Commit | Line | Data |
---|---|---|
1da177e4 LT |
1 | The following is a list of files and features that are going to be |
2 | removed in the kernel source tree. Every entry should contain what | |
3 | exactly is going away, why it is happening, and who is going to be doing | |
4 | the work. When the feature is removed from the kernel, it should also | |
5 | be removed from this file. | |
6 | ||
7 | --------------------------- | |
8 | ||
9e402102 JS |
9 | What: MXSER |
10 | When: December 2007 | |
11 | Why: Old mxser driver is obsoleted by the mxser_new. Give it some time yet | |
12 | and remove it. | |
13 | Who: Jiri Slaby <jirislaby@gmail.com> | |
14 | ||
15 | --------------------------- | |
16 | ||
3f3f6a59 HV |
17 | What: V4L2 VIDIOC_G_MPEGCOMP and VIDIOC_S_MPEGCOMP |
18 | When: October 2007 | |
19 | Why: 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. | |
24 | Who: Hans Verkuil <hverkuil@xs4all.nl> and | |
25 | Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@infradead.org> | |
26 | ||
27 | --------------------------- | |
28 | ||
471d0558 | 29 | What: dev->power.power_state |
1ebfd79e PM |
30 | When: July 2007 |
31 | Why: 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. | |
38 | Who: Pavel Machek <pavel@suse.cz> | |
39 | ||
40 | --------------------------- | |
41 | ||
a6bcbc2f CH |
42 | What: old NCR53C9x driver |
43 | When: October 2007 | |
44 | Why: Replaced by the much better esp_scsi driver. Actual low-level | |
ed56047a | 45 | driver can be ported over almost trivially. |
a6bcbc2f CH |
46 | Who: David Miller <davem@davemloft.net> |
47 | Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de> | |
48 | ||
49 | --------------------------- | |
50 | ||
875c296b | 51 | What: Video4Linux API 1 ioctls and video_decoder.h from Video devices. |
48c06d5e | 52 | When: December 2006 |
0a920b5b | 53 | Files: include/linux/video_decoder.h |
f0a594c1 | 54 | Check: include/linux/video_decoder.h |
875c296b MCC |
55 | Why: V4L1 AP1 was replaced by V4L2 API. during migration from 2.4 to 2.6 |
56 | series. The old API have lots of drawbacks and don't provide enough | |
57 | means to work with all video and audio standards. The newer API is | |
58 | already available on the main drivers and should be used instead. | |
59 | Newer drivers should use v4l_compat_translate_ioctl function to handle | |
60 | old calls, replacing to newer ones. | |
61 | Decoder iocts are using internally to allow video drivers to | |
62 | communicate with video decoders. This should also be improved to allow | |
63 | V4L2 calls being translated into compatible internal ioctls. | |
64 | Who: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@brturbo.com.br> | |
65 | ||
66 | --------------------------- | |
67 | ||
bf45d9b0 DB |
68 | What: PCMCIA control ioctl (needed for pcmcia-cs [cardmgr, cardctl]) |
69 | When: November 2005 | |
70 | Files: drivers/pcmcia/: pcmcia_ioctl.c | |
71 | Why: With the 16-bit PCMCIA subsystem now behaving (almost) like a | |
72 | normal hotpluggable bus, and with it using the default kernel | |
73 | infrastructure (hotplug, driver core, sysfs) keeping the PCMCIA | |
74 | control ioctl needed by cardmgr and cardctl from pcmcia-cs is | |
75 | unnecessary, and makes further cleanups and integration of the | |
76 | PCMCIA subsystem into the Linux kernel device driver model more | |
77 | difficult. The features provided by cardmgr and cardctl are either | |
78 | handled by the kernel itself now or are available in the new | |
79 | pcmciautils package available at | |
80 | http://kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/pcmcia/ | |
81 | Who: Dominik Brodowski <linux@brodo.de> | |
7af4cc3f HW |
82 | |
83 | --------------------------- | |
84 | ||
7058cb02 EB |
85 | What: sys_sysctl |
86 | When: September 2010 | |
87 | Option: CONFIG_SYSCTL_SYSCALL | |
88 | Why: The same information is available in a more convenient from | |
89 | /proc/sys, and none of the sysctl variables appear to be | |
90 | important performance wise. | |
91 | ||
92 | Binary sysctls are a long standing source of subtle kernel | |
93 | bugs and security issues. | |
94 | ||
95 | When I looked several months ago all I could find after | |
96 | searching several distributions were 5 user space programs and | |
97 | glibc (which falls back to /proc/sys) using this syscall. | |
98 | ||
99 | The man page for sysctl(2) documents it as unusable for user | |
100 | space programs. | |
101 | ||
102 | sysctl(2) is not generally ABI compatible to a 32bit user | |
103 | space application on a 64bit and a 32bit kernel. | |
104 | ||
105 | For the last several months the policy has been no new binary | |
106 | sysctls and no one has put forward an argument to use them. | |
107 | ||
108 | Binary sysctls issues seem to keep happening appearing so | |
109 | properly deprecating them (with a warning to user space) and a | |
110 | 2 year grace warning period will mean eventually we can kill | |
111 | them and end the pain. | |
112 | ||
113 | In the mean time individual binary sysctls can be dealt with | |
114 | in a piecewise fashion. | |
115 | ||
116 | Who: Eric Biederman <ebiederm@xmission.com> | |
117 | ||
118 | --------------------------- | |
119 | ||
8e9073ed AK |
120 | What: a.out interpreter support for ELF executables |
121 | When: 2.6.25 | |
122 | Files: fs/binfmt_elf.c | |
123 | Why: Using a.out interpreters for ELF executables was a feature for | |
124 | transition from a.out to ELF. But now it is unlikely to be still | |
125 | needed anymore and removing it would simplify the hairy ELF | |
126 | loader code. | |
127 | Who: Andi Kleen <ak@suse.de> | |
128 | ||
129 | --------------------------- | |
130 | ||
ac515898 CH |
131 | What: remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(kernel_thread) |
132 | When: August 2006 | |
133 | Files: arch/*/kernel/*_ksyms.c | |
f0a594c1 | 134 | Check: kernel_thread |
ac515898 CH |
135 | Why: kernel_thread is a low-level implementation detail. Drivers should |
136 | use the <linux/kthread.h> API instead which shields them from | |
137 | implementation details and provides a higherlevel interface that | |
138 | prevents bugs and code duplication | |
139 | Who: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de> | |
140 | ||
141 | --------------------------- | |
142 | ||
a9df3d0f IM |
143 | What: CONFIG_FORCED_INLINING |
144 | When: June 2006 | |
145 | Why: Config option is there to see if gcc is good enough. (in january | |
146 | 2006). If it is, the behavior should just be the default. If it's not, | |
147 | the option should just go away entirely. | |
148 | Who: Arjan van de Ven | |
149 | ||
150 | --------------------------- | |
151 | ||
c0d3c0c0 B |
152 | What: eepro100 network driver |
153 | When: January 2007 | |
154 | Why: replaced by the e100 driver | |
155 | Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de> | |
3c9b3a85 JG |
156 | |
157 | --------------------------- | |
158 | ||
f71d20e9 AV |
159 | What: Unused EXPORT_SYMBOL/EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL exports |
160 | (temporary transition config option provided until then) | |
161 | The transition config option will also be removed at the same time. | |
162 | When: before 2.6.19 | |
163 | Why: Unused symbols are both increasing the size of the kernel binary | |
164 | and are often a sign of "wrong API" | |
165 | Who: Arjan van de Ven <arjan@linux.intel.com> | |
166 | ||
167 | --------------------------- | |
168 | ||
b87ba0a3 | 169 | What: USB driver API moves to EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL |
a2ffd275 | 170 | When: February 2008 |
b87ba0a3 GKH |
171 | Files: include/linux/usb.h, drivers/usb/core/driver.c |
172 | Why: The USB subsystem has changed a lot over time, and it has been | |
173 | possible to create userspace USB drivers using usbfs/libusb/gadgetfs | |
174 | that operate as fast as the USB bus allows. Because of this, the USB | |
175 | subsystem will not be allowing closed source kernel drivers to | |
176 | register with it, after this grace period is over. If anyone needs | |
177 | any help in converting their closed source drivers over to use the | |
178 | userspace filesystems, please contact the | |
179 | linux-usb-devel@lists.sourceforge.net mailing list, and the developers | |
180 | there will be glad to help you out. | |
181 | Who: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de> | |
93fac704 NP |
182 | |
183 | --------------------------- | |
127fe6af | 184 | |
54cb8821 | 185 | What: vm_ops.nopage |
d0217ac0 | 186 | When: Soon, provided in-kernel callers have been converted |
54cb8821 NP |
187 | Why: This interface is replaced by vm_ops.fault, but it has been around |
188 | forever, is used by a lot of drivers, and doesn't cost much to | |
189 | maintain. | |
190 | Who: Nick Piggin <npiggin@suse.de> | |
191 | ||
192 | --------------------------- | |
193 | ||
6e213616 | 194 | What: Interrupt only SA_* flags |
0e8638e2 | 195 | When: September 2007 |
6e213616 TG |
196 | Why: The interrupt related SA_* flags are replaced by IRQF_* to move them |
197 | out of the signal namespace. | |
198 | ||
199 | Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de> | |
200 | ||
201 | --------------------------- | |
5a017483 | 202 | |
d81d9d6b | 203 | What: PHYSDEVPATH, PHYSDEVBUS, PHYSDEVDRIVER in the uevent environment |
acbd39fb | 204 | When: October 2008 |
d81d9d6b KS |
205 | Why: The stacking of class devices makes these values misleading and |
206 | inconsistent. | |
207 | Class devices should not carry any of these properties, and bus | |
208 | devices have SUBSYTEM and DRIVER as a replacement. | |
209 | Who: Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@suse.de> | |
210 | ||
211 | --------------------------- | |
6c805d2c | 212 | |
fccb56e4 | 213 | What: i2c_adapter.list |
b119dc3f | 214 | When: July 2007 |
fccb56e4 JD |
215 | Why: Superfluous, this list duplicates the one maintained by the driver |
216 | core. | |
b119dc3f DB |
217 | Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>, |
218 | David Brownell <dbrownell@users.sourceforge.net> | |
219 | ||
220 | --------------------------- | |
221 | ||
b981c591 | 222 | What: ACPI procfs interface |
8b8eb7d8 ZR |
223 | When: July 2008 |
224 | Why: ACPI sysfs conversion should be finished by January 2008. | |
225 | ACPI procfs interface will be removed in July 2008 so that | |
226 | there is enough time for the user space to catch up. | |
b981c591 ZR |
227 | Who: Zhang Rui <rui.zhang@intel.com> |
228 | ||
229 | --------------------------- | |
230 | ||
1bb67c25 LB |
231 | What: /proc/acpi/button |
232 | When: August 2007 | |
233 | Why: /proc/acpi/button has been replaced by events to the input layer | |
234 | since 2.6.20. | |
235 | Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com> | |
236 | ||
237 | --------------------------- | |
54b290a2 | 238 | |
14e04fb3 LB |
239 | What: /proc/acpi/event |
240 | When: February 2008 | |
241 | Why: /proc/acpi/event has been replaced by events via the input layer | |
242 | and netlink since 2.6.23. | |
243 | Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com> | |
244 | ||
245 | --------------------------- | |
246 | ||
11de70bd JD |
247 | What: i2c-ixp2000, i2c-ixp4xx and scx200_i2c drivers |
248 | When: September 2007 | |
249 | Why: Obsolete. The new i2c-gpio driver replaces all hardware-specific | |
250 | I2C-over-GPIO drivers. | |
251 | Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org> | |
252 | ||
253 | --------------------------- | |
274ee1cd | 254 | |
e84845c4 RD |
255 | What: 'time' kernel boot parameter |
256 | When: January 2008 | |
257 | Why: replaced by 'printk.time=<value>' so that printk timestamps can be | |
258 | enabled or disabled as needed | |
259 | Who: Randy Dunlap <randy.dunlap@oracle.com> | |
260 | ||
261 | --------------------------- | |
262 | ||
274ee1cd AB |
263 | What: drivers depending on OSS_OBSOLETE |
264 | When: options in 2.6.23, code in 2.6.25 | |
265 | Why: obsolete OSS drivers | |
266 | Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de> | |
267 | ||
268 | --------------------------- | |
269 | ||
d9aca22c | 270 | What: libata spindown skipping and warning |
920a4b10 | 271 | When: Dec 2008 |
d9aca22c TH |
272 | Why: Some halt(8) implementations synchronize caches for and spin |
273 | down libata disks because libata didn't use to spin down disk on | |
274 | system halt (only synchronized caches). | |
275 | Spin down on system halt is now implemented. sysfs node | |
276 | /sys/class/scsi_disk/h:c:i:l/manage_start_stop is present if | |
277 | spin down support is available. | |
920a4b10 | 278 | Because issuing spin down command to an already spun down disk |
d9aca22c TH |
279 | makes some disks spin up just to spin down again, libata tracks |
280 | device spindown status to skip the extra spindown command and | |
281 | warn about it. | |
282 | This is to give userspace tools the time to get updated and will | |
283 | be removed after userspace is reasonably updated. | |
920a4b10 TH |
284 | Who: Tejun Heo <htejun@gmail.com> |
285 | ||
286 | --------------------------- | |
287 | ||
ba7fbb72 JD |
288 | What: Legacy RTC drivers (under drivers/i2c/chips) |
289 | When: November 2007 | |
290 | Why: Obsolete. We have a RTC subsystem with better drivers. | |
291 | Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org> | |
292 | ||
293 | --------------------------- | |
294 | ||
3569b621 PM |
295 | What: iptables SAME target |
296 | When: 1.1. 2008 | |
297 | Files: net/ipv4/netfilter/ipt_SAME.c, include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ipt_SAME.h | |
298 | Why: Obsolete for multiple years now, NAT core provides the same behaviour. | |
299 | Unfixable broken wrt. 32/64 bit cleanness. | |
300 | Who: Patrick McHardy <kaber@trash.net> | |
301 | ||
302 | --------------------------- | |
489de302 | 303 | |
0b7dbfbf JB |
304 | What: The arch/ppc and include/asm-ppc directories |
305 | When: Jun 2008 | |
306 | Why: The arch/powerpc tree is the merged architecture for ppc32 and ppc64 | |
307 | platforms. Currently there are efforts underway to port the remaining | |
308 | arch/ppc platforms to the merged tree. New submissions to the arch/ppc | |
309 | tree have been frozen with the 2.6.22 kernel release and that tree will | |
310 | remain in bug-fix only mode until its scheduled removal. Platforms | |
311 | that are not ported by June 2008 will be removed due to the lack of an | |
312 | interested maintainer. | |
313 | Who: linuxppc-dev@ozlabs.org | |
314 | ||
315 | --------------------------- | |
f6be6fbe RD |
316 | |
317 | What: mthca driver's MSI support | |
318 | When: January 2008 | |
319 | Files: drivers/infiniband/hw/mthca/*.[ch] | |
320 | Why: All mthca hardware also supports MSI-X, which provides | |
321 | strictly more functionality than MSI. So there is no point in | |
322 | having both MSI-X and MSI support in the driver. | |
323 | Who: Roland Dreier <rolandd@cisco.com> | |
324 | ||
325 | --------------------------- | |
5ad887fa SH |
326 | |
327 | What: sk98lin network driver | |
328 | When: Feburary 2008 | |
329 | Why: In kernel tree version of driver is unmaintained. Sk98lin driver | |
330 | replaced by the skge driver. | |
331 | Who: Stephen Hemminger <shemminger@linux-foundation.org> | |
332 | ||
333 | --------------------------- | |
914d97fd TG |
334 | |
335 | What: i386/x86_64 bzImage symlinks | |
336 | When: April 2008 | |
337 | ||
338 | Why: The i386/x86_64 merge provides a symlink to the old bzImage | |
339 | location so not yet updated user space tools, e.g. package | |
340 | scripts, do not break. | |
341 | Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de> | |
038a5008 LT |
342 | |
343 | --------------------------- | |
344 | ||
6f4fc423 SH |
345 | What: shaper network driver |
346 | When: January 2008 | |
347 | Files: drivers/net/shaper.c, include/linux/if_shaper.h | |
348 | Why: This driver has been marked obsolete for many years. | |
349 | It was only designed to work on lower speed links and has design | |
350 | flaws that lead to machine crashes. The qdisc infrastructure in | |
351 | 2.4 or later kernels, provides richer features and is more robust. | |
352 | Who: Stephen Hemminger <shemminger@linux-foundation.org> | |
038a5008 LT |
353 | |
354 | --------------------------- |