The end of the token ring era?

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By Jonathan Corbet
May 16, 2012

Paul Gortmaker was recently doing some cleanup work when he found the token ring networking code getting in the way. Which led him to wonder: was anybody still using that code? He concluded that the answer was "no":

A search on the internet for users tends to show that even the die hard enthusiasts who cared to poke at MCA/TR just for hobby sake have pretty much all given up somewhere in the 2003-2005 "pre-git" timeframe, and never really moved off their 2.4.x kernels.

In response, he put together a patch to remove the token ring subsystem altogether. The patch was presented as a demonstration, without a lot of hope that it would be applied in the near future. Paul's real goal was to get comments and see if he could build a consensus for the removal of the code at some more distant time.

Thus far, there has been one objection. But, that notwithstanding, David Miller has accepted the patch and fast-tracked it directly into the net-next repository. Barring some sort of reversion prior to the merge window, it looks like the 3.5 kernel will be missing support for token ring networking.

The end of the token ring era?

Posted May 17, 2012 8:40 UTC (Thu) by ersi (guest, #64521) [Link]

Aww. I don't like seeing features go from kernel land.

I'm always amazed when whatever old hardware you got laying around - suprisingly still work with a modern Linux kernel.

That said, if it really goes in the way of new features, optimizations and general improvement - I guess it's better to put it to retirement..

The end of the token ring era?

Posted May 17, 2012 9:16 UTC (Thu) by pr1268 (subscriber, #24648) [Link] (4 responses)

I'm sure all three persons on the planet using Linux with a token ring adapter are up in arms over this. </sarcasm>

And to think I learned in my undergrad CS networking class (fall semester of 2004) what "filling the ring" and "draining the ring" meant. But then again, the professor (nearing retirement) also brought in some show-and-tell props one day, so we got to see a vampire tap and an acoustic coupler! (I don't mean to criticize this professor; he was really good, and besides, we did study contemporary networking topics.)

The end of the token ring era?

Posted May 17, 2012 13:25 UTC (Thu) by jzbiciak (guest, #5246) [Link] (2 responses)

Kids these days. :-)

My first modem was a 300 baud acoustic modem I scored off a disused DecWriter II. The DecWriter and modem were sitting on the porch of one of the houses along my paper route. I asked the owner if I could have it. The owner said I could have the whole kit, but I settled for the modem, seeing as it was the only thing I could carry with me on my bike. ;-)

Granted, even by then (~1990), it was a woefully out of date modem. But, it was the right price for someone whose only income was a paper route in a small town.

I still have it somewhere...

At any rate, I guess Dilbert will have to find another excuse to give the PHB about the network.

The end of the token ring era?

Posted May 18, 2012 23:55 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (guest, #1954) [Link] (1 responses)

Please. I was overjoyed when I upgraded to a 300 BAUD acoustic modem.

It meant I rarely had to use the "drain" key, which tells the computer to discard everything in its output buffer because you don't have time to wait for it to deliver it to you at 10 characters per second.

The end of the token ring era?

Posted May 19, 2012 0:17 UTC (Sat) by jzbiciak (guest, #5246) [Link]

Heh. You must be slightly older than I. Bell 103 was introduced to the world in 1962, about 13 years before I was. ;-)

Speaking of crappy modem stories: Unfortunately for me, I didn't have a proper phone more my acoustic modem. I had one of those "flat-phones" that became so popular in the late 80s, the kind that was all integrated in the handset, with a little flip-out mic that served as the "latch hook."

So, needless to say, it didn't make a very good acoustic seal with the modem, so I had to be very quiet while using the modem. Meanwhile, everyone in the house could hear the carrier tone coming out of the modem. (90 year old farmhouse w/ almost zilch for insulation.) The "good" old days.

I remember almost getting banned from an BBS with that modem for downloading a 15K GIF. The SysOp didn't mind me doing text-only on there because 30CPS isn't too much slower than reading speed. Tying up the line for ~15 minutes for an ugly GIF -- call back when I get a faster modem. (Ideally, it would only take ~500 seconds to dl. a 15K GIF, but XModem sucks pretty hard.)

The end of the token ring era?

Posted May 22, 2012 6:43 UTC (Tue) by kev009 (guest, #43906) [Link]

2009 or 2010 when I went through a CS networking course Token Ring was still covered. I think because it was a novel means of networking and good food for thought more so than you're expected to see token networks in the field. The token concept would be interesting in certain applications above the MAC layer too.

The end of the token ring era?

Posted May 17, 2012 14:00 UTC (Thu) by marduk (subscriber, #3831) [Link] (2 responses)

Daddy, what's "token ring"?

The end of the token ring era?

Posted May 17, 2012 15:18 UTC (Thu) by cry_regarder (subscriber, #50545) [Link] (1 responses)

Hush little baby, don't say a word
Daddy's gonna buy you a FireBERD
If that FireBERD doesn't ping
Daddy's gonna buy you a token ring
If that token ring get's broke
Daddy's gonna...

The end of the token ring era?

Posted May 22, 2012 18:55 UTC (Tue) by musicon (guest, #4739) [Link]

Thank you, that comment made my day!

The end of the token ring era?

Posted May 20, 2012 19:44 UTC (Sun) by robbe (guest, #16131) [Link]

You mean FCoTR (c.f. http://fcotr.org) might never come to Linux? For shame!