Linux kernel drops AppleTalk Networking

[NJRoadfan]

Linux Finally Ends AppleTalk Protocol Support - Phoronix

www.phoronix.com

Thanks AI....

Can't say I'm surprised given the slop of AI bug reports flooding everything. Overall it seems to be driving maintainers of open source software to the point of quitting at an alarming rate. Hopefully it won't be too hard to compile out-of-tree or be replaced with something user space. Really puts a damper on work I did for Netatalk and A2SERVER.

 

[robin-fo]

Noooo!

 

[saybur]

Really disappointing to see and I'm sorry you and @slipperygrey are getting hit with this mess.

 

[pom]

in the same news, the code will be moved to github.com/linux-netdev/mod-orphan

Based on this, I understand it should be possible to build an external module.

Also, while looking for an alternative, I stumbled upon this project

GitHub - FeralFirmware/TailTalk: A modern async user space AppleTalk stack with Rust + Tokio

A modern async user space AppleTalk stack with Rust + Tokio - FeralFirmware/TailTalk

github.com

It aims to create a userspace implementation of AppleTalk

 

[saybur]

My understanding is maintaining an out-of-tree module can be challenging: the whole "we don't break userspace" mantra doesn't apply to the kernel's internal interfaces which can rapidly change without much warning.

I think TaliTalk is being done by @Bolacore here?Absolutely no disrespect to what they're doing, it's quite interesting, but Netatalk has been around for a long time (I mean, I've been a user for like 20+ years). There's something to be said for codebases that have decades of testing and bugfixes applied. I personally won't be looking for an alternative unless the devs decide they don't want to continue work on the project.

 

[Bolacore]

That’s me yes, but it targets a very different purpose than Netatalk. TailTalk is a really primitive stack by comparison as we don’t do any packet routing, zones, or things like that as I figured if you needed those you’d use the battle tested software made for that purpose (I.e Netatalk). Maybe that will change in the future, I just didn’t want to bite off more than I could handle at this point.

Quite a shame to see it dropped, but I can’t say I’m surprised either. Just hoping the out of tree sources now won’t be too hard to keep updated against the newer kernels.

 

[slipperygrey]

@Bolacore just the fact that you have demonstrated a fully working DDP transport layer in userland is worth a lot, I think

 

[Chopsticks]

couldnt DKMS be used to add back AppleTalk support in kernel 7.2 onwards?

 

[herd]

So an exaflop datacenter burned 18 tons of coal and its conclusion was to delete 512kB of perfectly functioning code? bravo.

 

[Juror22]

So an exaflop datacenter burned 18 tons of coal and its conclusion was to delete 512kB of perfectly functioning code? bravo.

Like

 

[ADunsmuir]

If there is enough feedback the removal will be postponed. That is the most straightforward approach now. If nobody complains, then the kernel networking folks will be justified.

They need an active maintainer who can chug through the AI generated bug reports.

 

[cy384]

very disappointing but not surprising given the real AI chaos around the kernel right now, appletalk in the kernel has been in danger for a while

I haven't looked closely at the code, but (hubris incoming) it's only a few thousand lines, I wonder how difficult a small interface would be (especially considering netatalk is more or less the only user of the kernel appletalk stack).

 

[shirsch]

Linux Finally Ends AppleTalk Protocol Support - Phoronix

www.phoronix.com

Thanks AI....

Can't say I'm surprised given the slop of AI bug reports flooding everything. Overall it seems to be driving maintainers of open source software to the point of quitting at an alarming rate. Hopefully it won't be too hard to compile out-of-tree or be replaced with something user space. Really puts a damper on work I did for Netatalk and A2SERVER.

I thought the kernel gurus had agreed to back off on this due to community pushback?

 

[slipperygrey]

I thought the kernel gurus had agreed to back off on this due to community pushback?

the commit is unambiguous with the intention:

"Remove AppleTalk. Let it join hamradio in our out of tree protocol graveyard, I mean, repository."

 

[luRaichu]

Well, at least NetBSD still has it...

 

[NJRoadfan]

the commit is unambiguous with the intention:

"Remove AppleTalk. Let it join hamradio in our out of tree protocol graveyard, I mean, repository."

Here is the patch that "broke the camel's back": https://patchew.org/linux/20260614095226.1210-1-zhaoyz24@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn/

Luckily some major fixes were applied with help from @dougg3 and others before this happened. I don't have any issue moving this to a userspace stack, but some more warning would have been appreciated. The kernel only implemented DDP packet handling and AARP, the rest of the lower level protocol suite was provided by Netatalk's atalkd daemon.

This mod-orphan repo is new, so we don't know how future distros are going to handle these modules. There is some commitment to patch them though since LTS distros still include this support.