Actions Semi Owl S500/S900 SoC Ethernet MAC
Native 10/100 Ethernet controller built into Actions Semiconductor's Owl-family ARM SoCs, the S500 (2014) and S900 (2015), used on hobbyist and reference single-board computers such as the Cubieboard6 and the 96Boards Bubblegum-96.
recommendation
Worth keeping but documenting its niche, because the Actions Owl SoCs date to 2014-2015 and only show up today on a handful of single-board computers (the Cubieboard6 still trickles out from resellers, while the Bubblegum-96 actually uses USB Ethernet rather than this native MAC). Real upstream maintenance is still happening, with patches touching the driver as recently as February and June 2025, so removal would hurt the small group of users who still rely on these boards.
repository signals
sources
- lore.kernel.org
The driver received a targeted upstream net-next patch in February 2025, indicating ongoing maintenance rather than abandonment.
- lore.kernel.org
The file was still included in a 2025 net-next RFC touching multiple network drivers; no removal/deprecation signal appears in recent lore activity.
- cateee.net
LKDDb identifies CONFIG_OWL_EMAC as the Actions Semi Owl Ethernet MAC driver for S500/S900 SoCs.
- 96boards.org
A current Bubblegum-96 product page ties the S900 SoC to a 2015-era board and notes Ethernet is via USB expansion, suggesting limited native-EMAC deployment on S900 boards.
- prnewswire.com
Actions announced the S900 in May 2015, anchoring this chipset family as an older platform generation.
- global-plus-tech.com
A reseller page crawled recently still lists the Cubieboard6 (Actions S500) as a product with 10/100 RJ45, implying at least niche new-old-stock availability.
codex reasoning notes (technical)
Lore evidence came from mcp__lore_http__.lore_file_timeline on owl-emac.c; cited lore URLs were taken directly from that result. Local source read via shell showed Kconfig scope: S500/S900 only. LKDDb URL came from web search and confirms driver binding. 96Boards and PRNewswire URLs came from web search and date the platform to the 2015 Bubblegum-96/S900 era; 96Boards also shows S900 board networking is USB Ethernet, not native EMAC. The reseller URL came from web search and is the main reason hardware_still_sold_new_in_2025 is true, but availability appears niche rather than broad, so deployments are low and removal is not justified while upstream maintenance continues.