[RFC] bcm63xx: drop target

[Noltari]

bcm63xx maintainance is a PITA since there's no full Device Tree support and therefore every board needs it's own definition in board_bcm963xx.c.
There's no DSA support for this target and there have been very few contributions in the last years.
Moreover, BCM63xx SoCs >= BCM6358 are already supported in bmips target, so any efforts to keep this target alive aren't worth the time.
Let's focus the community efforts on improving bmips instead.

CC @ffainelli @KanjiMonster @danitool

[ynezz]

Let's focus the community efforts on improving bmips instead.

Sounds like a good plan, thus this proposal makes sense to me, thanks!

[ynezz]

BTW feel free to move it over to https://github.com/openwrt/targets

[robimarko]

LGTM, especially since there is a target that replaces it

[rikka0w0]

Let's focus the community efforts on improving bmips instead.

I'm adding support for a BCM63168 OEM router and i found that the "gpio-leds" does not work BMIPS target. It worked on the old BCM63xx target. I removed the "gpio-leds" in the DTS and compiled it against the latest BMIPS codes, then tried to control the LEDs via /sys/class/gpio, it doesn't work, except for GPIO8. (I tried to toggle all 52 GPIOs)

In my DTS, LEDs driven by the 74HC161 shift-register and GPIO LEDs (<24) are controlled by the hardware LED controller and working as expected. However, my router has LEDs that are attached to GPIOs >32, and "gpio-leds" is the only option, as the LED controller hardware only supports up to 24 LEDs.

In my BMIPS image, command ls /sys/class/gpio gives: export gpiochip460 unexport and cat /sys/class/gpio/gpiochip460/ngpio gives 52. But I remembered back in the BCM63xx target, there were two gpiochip instances.

This wiki page said that:

When having more than 32 GPIOs they are splitted between 2 gpiochips. The labels in the Linux kernel are:

bcm63xx-gpio.0
bcm63xx-gpio.1

So I think there might be some problem with the GPIO controller driver on the BMIPS target?

#14664

[Noltari]

Let's focus the community efforts on improving bmips instead.

I'm adding support for a BCM63168 OEM router and i found that the "gpio-leds" does not work BMIPS target. It worked on the old BCM63xx target. I removed the "gpio-leds" in the DTS and compiled it against the latest BMIPS codes, then tried to control the LEDs via /sys/class/gpio, it doesn't work, except for GPIO8. (I tried to toggle all 52 GPIOs)

In my DTS, LEDs driven by the 74HC161 shift-register and GPIO LEDs (<24) are controlled by the hardware LED controller and working as expected. However, my router has LEDs that are attached to GPIOs >32, and "gpio-leds" is the only option, as the LED controller hardware only supports up to 24 LEDs.

In my BMIPS image, command ls /sys/class/gpio gives: export gpiochip460 unexport and cat /sys/class/gpio/gpiochip460/ngpio gives 52. But I remembered back in the BCM63xx target, there were two gpiochip instances.

This wiki page said that:

When having more than 32 GPIOs they are splitted between 2 gpiochips. The labels in the Linux kernel are:

bcm63xx-gpio.0
bcm63xx-gpio.1

So I think there might be some problem with the GPIO controller driver on the BMIPS target?

#14664

@rikka0w0 as @ynezz already stated, please open a new PR as draft and I/others will try to help you there.
Posting this here is offtopic.

[Noltari]

BTW feel free to move it over to https://github.com/openwrt/targets

Done, openwrt/targets@a1497c4