protocol and dead filesystem for a dead > operating system (NetWare). I don't see anyone resurrecting IPX/NCPFS and > updating to get it re-included it in the kernel, either. I was tempted once > to try, but I just don't have the time anymore. > > I think we're one of the last distros to even keep IPX/NCPFS-related > packages around long-term. With no viable upstream for ncpfs anymore, and > with no kernel support in Linux (or even FreeBSD; they deprecated IPX in > ~10.0-RELEASE), I think it's time to remove this package and any related > packages. > > One catch is, sys-kernel/gentoo-sources still keeps 4.4, 4.9, and 4.14 > stable kernel series around. These can still technically use IPX/NCPFS, and > therefore, there might be users using it. > > A quick poll of the portage tree suggests these changes are needed: > > Delete USE flag reference: > net-analyzer/hydra > profiles/use.local.desc (remove hydra's local 'ncp' entry) > > Remove ebuilds: > net-fs/ncpfs > net-misc/ipx-utils > > Remove filesystem reference?: > sys-apps/mlocate/files/updatedb.conf > > Remove reference to 'ipx-utils': > profiles/license_groups > > > Thoughts? >
Last rite them with 60 day period. If someone actually uses them, you'll learn about it and get some data to decide how to proceed afterwards. Plus, users who actually might still use them would get a fair warning they're going to be dropped in the future. -- Best regards, Michał Górny
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