Toshiba TC35815 PCI Ethernet and PlayStation 3 Gelic network adapters
Two unrelated Toshiba network controllers bundled in one directory: the TC35815, a 10/100 Mbps PCI Ethernet chip used on older MIPS embedded boards, and the Gelic, the built-in network interface of Sony's PlayStation 3 console (which was co-designed with Toshiba and produced from 2006 until the PS3 line ended in 2017).
recommendation
Worth keeping but documenting as legacy because both pieces of hardware are out of production yet still receiving small upstream fixes in late 2025. The Gelic side serves PlayStation 3 owners running Linux (the console itself was discontinued in 2017 and OpenWrt lists PS3 support as stable but unmaintained), and the TC35815 side serves a handful of older MIPS embedded boards. No replacement driver covers either chip, so removing them would strand the remaining hobbyist users.
repository signals
sources
- lore.kernel.org
ps3_gelic_net still received a real bug-fix patch in November 2025, indicating ongoing upstream attention for legacy users.
- lore.kernel.org
ps3_gelic_net also received a small API-modernization patch in November 2025, reinforcing that the driver is not abandoned upstream.
- lore.kernel.org
tc35815.c was touched by a 2025 networking/phylib cleanup, so the MIPS-side driver still participates in current tree maintenance.
- cateee.net
LKDDb shows TC35815 is a Toshiba PCI 10/100 Ethernet controller, MIPS-only in current Kconfig, consistent with old embedded/board support rather than new mainstream deployments.
- en.wikipedia.org
PlayStation 3 hardware production ended in 2017, so the Gelic portion of this directory targets discontinued hardware.
- openwrt.org
OpenWrt still documents PS3 as 'Stable, unmaintained', which suggests a surviving hobbyist/legacy niche rather than active new deployment.
codex reasoning notes (technical)
Shell inspection of Kconfig/Makefile showed this directory contains two real drivers: PS3 Gelic (PPC_PS3) and TC35815 (PCI && MIPS). lore_activity provided the 2025 netdev/linuxppc-dev URLs showing real recent maintenance, so removal/deprecate would be too aggressive. lore_file_timeline on tc35815.c showed continued touches through 2025, though mostly low-volume maintenance. Web search returned LKDDb, Wikipedia, and OpenWrt URLs; together they indicate discontinued hardware with only residual legacy/hobbyist use. No natural replacement driver covers the same PS3 or TC35815 hardware, so the best fit is keep-annotate: keep upstream, but mark as legacy/obsolete hardware in dossier terms.