In addition to introducing the new Intel BFF driver, the Error Detection And Correction "EDAC" kernel subsystem is sunsetting a number of old hardware drivers due to increased noise to AI/LLM-generated bug fixes for these likely unused or minimally used drivers.
Similar to the Linux networking subsystem earlier this year begining to drop old network drivers due to AI-driven bug reports, EDAC driver maintainers are facing a similar problem due to increased bug reports/patches for old EDAC drivers likely not seeing any real-world use -- at least for those still using up-to-date mainline kernel versions in production. To avoid that in effect AI spam, they are orphaning the drivers to then be removed in a follow-on kernel release.
EDAC maintainer Borislav Petkov of AMD explained in today's pull request;
"Orphan several EDAC drivers: i82975x, x38, xgene, i3200. Those have been receiving just drive-by updates and no one really uses them. At least there are no traces of usage on the mailing lists. So, with the advent of AI-generated fixes frenzy, and because no one can really test fixes on those, it is time to sunset them and point them towards the eternal happy hunting-grounds"
The i82975x driver is for the Intel 975X Express chipset from back in the day... I still have some Intel 975X hardware from two decades ago, granted haven't been powered on in well over a decade.
Fond memories of the Intel 975X (and Abit) days. The x38 EDAC driver is for the Intel X38 MCH. The xgene driver is for the former AppliedMicro X-Gene SOC with the X-Gene 3 going into the Ampere eMAG following the acquisition by Ampere Computing.
Lastly, the i3200 driver is for Intel's 3200/3210 chipset.
New to the EDAC code for Linux 7.4 is a dummy EDAC driver used for testing the EDAC core code from within a virtual machine. The other new addition is the Intel BFF driver used for dealing with aging silicon and stuck bits as the Bit Fix Filter.
Plus a lot of AI-powered fixes to the rest of the EDAC code. The full list of EDAC feature patches for Linux 7.4 can be found via this pull request.