Summary
- Linux 7.0 staging rolls up many driver cleanups, with the RTL8723BS drivers getting major attention.
- An RTL8723BS chip from 2014 (used in Intel Compute Stick) still gets kernel fixes, thanks to contributors.
- Unlike vendor lockouts, the Linux community keeps older hardware usable through ongoing driver maintenance.
If the move from Windows 10 to 11 taught us anything, it's that companies are beginning to add limits on how old your hardware can be to run their software. Your PC could have the processing power to handle Windows 11, but as long as the CPU doesn't have TPM 2.0 on it, Microsoft deems it unworthy.
Fortunately, for people who don't like throwing out perfectly-good hardware, there's always Linux. And if you want proof that Team Tux will treat your older devices with love and care, just check out the notes for a potential commit to Linux 7.0, which contains cleanups for a driver that arrived on Linux almost a decade ago.
It turns out that there's one guy at Valve keeping a 13-year-old GPU alive via Linux updates
Radeon HD 7000 series enjoyers, today is your lucky day.
Work is underway to get a nine-year-old driver cleaned up in Linux 7.0
Because working hardware doesn't deserve to be left behind
As spotted by Phoronix, we're seeing a flurry of updates queueing up to become a part of Linux 7.0. We're seeing everything from a new way to repair filesystems on the fly to Rock Band 4 controller support. Now, a new update has appeared in the queue for Linus' attention and potential inclusion in 7.0:
Here is the big set of staging driver updates for 7.0-rc1. Well, not that big, just lots of tiny coding style cleanups primarily in one driver as everyone seems to have glomed onto it for some reason that escapes me (is there a tutorial out there somewhere pointing people atthis?)
Not much overall, the changes can be summarized as:
- cleanups for the rtl8723bs driver, so many cleanups...
- vme_user driver cleanups
- sm750fb driver cleanups
- tiny greybus driver cleanups
- other really small staging driver cleanups
See that note about the RTL8723BS that received "so many cleanups"? That driver powers a chip released back in 2014, and found a home in devices like the Intel Compute Stick. The driver itself didn't arrive on Linux until 2017, and it has been tinkered with ever since then to get it working properly with the kernel. It just goes to show that, as long as there are people out there willing to continue supporting it, a piece of hardware's use is only limited to its physical lifespan.