On Mon, 25 Mar 2019 15:19:06 -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?
Keep them around as long as we have kernel versions supporting IPX/NCPFS in the tree. When they will pass, perform the cleanup listed above. Best regards, Andrew Savchenko
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