On Fri, Feb 24, 2023 at 01:30:58PM -0800, Linus Torvalds wrote: > On Fri, Feb 24, 2023 at 1:24 PM Linus Torvalds > <torvalds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > > default SERIAL_8250 > > Hmm. Looking around, it seems to be a pattern. I'm not convinced any > of them are really valid, except probably the ones that aren't about > specific drivers, but about base support (like the "SERIAL_8250_DMA" > one). > > I also do get the feeling that the base "SERIAL_8250" feature might be > better off as a _selected_ option, rather than a "ask if you want it". > I think we've ended up with that SERIAL_8250 being a base option > mainly for historical reasons (ie it was part of the original PC/AT > base specs, and then later it has become a "base driver for a lot of > random cards". > > It's probably most legacy by now - it's a long time since I saw a > serial port being used outside of management ports, and even those are > often ethernet these days. Serial console is hard to replace - sure, netconsole can take care of the printk side of things, but the things like "boot with init=/bin/sh and try to recover using that" are occasionally useful; same for "drop into shell on initramfs and use that to poke around"... What do you use that kind of situations? Not a rethorical question - I would be really happy to know alternative variants for that; IME it's not needed often (thankfully), but when it's needed it's really useful to have...
