PM: remove deprecated dpm_runtime_* routines
[linux-block.git] / Documentation / feature-removal-schedule.txt
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1The following is a list of files and features that are going to be
2removed in the kernel source tree. Every entry should contain what
3exactly is going away, why it is happening, and who is going to be doing
4the work. When the feature is removed from the kernel, it should also
5be removed from this file.
6
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8
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9What: MXSER
10When: December 2007
11Why: Old mxser driver is obsoleted by the mxser_new. Give it some time yet
12 and remove it.
13Who: Jiri Slaby <jirislaby@gmail.com>
14
15---------------------------
16
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17What: V4L2 VIDIOC_G_MPEGCOMP and VIDIOC_S_MPEGCOMP
18When: October 2007
19Why: Broken attempt to set MPEG compression parameters. These ioctls are
20 not able to implement the wide variety of parameters that can be set
21 by hardware MPEG encoders. A new MPEG control mechanism was created
22 in kernel 2.6.18 that replaces these ioctls. See the V4L2 specification
23 (section 1.9: Extended controls) for more information on this topic.
24Who: Hans Verkuil <hverkuil@xs4all.nl> and
25 Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@infradead.org>
26
27---------------------------
28
471d0558 29What: dev->power.power_state
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30When: July 2007
31Why: Broken design for runtime control over driver power states, confusing
32 driver-internal runtime power management with: mechanisms to support
33 system-wide sleep state transitions; event codes that distinguish
34 different phases of swsusp "sleep" transitions; and userspace policy
35 inputs. This framework was never widely used, and most attempts to
36 use it were broken. Drivers should instead be exposing domain-specific
37 interfaces either to kernel or to userspace.
38Who: Pavel Machek <pavel@suse.cz>
39
40---------------------------
41
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42What: old NCR53C9x driver
43When: October 2007
44Why: Replaced by the much better esp_scsi driver. Actual low-level
ed56047a 45 driver can be ported over almost trivially.
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46Who: David Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
47 Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
48
49---------------------------
50
875c296b 51What: Video4Linux API 1 ioctls and video_decoder.h from Video devices.
48c06d5e 52When: December 2006
0a920b5b 53Files: include/linux/video_decoder.h
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54Why: V4L1 AP1 was replaced by V4L2 API. during migration from 2.4 to 2.6
55 series. The old API have lots of drawbacks and don't provide enough
56 means to work with all video and audio standards. The newer API is
57 already available on the main drivers and should be used instead.
58 Newer drivers should use v4l_compat_translate_ioctl function to handle
59 old calls, replacing to newer ones.
60 Decoder iocts are using internally to allow video drivers to
61 communicate with video decoders. This should also be improved to allow
62 V4L2 calls being translated into compatible internal ioctls.
63Who: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@brturbo.com.br>
64
65---------------------------
66
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67What: PCMCIA control ioctl (needed for pcmcia-cs [cardmgr, cardctl])
68When: November 2005
69Files: drivers/pcmcia/: pcmcia_ioctl.c
70Why: With the 16-bit PCMCIA subsystem now behaving (almost) like a
71 normal hotpluggable bus, and with it using the default kernel
72 infrastructure (hotplug, driver core, sysfs) keeping the PCMCIA
73 control ioctl needed by cardmgr and cardctl from pcmcia-cs is
74 unnecessary, and makes further cleanups and integration of the
75 PCMCIA subsystem into the Linux kernel device driver model more
76 difficult. The features provided by cardmgr and cardctl are either
77 handled by the kernel itself now or are available in the new
78 pcmciautils package available at
79 http://kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/pcmcia/
80Who: Dominik Brodowski <linux@brodo.de>
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81
82---------------------------
83
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84What: remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(kernel_thread)
85When: August 2006
86Files: arch/*/kernel/*_ksyms.c
9739ed1c 87Funcs: kernel_thread
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88Why: kernel_thread is a low-level implementation detail. Drivers should
89 use the <linux/kthread.h> API instead which shields them from
90 implementation details and provides a higherlevel interface that
91 prevents bugs and code duplication
92Who: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
93
94---------------------------
95
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96What: CONFIG_FORCED_INLINING
97When: June 2006
98Why: Config option is there to see if gcc is good enough. (in january
99 2006). If it is, the behavior should just be the default. If it's not,
100 the option should just go away entirely.
101Who: Arjan van de Ven
102
103---------------------------
104
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105What: eepro100 network driver
106When: January 2007
107Why: replaced by the e100 driver
108Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
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109
110---------------------------
111
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112What: Unused EXPORT_SYMBOL/EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL exports
113 (temporary transition config option provided until then)
114 The transition config option will also be removed at the same time.
115When: before 2.6.19
116Why: Unused symbols are both increasing the size of the kernel binary
117 and are often a sign of "wrong API"
118Who: Arjan van de Ven <arjan@linux.intel.com>
119
120---------------------------
121
b87ba0a3 122What: USB driver API moves to EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL
a2ffd275 123When: February 2008
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124Files: include/linux/usb.h, drivers/usb/core/driver.c
125Why: The USB subsystem has changed a lot over time, and it has been
126 possible to create userspace USB drivers using usbfs/libusb/gadgetfs
127 that operate as fast as the USB bus allows. Because of this, the USB
128 subsystem will not be allowing closed source kernel drivers to
129 register with it, after this grace period is over. If anyone needs
130 any help in converting their closed source drivers over to use the
131 userspace filesystems, please contact the
132 linux-usb-devel@lists.sourceforge.net mailing list, and the developers
133 there will be glad to help you out.
134Who: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>
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135
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127fe6af 137
6e213616 138What: Interrupt only SA_* flags
0e8638e2 139When: September 2007
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140Why: The interrupt related SA_* flags are replaced by IRQF_* to move them
141 out of the signal namespace.
142
143Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
144
145---------------------------
5a017483 146
d81d9d6b 147What: PHYSDEVPATH, PHYSDEVBUS, PHYSDEVDRIVER in the uevent environment
acbd39fb 148When: October 2008
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149Why: The stacking of class devices makes these values misleading and
150 inconsistent.
151 Class devices should not carry any of these properties, and bus
152 devices have SUBSYTEM and DRIVER as a replacement.
153Who: Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@suse.de>
154
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156
157What: i2c-isa
158When: December 2006
159Why: i2c-isa is a non-sense and doesn't fit in the device driver
160 model. Drivers relying on it are better implemented as platform
161 drivers.
162Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>
163
164---------------------------
31e7e1a8 165
fccb56e4 166What: i2c_adapter.list
b119dc3f 167When: July 2007
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168Why: Superfluous, this list duplicates the one maintained by the driver
169 core.
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170Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>,
171 David Brownell <dbrownell@users.sourceforge.net>
172
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174
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175What: drivers depending on OBSOLETE_OSS
176When: options in 2.6.22, code in 2.6.24
177Why: OSS drivers with ALSA replacements
178Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
179
180---------------------------
181
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182What: /sys/firmware/acpi/namespace
183When: 2.6.21
184Why: The ACPI namespace is effectively the symbol list for
185 the BIOS. The device names are completely arbitrary
186 and have no place being exposed to user-space.
187
188 For those interested in the BIOS ACPI namespace,
189 the BIOS can be extracted and disassembled with acpidump
190 and iasl as documented in the pmtools package here:
191 http://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/lenb/acpi/utils
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192Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
193
194---------------------------
195
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196What: ACPI procfs interface
197When: July 2007
198Why: After ACPI sysfs conversion, ACPI attributes will be duplicated
199 in sysfs and the ACPI procfs interface should be removed.
200Who: Zhang Rui <rui.zhang@intel.com>
201
202---------------------------
203
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204What: /proc/acpi/button
205When: August 2007
206Why: /proc/acpi/button has been replaced by events to the input layer
207 since 2.6.20.
208Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
209
210---------------------------
54b290a2 211
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212What: Compaq touchscreen device emulation
213When: Oct 2007
214Files: drivers/input/tsdev.c
215Why: The code says it was obsolete when it was written in 2001.
216 tslib is a userspace library which does anything tsdev can do and
217 much more besides in userspace where this code belongs. There is no
218 longer any need for tsdev and applications should have converted to
219 use tslib by now.
220 The name "tsdev" is also extremely confusing and lots of people have
221 it loaded when they don't need/use it.
222Who: Richard Purdie <rpurdie@rpsys.net>
223
224---------------------------
cc2cccae 225
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226What: read_dev_chars(), read_conf_data{,_lpm}() (s390 common I/O layer)
227When: December 2007
228Why: These functions are a leftover from 2.4 times. They have several
229 problems:
230 - Duplication of checks that are done in the device driver's
231 interrupt handler
232 - common I/O layer can't do device specific error recovery
233 - device driver can't be notified for conditions happening during
234 execution of the function
235 Device drivers should issue the read device characteristics and read
236 configuration data ccws and do the appropriate error handling
237 themselves.
238Who: Cornelia Huck <cornelia.huck@de.ibm.com>
239
240---------------------------
241
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242What: i2c-ixp2000, i2c-ixp4xx and scx200_i2c drivers
243When: September 2007
244Why: Obsolete. The new i2c-gpio driver replaces all hardware-specific
245 I2C-over-GPIO drivers.
246Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>
247
248---------------------------
274ee1cd 249
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250What: 'time' kernel boot parameter
251When: January 2008
252Why: replaced by 'printk.time=<value>' so that printk timestamps can be
253 enabled or disabled as needed
254Who: Randy Dunlap <randy.dunlap@oracle.com>
255
256---------------------------
257
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258What: drivers depending on OSS_OBSOLETE
259When: options in 2.6.23, code in 2.6.25
260Why: obsolete OSS drivers
261Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
262
263---------------------------
264
d9aca22c 265What: libata spindown skipping and warning
920a4b10 266When: Dec 2008
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267Why: Some halt(8) implementations synchronize caches for and spin
268 down libata disks because libata didn't use to spin down disk on
269 system halt (only synchronized caches).
270 Spin down on system halt is now implemented. sysfs node
271 /sys/class/scsi_disk/h:c:i:l/manage_start_stop is present if
272 spin down support is available.
920a4b10 273 Because issuing spin down command to an already spun down disk
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274 makes some disks spin up just to spin down again, libata tracks
275 device spindown status to skip the extra spindown command and
276 warn about it.
277 This is to give userspace tools the time to get updated and will
278 be removed after userspace is reasonably updated.
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279Who: Tejun Heo <htejun@gmail.com>
280
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282
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283What: Legacy RTC drivers (under drivers/i2c/chips)
284When: November 2007
285Why: Obsolete. We have a RTC subsystem with better drivers.
286Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>
287
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289
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290What: iptables SAME target
291When: 1.1. 2008
292Files: net/ipv4/netfilter/ipt_SAME.c, include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ipt_SAME.h
293Why: Obsolete for multiple years now, NAT core provides the same behaviour.
294 Unfixable broken wrt. 32/64 bit cleanness.
295Who: Patrick McHardy <kaber@trash.net>
296
297---------------------------
489de302 298
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299What: The arch/ppc and include/asm-ppc directories
300When: Jun 2008
301Why: The arch/powerpc tree is the merged architecture for ppc32 and ppc64
302 platforms. Currently there are efforts underway to port the remaining
303 arch/ppc platforms to the merged tree. New submissions to the arch/ppc
304 tree have been frozen with the 2.6.22 kernel release and that tree will
305 remain in bug-fix only mode until its scheduled removal. Platforms
306 that are not ported by June 2008 will be removed due to the lack of an
307 interested maintainer.
308Who: linuxppc-dev@ozlabs.org
309
310---------------------------