RM: ndiswrapper from Ubuntu groovy

[Seth Forshee]

Please consider removing ndiswrapper from Ubuntu groovy. ndiswrapper enables the use of Windows XP wireless drivers, and broadly speaking this means that it only supports relatively old wireless hardware. I don't have any information about how many installs we see of ndiswrapper packages, but if the volume of bug reports is any indication then it is not widely used. In fact, most of the reported bugs in the past several years are reports from the kernel team of build failures in autopkgtest with new upstream kernels.

The upstream project is no longer under development and receives minimal maintenance. There have only been a couple of commits each year for the past several years [1], and the most recent update to fix the build with newer kernels even comments that the changes were only build tested [2].

reverse-depends reports no binary or source dependencies for the package.

[1] https://github.com/pgiri/ndiswrapper/commits/master/ndiswrapper
[2] https://github.com/pgiri/ndiswrapper/commit/a3539e0e06ce88b605c3f0efa61461b1ebbcf3db

[Julian Andres Klode (juliank)]

+1

[Julian Andres Klode (juliank)]

Could of course just stop fixing it for every backported kernel, and only support the original generic kernel. Kind of niche use.

I don't think I ever tested a single upload, they were all just build tests.

Thinking whether to remove it from Debian or not.

[Julian Andres Klode (juliank)]

I never merged anything after 1.60 as 1.61 failed to build - wonder if current versions are fixed, but also pretty meh.

[Julian Andres Klode (juliank)]

I've asked Debian archive to remove too

[Daniel Letzeisen (dtl131)]

It's also worth pointing out that if Ubuntu only offers 64-bit ISO's, ndiswrapper would require drivers from Windows XP Pro x64, which are much rarer than WinXP 32-bit driver.

[Andy Whitcroft (apw)]

This package seems to be essentially unmaintained upstream. Removal already requested in Debian. Security concerns seem valid. Removing:

$ remove-package -m "Unmaintained upstream; Removal requested in Debian; security concerns; LP: #1888314" -s groovy ndiswrapper
Removing packages from groovy:
        ndiswrapper 1.60-8ubuntu2 in groovy
                ndiswrapper 1.60-8ubuntu2 in groovy amd64
                ndiswrapper-dkms 1.60-8ubuntu2 in groovy amd64
                ndiswrapper-dkms 1.60-8ubuntu2 in groovy arm64
                ndiswrapper-dkms 1.60-8ubuntu2 in groovy armhf
                ndiswrapper-dkms 1.60-8ubuntu2 in groovy i386
                ndiswrapper-dkms 1.60-8ubuntu2 in groovy ppc64el
                ndiswrapper-dkms 1.60-8ubuntu2 in groovy riscv64
                ndiswrapper-dkms 1.60-8ubuntu2 in groovy s390x
                ndiswrapper-source 1.60-8ubuntu2 in groovy amd64
                ndiswrapper-source 1.60-8ubuntu2 in groovy arm64
                ndiswrapper-source 1.60-8ubuntu2 in groovy armhf
                ndiswrapper-source 1.60-8ubuntu2 in groovy i386
                ndiswrapper-source 1.60-8ubuntu2 in groovy ppc64el
                ndiswrapper-source 1.60-8ubuntu2 in groovy riscv64
                ndiswrapper-source 1.60-8ubuntu2 in groovy s390x
Comment: Unmaintained upstream; Removal requested in Debian; security concerns; LP: #1888314
1 package successfully removed.