July 28 2019
Herb Johnson
hjohnson@retrotechnology.com

Headline: Linux "orphans" floppy driver 

July 18, 2019: 

https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=be2ece49e68361f9b56098e5df3ddbccf87d140a">

At git.kernel.org, as part of Linux maintenance on various drivers,</a> Jiri Kosina posted she
 was no longer able to maintain the floppy.c driver due to lack of a 3.5" floppy drive. "The 
reader doesn't work any more though, so I guess it's time to step down from this super-prestigious
 role :p and mark floppy.c as Orphaned.". This was signed-off by Linux Torvalads. Apparently,
 general knowledge of this depreciation wasn't distributed until social outlets
like reddit.com and hackaday.com reported the situation on July 26th and 27th. 

While Linux driver development is way outside my wheelhouse, floppy drives are not! Read a bit 
more here about this (non)development, and of course Web-search
is your friend for details. 


https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/47d6a7607443ea43dbc4d0f371bf773540a8f8f4

I'm not a Linux developer, but I got word which suggested that the Linux OS development group has not found someone to update the floppy-hardware driver. Apparently it's for lack of current floppy hardware on current desktops; and for lack of interest by software developers. The current maintainer of drivers including floppies, no longer has a floppy drive controller on his/her system. 

Apparently the current Linux kernal is limited to "Intel 686 architectures and above". Notes
and dicussions suggest that floppy controllers and drives have not been on production
desktop computers for "well over a decade". Here's a sample of some tech-press coverage
on the subject:

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/cilkzl/linus_torvalds_floppy_driver_marked_as_orphaned/

(caution: most of the commentary is of the form "I remember when" or "old computers can be found..." or "use a USB/floppy drive (explicitive)!" or various change-of-subjects. In other words, nobody wants "to bell the cat".)

https://hackaday.com/2019/07/26/retrotechtacular-the-floppy-disk-orphaned-by-linux/ 

(caution: I dispute the author's speculations about why floppy drives and diskettes fell out of use. But
the author has some hardware and tech skills and so has some clues.)

If you can or have developed Linux drivers, and you are interested in legacy PC's (or even older stuff), 
*step forward and offer to support the hardware floppy controller under Linux*. Let me know if you or
someone does that. Thank you. 

Regards,
Herb "hard sector" Johnson