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Commit | Line | Data |
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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 | ||
471d0558 | 9 | What: dev->power.power_state |
1ebfd79e PM |
10 | When: July 2007 |
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 <[email protected]> | |
19 | ||
20 | --------------------------- | |
21 | ||
a6bcbc2f CH |
22 | What: old NCR53C9x driver |
23 | When: October 2007 | |
24 | Why: Replaced by the much better esp_scsi driver. Actual low-level | |
ed56047a | 25 | driver can be ported over almost trivially. |
a6bcbc2f CH |
26 | Who: David Miller <[email protected]> |
27 | Christoph Hellwig <[email protected]> | |
28 | ||
29 | --------------------------- | |
30 | ||
875c296b | 31 | What: Video4Linux API 1 ioctls and video_decoder.h from Video devices. |
11a5a10e MCC |
32 | When: December 2008 |
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 | |
875c296b MCC |
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. | |
11a5a10e MCC |
44 | Compatibility ioctls will be provided, for a while, via |
45 | v4l1-compat module. | |
46 | Who: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <[email protected]> | |
875c296b MCC |
47 | |
48 | --------------------------- | |
49 | ||
bf45d9b0 DB |
50 | What: PCMCIA control ioctl (needed for pcmcia-cs [cardmgr, cardctl]) |
51 | When: November 2005 | |
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 <[email protected]> | |
7af4cc3f HW |
64 | |
65 | --------------------------- | |
66 | ||
7058cb02 EB |
67 | What: sys_sysctl |
68 | When: September 2010 | |
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. | |
73 | ||
74 | Binary sysctls are a long standing source of subtle kernel | |
75 | bugs and security issues. | |
76 | ||
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. | |
80 | ||
81 | The man page for sysctl(2) documents it as unusable for user | |
82 | space programs. | |
83 | ||
84 | sysctl(2) is not generally ABI compatible to a 32bit user | |
85 | space application on a 64bit and a 32bit kernel. | |
86 | ||
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. | |
89 | ||
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. | |
94 | ||
95 | In the mean time individual binary sysctls can be dealt with | |
96 | in a piecewise fashion. | |
97 | ||
98 | Who: Eric Biederman <[email protected]> | |
99 | ||
100 | --------------------------- | |
101 | ||
ac515898 CH |
102 | What: remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(kernel_thread) |
103 | When: August 2006 | |
104 | Files: arch/*/kernel/*_ksyms.c | |
f0a594c1 | 105 | Check: kernel_thread |
ac515898 CH |
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 <[email protected]> | |
111 | ||
112 | --------------------------- | |
113 | ||
c0d3c0c0 AB |
114 | What: eepro100 network driver |
115 | When: January 2007 | |
116 | Why: replaced by the e100 driver | |
117 | Who: Adrian Bunk <[email protected]> | |
3c9b3a85 JG |
118 | |
119 | --------------------------- | |
120 | ||
f71d20e9 AV |
121 | What: Unused EXPORT_SYMBOL/EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL exports |
122 | (temporary transition config option provided until then) | |
123 | The transition config option will also be removed at the same time. | |
124 | When: before 2.6.19 | |
125 | Why: Unused symbols are both increasing the size of the kernel binary | |
126 | and are often a sign of "wrong API" | |
127 | Who: Arjan van de Ven <[email protected]> | |
128 | ||
129 | --------------------------- | |
130 | ||
54cb8821 | 131 | What: vm_ops.nopage |
d0217ac0 | 132 | When: Soon, provided in-kernel callers have been converted |
54cb8821 NP |
133 | Why: This interface is replaced by vm_ops.fault, but it has been around |
134 | forever, is used by a lot of drivers, and doesn't cost much to | |
135 | maintain. | |
136 | Who: Nick Piggin <[email protected]> | |
137 | ||
138 | --------------------------- | |
139 | ||
d81d9d6b | 140 | What: PHYSDEVPATH, PHYSDEVBUS, PHYSDEVDRIVER in the uevent environment |
acbd39fb | 141 | When: October 2008 |
d81d9d6b KS |
142 | Why: The stacking of class devices makes these values misleading and |
143 | inconsistent. | |
144 | Class devices should not carry any of these properties, and bus | |
145 | devices have SUBSYTEM and DRIVER as a replacement. | |
146 | Who: Kay Sievers <[email protected]> | |
147 | ||
148 | --------------------------- | |
6c805d2c | 149 | |
b981c591 | 150 | What: ACPI procfs interface |
8b8eb7d8 ZR |
151 | When: July 2008 |
152 | Why: ACPI sysfs conversion should be finished by January 2008. | |
153 | ACPI procfs interface will be removed in July 2008 so that | |
154 | there is enough time for the user space to catch up. | |
b981c591 ZR |
155 | Who: Zhang Rui <[email protected]> |
156 | ||
157 | --------------------------- | |
158 | ||
1bb67c25 LB |
159 | What: /proc/acpi/button |
160 | When: August 2007 | |
161 | Why: /proc/acpi/button has been replaced by events to the input layer | |
162 | since 2.6.20. | |
163 | Who: Len Brown <[email protected]> | |
164 | ||
165 | --------------------------- | |
54b290a2 | 166 | |
14e04fb3 LB |
167 | What: /proc/acpi/event |
168 | When: February 2008 | |
169 | Why: /proc/acpi/event has been replaced by events via the input layer | |
170 | and netlink since 2.6.23. | |
171 | Who: Len Brown <[email protected]> | |
172 | ||
173 | --------------------------- | |
174 | ||
d9aca22c | 175 | What: libata spindown skipping and warning |
920a4b10 | 176 | When: Dec 2008 |
d9aca22c TH |
177 | Why: Some halt(8) implementations synchronize caches for and spin |
178 | down libata disks because libata didn't use to spin down disk on | |
179 | system halt (only synchronized caches). | |
180 | Spin down on system halt is now implemented. sysfs node | |
181 | /sys/class/scsi_disk/h:c:i:l/manage_start_stop is present if | |
182 | spin down support is available. | |
920a4b10 | 183 | Because issuing spin down command to an already spun down disk |
d9aca22c TH |
184 | makes some disks spin up just to spin down again, libata tracks |
185 | device spindown status to skip the extra spindown command and | |
186 | warn about it. | |
187 | This is to give userspace tools the time to get updated and will | |
188 | be removed after userspace is reasonably updated. | |
920a4b10 TH |
189 | Who: Tejun Heo <[email protected]> |
190 | ||
191 | --------------------------- | |
192 | ||
0b7dbfbf JB |
193 | What: The arch/ppc and include/asm-ppc directories |
194 | When: Jun 2008 | |
195 | Why: The arch/powerpc tree is the merged architecture for ppc32 and ppc64 | |
196 | platforms. Currently there are efforts underway to port the remaining | |
197 | arch/ppc platforms to the merged tree. New submissions to the arch/ppc | |
198 | tree have been frozen with the 2.6.22 kernel release and that tree will | |
199 | remain in bug-fix only mode until its scheduled removal. Platforms | |
200 | that are not ported by June 2008 will be removed due to the lack of an | |
201 | interested maintainer. | |
202 | Who: [email protected] | |
203 | ||
204 | --------------------------- | |
f6be6fbe | 205 | |
5ad887fa SH |
206 | What: sk98lin network driver |
207 | When: Feburary 2008 | |
208 | Why: In kernel tree version of driver is unmaintained. Sk98lin driver | |
209 | replaced by the skge driver. | |
210 | Who: Stephen Hemminger <[email protected]> | |
211 | ||
212 | --------------------------- | |
914d97fd TG |
213 | |
214 | What: i386/x86_64 bzImage symlinks | |
215 | When: April 2008 | |
216 | ||
217 | Why: The i386/x86_64 merge provides a symlink to the old bzImage | |
218 | location so not yet updated user space tools, e.g. package | |
219 | scripts, do not break. | |
220 | Who: Thomas Gleixner <[email protected]> | |
038a5008 LT |
221 | |
222 | --------------------------- | |
223 | ||
038a5008 | 224 | --------------------------- |
0f79b72e JD |
225 | |
226 | What: i2c-i810, i2c-prosavage and i2c-savage4 | |
227 | When: May 2008 | |
228 | Why: These drivers are superseded by i810fb, intelfb and savagefb. | |
229 | Who: Jean Delvare <[email protected]> | |
230 | ||
231 | --------------------------- | |
003faaa1 JL |
232 | |
233 | What: bcm43xx wireless network driver | |
234 | When: 2.6.26 | |
235 | Files: drivers/net/wireless/bcm43xx | |
236 | Why: This driver's functionality has been replaced by the | |
237 | mac80211-based b43 and b43legacy drivers. | |
238 | Who: John W. Linville <[email protected]> | |
239 | ||
240 | --------------------------- | |
edae58ea | 241 | |
a1464ab6 | 242 | What: ieee80211 softmac wireless networking component |
edae58ea JL |
243 | When: 2.6.26 (or after removal of bcm43xx and port of zd1211rw to mac80211) |
244 | Files: net/ieee80211/softmac | |
245 | Why: No in-kernel drivers will depend on it any longer. | |
246 | Who: John W. Linville <[email protected]> | |
247 | ||
248 | --------------------------- | |
c21b39ac SB |
249 | |
250 | What: rc80211-simple rate control algorithm for mac80211 | |
251 | When: 2.6.26 | |
252 | Files: net/mac80211/rc80211-simple.c | |
253 | Why: This algorithm was provided for reference but always exhibited bad | |
254 | responsiveness and performance and has some serious flaws. It has been | |
255 | replaced by rc80211-pid. | |
256 | Who: Stefano Brivio <[email protected]> | |
f9ef8a23 JE |
257 | |
258 | --------------------------- | |
259 | ||
260 | What (Why): | |
261 | - include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ipt_TOS.h ipt_tos.h header files | |
262 | (superseded by xt_TOS/xt_tos target & match) | |
263 | ||
264 | - "forwarding" header files like ipt_mac.h in | |
265 | include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ and include/linux/netfilter_ipv6/ | |
266 | ||
267 | - xt_CONNMARK match revision 0 | |
268 | (superseded by xt_CONNMARK match revision 1) | |
269 | ||
270 | - xt_MARK target revisions 0 and 1 | |
271 | (superseded by xt_MARK match revision 2) | |
272 | ||
273 | - xt_connmark match revision 0 | |
274 | (superseded by xt_connmark match revision 1) | |
275 | ||
276 | - xt_conntrack match revision 0 | |
277 | (superseded by xt_conntrack match revision 1) | |
278 | ||
279 | - xt_iprange match revision 0, | |
280 | include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ipt_iprange.h | |
281 | (superseded by xt_iprange match revision 1) | |
282 | ||
283 | - xt_mark match revision 0 | |
284 | (superseded by xt_mark match revision 1) | |
285 | ||
286 | When: January 2009 or Linux 2.7.0, whichever comes first | |
287 | Why: Superseded by newer revisions or modules | |
288 | Who: Jan Engelhardt <[email protected]> | |
eb189d8b MB |
289 | |
290 | --------------------------- | |
291 | ||
292 | What: b43 support for firmware revision < 410 | |
293 | When: July 2008 | |
294 | Why: The support code for the old firmware hurts code readability/maintainability | |
295 | and slightly hurts runtime performance. Bugfixes for the old firmware | |
296 | are not provided by Broadcom anymore. | |
297 | Who: Michael Buesch <[email protected]> | |
e88bb415 DM |
298 | |
299 | --------------------------- | |
300 | ||
301 | What: Solaris/SunOS syscall and binary support on Sparc | |
302 | When: 2.6.26 | |
303 | Why: Largely unmaintained and almost entirely unused. File system | |
304 | layering used to divert library and dynamic linker searches to | |
305 | /usr/gnemul is extremely buggy and unfixable. Making it work | |
306 | is largely pointless as without a lot of work only the most | |
307 | trivial of Solaris binaries can work with the emulation code. | |
308 | Who: David S. Miller <[email protected]> | |
757265b8 IM |
309 | |
310 | --------------------------- | |
311 | ||
312 | What: init_mm export | |
313 | When: 2.6.26 | |
314 | Why: Not used in-tree. The current out-of-tree users used it to | |
315 | work around problems in the CPA code which should be resolved | |
316 | by now. One usecase was described to provide verification code | |
317 | of the CPA operation. That's a good idea in general, but such | |
318 | code / infrastructure should be in the kernel and not in some | |
319 | out-of-tree driver. | |
320 | Who: Thomas Gleixner <[email protected]> |