Linux 7.1 removes five input drivers for hardware obsolete since the mid-1990s, including ISA bus mouse and 1995 Palm Top PC 110 touchpad support, totaling 3,374 deletions.
Key Takeaways
Removed drivers: InPort/Microsoft/ATI XL busmouse (ISA), Logitech Bus Mouse Logibm (ISA), Palm Top PC 110 touchpad (Japan, 1995), ICS MicroClock MK712 touchscreen, and CT82C710 PS/2 for 386/486 laptops.
The OLPC HGPK PS/2 protocol was broken for 12 years with zero bug reports, making it a candidate for removal on silence alone.
CT82C710 removal is tied to Linux 7.1 beginning to disband i486 architecture support more broadly.
The input pull also adds new drivers: Charlieplex GPIO keypad, aw86927 with 86938 ASIC support, and Chrome OS Fn-key keymap extension.
AI/LLM-generated bug reports are a separate but concurrent driver for kernel cleanup; these specific removals are strictly obsolete-hardware decisions.
Hacker News Comment Review
Commenters broadly welcome the deletions as overdue hygiene, with one noting the physical hardware likely cannot survive electrically regardless of software support.
A recurring thread debates whether these drivers should have lived in userspace all along, invoking the microkernel argument and Windows’ ongoing shift toward user-mode drivers, with no clear consensus on Linux’s roadmap.
Retro computing users raised a practical concern: users wanting to run Linux on genuinely old hardware will need to pin old kernel versions or switch to distributions like Debian that carry legacy configs longer.
Notable Comments
@xiphias2: argues these drivers illustrate the unfinished case for userspace drivers in Linux, citing Windows moving that direction.
@mmooss: asks whether OpenBSD’s strict code hygiene made its codebase less exposed to LLM-assisted vulnerability discovery compared to Linux’s accumulated legacy surface.
