Linux 7.1 Removes Drivers for Bus Mouse Support

Source: Hacker News

Overview

Beyond Linux looking to remove old drivers due to the surge of AI/LLM bug reports, the Linux 7.1 kernel is also dropping several legacy hardware drivers that have become obsolete. The input subsystem saw several drivers removed this week for hardware that has been out of use for decades.

New Input Drivers

• Charlieplex GPIO keypad driver – adds support for Charlieplexed keypads.
• aw86927 driver – now includes support for the 86938 ASIC.
• Chrome OS keyboard driver – adds support for the Fn‑key keymap extension.

Removed Input Drivers

The primary removals target bus‑mouse drivers that have not been relevant for nearly 30 years, along with a few other drivers for portable devices from the late 1990s to early 2000s.

Bus‑Mouse Drivers

• InPort / Microsoft / ATI XL busmouse driver – supported mice connected via an ISA add‑in card.
• Logitech Bus Mouse “Logibm” driver – another ISA‑based bus‑mouse driver.

Other Legacy Drivers

• Palm Top PC 110 touchpad driver – for a Palm device released in Japan in 1995.
• ICS MicroClock MK712 touchscreen driver – used by a few devices around the year 2000.
• CT82C710 driver – for the Chips & Technologies PS/2 mouse interface found in TI TravelMate and Gateway Nomad laptops. Although PS/2 is newer than bus‑mouse, this driver only served Intel 386/486 systems and is being removed as Linux 7.1 begins to phase out i486 support (details).
• OLPC HGPK PS/2 protocol support – used by ALPS touchpads in One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) laptops; broken for 12 years and no longer maintained.

References

• Pull request with the merged input changes for Linux 7.1 (3,374 deletions in the input subsystem).