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.
7 ---------------------------
9 What: dev->power.power_state
11 Why: Broken design for runtime control over driver power states, confusing
12 driver-internal runtime power management with: mechanisms to support
13 system-wide sleep state transitions; event codes that distinguish
14 different phases of swsusp "sleep" transitions; and userspace policy
15 inputs. This framework was never widely used, and most attempts to
16 use it were broken. Drivers should instead be exposing domain-specific
17 interfaces either to kernel or to userspace.
18 Who: Pavel Machek <pavel@suse.cz>
20 ---------------------------
22 What: old NCR53C9x driver
24 Why: Replaced by the much better esp_scsi driver. Actual low-level
25 driver can be ported over almost trivially.
26 Who: David Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
27 Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
29 ---------------------------
31 What: Video4Linux API 1 ioctls and video_decoder.h from Video devices.
33 Files: include/linux/video_decoder.h include/linux/videodev.h
34 Check: include/linux/video_decoder.h include/linux/videodev.h
35 Why: V4L1 AP1 was replaced by V4L2 API during migration from 2.4 to 2.6
36 series. The old API have lots of drawbacks and don't provide enough
37 means to work with all video and audio standards. The newer API is
38 already available on the main drivers and should be used instead.
39 Newer drivers should use v4l_compat_translate_ioctl function to handle
40 old calls, replacing to newer ones.
41 Decoder iocts are using internally to allow video drivers to
42 communicate with video decoders. This should also be improved to allow
43 V4L2 calls being translated into compatible internal ioctls.
44 Compatibility ioctls will be provided, for a while, via
46 Who: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@infradead.org>
48 ---------------------------
50 What: PCMCIA control ioctl (needed for pcmcia-cs [cardmgr, cardctl])
52 Files: drivers/pcmcia/: pcmcia_ioctl.c
53 Why: With the 16-bit PCMCIA subsystem now behaving (almost) like a
54 normal hotpluggable bus, and with it using the default kernel
55 infrastructure (hotplug, driver core, sysfs) keeping the PCMCIA
56 control ioctl needed by cardmgr and cardctl from pcmcia-cs is
57 unnecessary, and makes further cleanups and integration of the
58 PCMCIA subsystem into the Linux kernel device driver model more
59 difficult. The features provided by cardmgr and cardctl are either
60 handled by the kernel itself now or are available in the new
61 pcmciautils package available at
62 http://kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/pcmcia/
63 Who: Dominik Brodowski <linux@brodo.de>
65 ---------------------------
69 Option: CONFIG_SYSCTL_SYSCALL
70 Why: The same information is available in a more convenient from
71 /proc/sys, and none of the sysctl variables appear to be
72 important performance wise.
74 Binary sysctls are a long standing source of subtle kernel
75 bugs and security issues.
77 When I looked several months ago all I could find after
78 searching several distributions were 5 user space programs and
79 glibc (which falls back to /proc/sys) using this syscall.
81 The man page for sysctl(2) documents it as unusable for user
84 sysctl(2) is not generally ABI compatible to a 32bit user
85 space application on a 64bit and a 32bit kernel.
87 For the last several months the policy has been no new binary
88 sysctls and no one has put forward an argument to use them.
90 Binary sysctls issues seem to keep happening appearing so
91 properly deprecating them (with a warning to user space) and a
92 2 year grace warning period will mean eventually we can kill
93 them and end the pain.
95 In the mean time individual binary sysctls can be dealt with
96 in a piecewise fashion.
98 Who: Eric Biederman <ebiederm@xmission.com>
100 ---------------------------
102 What: remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(kernel_thread)
104 Files: arch/*/kernel/*_ksyms.c
106 Why: kernel_thread is a low-level implementation detail. Drivers should
107 use the <linux/kthread.h> API instead which shields them from
108 implementation details and provides a higherlevel interface that
109 prevents bugs and code duplication
110 Who: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
112 ---------------------------
114 What: CONFIG_FORCED_INLINING
116 Why: Config option is there to see if gcc is good enough. (in january
117 2006). If it is, the behavior should just be the default. If it's not,
118 the option should just go away entirely.
119 Who: Arjan van de Ven
121 ---------------------------
123 What: eepro100 network driver
125 Why: replaced by the e100 driver
126 Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
128 ---------------------------
130 What: Unused EXPORT_SYMBOL/EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL exports
131 (temporary transition config option provided until then)
132 The transition config option will also be removed at the same time.
134 Why: Unused symbols are both increasing the size of the kernel binary
135 and are often a sign of "wrong API"
136 Who: Arjan van de Ven <arjan@linux.intel.com>
138 ---------------------------
141 When: Soon, provided in-kernel callers have been converted
142 Why: This interface is replaced by vm_ops.fault, but it has been around
143 forever, is used by a lot of drivers, and doesn't cost much to
145 Who: Nick Piggin <npiggin@suse.de>
147 ---------------------------
149 What: PHYSDEVPATH, PHYSDEVBUS, PHYSDEVDRIVER in the uevent environment
151 Why: The stacking of class devices makes these values misleading and
153 Class devices should not carry any of these properties, and bus
154 devices have SUBSYTEM and DRIVER as a replacement.
155 Who: Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@suse.de>
157 ---------------------------
159 What: ACPI procfs interface
161 Why: ACPI sysfs conversion should be finished by January 2008.
162 ACPI procfs interface will be removed in July 2008 so that
163 there is enough time for the user space to catch up.
164 Who: Zhang Rui <rui.zhang@intel.com>
166 ---------------------------
168 What: /proc/acpi/button
170 Why: /proc/acpi/button has been replaced by events to the input layer
172 Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
174 ---------------------------
176 What: /proc/acpi/event
178 Why: /proc/acpi/event has been replaced by events via the input layer
179 and netlink since 2.6.23.
180 Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
182 ---------------------------
184 What: libata spindown skipping and warning
186 Why: Some halt(8) implementations synchronize caches for and spin
187 down libata disks because libata didn't use to spin down disk on
188 system halt (only synchronized caches).
189 Spin down on system halt is now implemented. sysfs node
190 /sys/class/scsi_disk/h:c:i:l/manage_start_stop is present if
191 spin down support is available.
192 Because issuing spin down command to an already spun down disk
193 makes some disks spin up just to spin down again, libata tracks
194 device spindown status to skip the extra spindown command and
196 This is to give userspace tools the time to get updated and will
197 be removed after userspace is reasonably updated.
198 Who: Tejun Heo <htejun@gmail.com>
200 ---------------------------
202 What: The arch/ppc and include/asm-ppc directories
204 Why: The arch/powerpc tree is the merged architecture for ppc32 and ppc64
205 platforms. Currently there are efforts underway to port the remaining
206 arch/ppc platforms to the merged tree. New submissions to the arch/ppc
207 tree have been frozen with the 2.6.22 kernel release and that tree will
208 remain in bug-fix only mode until its scheduled removal. Platforms
209 that are not ported by June 2008 will be removed due to the lack of an
210 interested maintainer.
211 Who: linuxppc-dev@ozlabs.org
213 ---------------------------
215 What: sk98lin network driver
217 Why: In kernel tree version of driver is unmaintained. Sk98lin driver
218 replaced by the skge driver.
219 Who: Stephen Hemminger <shemminger@linux-foundation.org>
221 ---------------------------
223 What: i386/x86_64 bzImage symlinks
226 Why: The i386/x86_64 merge provides a symlink to the old bzImage
227 location so not yet updated user space tools, e.g. package
228 scripts, do not break.
229 Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
231 ---------------------------
233 ---------------------------
235 What: i2c-i810, i2c-prosavage and i2c-savage4
237 Why: These drivers are superseded by i810fb, intelfb and savagefb.
238 Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>
240 ---------------------------
242 What: bcm43xx wireless network driver
244 Files: drivers/net/wireless/bcm43xx
245 Why: This driver's functionality has been replaced by the
246 mac80211-based b43 and b43legacy drivers.
247 Who: John W. Linville <linville@tuxdriver.com>
249 ---------------------------
251 What: ieee80211 softmac wireless networking component
252 When: 2.6.26 (or after removal of bcm43xx and port of zd1211rw to mac80211)
253 Files: net/ieee80211/softmac
254 Why: No in-kernel drivers will depend on it any longer.
255 Who: John W. Linville <linville@tuxdriver.com>
257 ---------------------------
259 What: rc80211-simple rate control algorithm for mac80211
261 Files: net/mac80211/rc80211-simple.c
262 Why: This algorithm was provided for reference but always exhibited bad
263 responsiveness and performance and has some serious flaws. It has been
264 replaced by rc80211-pid.
265 Who: Stefano Brivio <stefano.brivio@polimi.it>
267 ---------------------------
270 - include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ipt_TOS.h ipt_tos.h header files
271 (superseded by xt_TOS/xt_tos target & match)
273 - "forwarding" header files like ipt_mac.h in
274 include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ and include/linux/netfilter_ipv6/
276 - xt_CONNMARK match revision 0
277 (superseded by xt_CONNMARK match revision 1)
279 - xt_MARK target revisions 0 and 1
280 (superseded by xt_MARK match revision 2)
282 - xt_connmark match revision 0
283 (superseded by xt_connmark match revision 1)
285 - xt_conntrack match revision 0
286 (superseded by xt_conntrack match revision 1)
288 - xt_iprange match revision 0,
289 include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ipt_iprange.h
290 (superseded by xt_iprange match revision 1)
292 - xt_mark match revision 0
293 (superseded by xt_mark match revision 1)
295 When: January 2009 or Linux 2.7.0, whichever comes first
296 Why: Superseded by newer revisions or modules
297 Who: Jan Engelhardt <jengelh@computergmbh.de>
299 ---------------------------
301 What: b43 support for firmware revision < 410
303 Why: The support code for the old firmware hurts code readability/maintainability
304 and slightly hurts runtime performance. Bugfixes for the old firmware
305 are not provided by Broadcom anymore.
306 Who: Michael Buesch <mb@bu3sch.de>