Four old Error Detection And Correction (EDAC) drivers are being orphaned for Linux 7.4, and the maintainer behind the change pointed to a wave of AI-generated fixes for hardware almost nobody runs on current mainline kernels.
EDAC maintainer Borislav Petkov of AMD sent the EDAC pull request for the Linux 7.4 merge window on October 19, 2026, Phoronix reported. In it he wrote:
“Orphan several EDAC drivers: i82975x, x38, xgene, i3200. Those have been receiving just drive-by updates and no one really uses them. At least there are no traces of usage on the mailing lists. So, with the advent of AI-generated fixes frenzy, and because no one can really test fixes on those, it is time to sunset them and point them towards the eternal happy hunting-grounds.”
All four cover aging hardware. The i82975x driver is for Intel’s 975X Express chipset, which Phoronix’s Michael Larabel recalled owning about two decades ago. The x38 driver covers the Intel X38 MCH, and i3200 is for Intel’s 3200/3210 chipset. The xgene driver supports the AppliedMicro X-Gene SoC, a line that continued as the X-Gene 3 in Ampere’s eMAG after Ampere Computing acquired it.
Orphaning is a first step. According to Phoronix, the drivers are expected to be removed in a follow-on kernel release.
Same problem networking hit in April
EDAC isn’t the first subsystem to push back this way. In April, Phoronix reported that old network drivers had become a maintenance burden as fuzzing and AI-driven bug detection produced a stream of reports and patches for drivers that may have no real users, and networking developers began proposing to drop them. Petkov’s reasoning is similar: nobody can test fixes on these chipsets, so patches keep arriving with no way to validate them.
The pull request also adds code. A new dummy EDAC driver lets developers test the EDAC core from inside a virtual machine. Linux 7.4 also brings the Intel BFF driver, which resets the Bitfix Filter on Intel’s upcoming Diamond Rapids server processors so repeated corrected errors from stuck bits in aging silicon don’t clog it. Phoronix also noted “a lot of AI-powered fixes” to the rest of the EDAC code in the same pull.
The 7.4 merge window opened after Linux 7.3 was released on October 18. Phoronix wrote that, with 7.3 out on schedule, Linux 7.4 has a chance of shipping before the end of December.