Summary
Linux 7.2 removes the RC Systems DoubleTalk PC ISA speech synthesizer driver.
The driver has coding-style issues and has only seen minor fixes since Linux 2.6.
The same hardware is supported by another driver, so removing the driver cuts maintenance without breaking support.
In an ideal world, Linux would support every piece of tech that has ever been released for all of eternity. There’s just one problem: people have to maintain that code, and there’s the very real chance that nobody is actually benefiting from it. The result is a lot of manpower spent on ensuring that a piece of legacy hardware continues working with Linux, with zero guarantee that anyone actually uses it.
As such, we’ll occasionally see legacy hardware support dropped from the kernel, and it’s fascinating to see what kind of tech Linux did support until someone decided to end it. Such is the case of the RC Systems DoubleTalk PC ISA speech synthesizer card driver, a piece of tech that was released in 1991, which is being retired in Linux 7.2. The best part is, it doesn’t even spell doom for anyone who still uses one of these cards.
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Linux 7.2 will remove a DoubleTalk PC ISA speech synthesizer driver that’s been around for years
Yeah, I’ve never heard of it either
As reported by Phoronix, a new change has been signed off on for the Linux 7.2 kernel. This change removed a driver specifically coded for one of RC Systems’ legacy accessibility devices, the DoubleTalk PC ISA speech synthesizer card. It came out 35 years ago, so the driver has a few years on it now.
However, there’s some good news for anyone who still uses one. As per the patch’s changelog:
The dtlk driver supports the RC Systems DoubleTalk PC ISA speech synthesizer card. It has severe coding style issues and has only received tree-wide fixes and drive-by cleanups in the entire Git history (since Linux 2.6.12-rc2). The same hardware is supported by drivers/accessibility/speakup for screen reader use, but that implementation does not share any code with this driver. Given all of these factors, it is likely the driver is entirely unused. Remove it to reduce future maintenance workload.
Yes, that’s right; it turns out that anyone using this ISA speech synthesizer can instead use a different driver that handles these kinds of devices. It’s just that this specific driver has only seen people kicking it around to keep it tidy since Linux 2.6, so if anyone is still using one of these cards, they’re probably not using that driver. Still, it’s cool to see a little bit of Linux legacy put to bed for good.
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