Gentoo Archives: gentoo-dev

From: "Michał Górny" <mgorny@g.o>
To: gentoo-dev@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] Keeping net-fs/ncpfs and net-misc/ipx-utils around?
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2019 14:22:18
Message-Id: 00a78c1b0e65822f28295791a6accc42fe6b0b75.camel@gentoo.org
In Reply to: [gentoo-dev] Keeping net-fs/ncpfs and net-misc/ipx-utils around? by Joshua Kinard
1 On Mon, 2019-03-25 at 15:19 -0400, Joshua Kinard wrote:
2 > Throwing a question out there on whether to keep both the net-fs/ncpfs and
3 > net-misc/ipx-utils packages around any longer. Kernel upstream removed both
4 > the IPX (Internetwork Packet eXchange) protocol and NCPFS (NetWare Core
5 > Protocol Filesystem) support back in ~4.18 due to lack of maintenance. I
6 > know the code in both generally worked fine back then, as I have a few
7 > NetWare VMs that I was able to mount filesystems from in Linux, even on my
8 > MIPS hardware.
9 >
10 > However, it is effectively a dead protocol and dead filesystem for a dead
11 > operating system (NetWare). I don't see anyone resurrecting IPX/NCPFS and
12 > updating to get it re-included it in the kernel, either. I was tempted once
13 > to try, but I just don't have the time anymore.
14 >
15 > I think we're one of the last distros to even keep IPX/NCPFS-related
16 > packages around long-term. With no viable upstream for ncpfs anymore, and
17 > with no kernel support in Linux (or even FreeBSD; they deprecated IPX in
18 > ~10.0-RELEASE), I think it's time to remove this package and any related
19 > packages.
20 >
21 > One catch is, sys-kernel/gentoo-sources still keeps 4.4, 4.9, and 4.14
22 > stable kernel series around. These can still technically use IPX/NCPFS, and
23 > therefore, there might be users using it.
24 >
25 > A quick poll of the portage tree suggests these changes are needed:
26 >
27 > Delete USE flag reference:
28 > net-analyzer/hydra
29 > profiles/use.local.desc (remove hydra's local 'ncp' entry)
30 >
31 > Remove ebuilds:
32 > net-fs/ncpfs
33 > net-misc/ipx-utils
34 >
35 > Remove filesystem reference?:
36 > sys-apps/mlocate/files/updatedb.conf
37 >
38 > Remove reference to 'ipx-utils':
39 > profiles/license_groups
40 >
41 >
42 > Thoughts?
43 >
44
45 Last rite them with 60 day period. If someone actually uses them,
46 you'll learn about it and get some data to decide how to proceed
47 afterwards. Plus, users who actually might still use them would get
48 a fair warning they're going to be dropped in the future.
49
50 --
51 Best regards,
52 Michał Górny

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