Linus Torvalds | 1da177e | 2005-04-16 15:20:36 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 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 | |
Luis R. Rodriguez | 4d8cd26 | 2009-09-08 12:09:47 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 9 | What: PRISM54 |
| 10 | When: 2.6.34 |
| 11 | |
| 12 | Why: prism54 FullMAC PCI / Cardbus devices used to be supported only by the |
| 13 | prism54 wireless driver. After Intersil stopped selling these |
| 14 | devices in preference for the newer more flexible SoftMAC devices |
| 15 | a SoftMAC device driver was required and prism54 did not support |
| 16 | them. The p54pci driver now exists and has been present in the kernel for |
| 17 | a while. This driver supports both SoftMAC devices and FullMAC devices. |
| 18 | The main difference between these devices was the amount of memory which |
| 19 | could be used for the firmware. The SoftMAC devices support a smaller |
| 20 | amount of memory. Because of this the SoftMAC firmware fits into FullMAC |
| 21 | devices's memory. p54pci supports not only PCI / Cardbus but also USB |
| 22 | and SPI. Since p54pci supports all devices prism54 supports |
| 23 | you will have a conflict. I'm not quite sure how distributions are |
| 24 | handling this conflict right now. prism54 was kept around due to |
| 25 | claims users may experience issues when using the SoftMAC driver. |
| 26 | Time has passed users have not reported issues. If you use prism54 |
| 27 | and for whatever reason you cannot use p54pci please let us know! |
| 28 | E-mail us at: linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org |
| 29 | |
| 30 | For more information see the p54 wiki page: |
| 31 | |
| 32 | http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/p54 |
| 33 | |
| 34 | Who: Luis R. Rodriguez <lrodriguez@atheros.com> |
| 35 | |
| 36 | --------------------------- |
| 37 | |
Robin Getz | 9d9b8fb | 2009-06-17 16:25:54 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 38 | What: IRQF_SAMPLE_RANDOM |
| 39 | Check: IRQF_SAMPLE_RANDOM |
| 40 | When: July 2009 |
| 41 | |
| 42 | Why: Many of IRQF_SAMPLE_RANDOM users are technically bogus as entropy |
| 43 | sources in the kernel's current entropy model. To resolve this, every |
| 44 | input point to the kernel's entropy pool needs to better document the |
| 45 | type of entropy source it actually is. This will be replaced with |
| 46 | additional add_*_randomness functions in drivers/char/random.c |
| 47 | |
| 48 | Who: Robin Getz <rgetz@blackfin.uclinux.org> & Matt Mackall <mpm@selenic.com> |
| 49 | |
| 50 | --------------------------- |
| 51 | |
Jiri Slaby | b694e52 | 2010-01-27 23:47:50 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 52 | What: Deprecated snapshot ioctls |
| 53 | When: 2.6.36 |
| 54 | |
| 55 | Why: The ioctls in kernel/power/user.c were marked as deprecated long time |
| 56 | ago. Now they notify users about that so that they need to replace |
| 57 | their userspace. After some more time, remove them completely. |
| 58 | |
| 59 | Who: Jiri Slaby <jirislaby@gmail.com> |
| 60 | |
| 61 | --------------------------- |
| 62 | |
Luis R. Rodriguez | 6ee7d33 | 2009-03-20 23:53:06 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 63 | What: The ieee80211_regdom module parameter |
Luis R. Rodriguez | 8a5117d | 2009-03-24 21:21:07 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 64 | When: March 2010 / desktop catchup |
Luis R. Rodriguez | 6ee7d33 | 2009-03-20 23:53:06 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 65 | |
| 66 | Why: This was inherited by the CONFIG_WIRELESS_OLD_REGULATORY code, |
| 67 | and currently serves as an option for users to define an |
| 68 | ISO / IEC 3166 alpha2 code for the country they are currently |
| 69 | present in. Although there are userspace API replacements for this |
| 70 | through nl80211 distributions haven't yet caught up with implementing |
| 71 | decent alternatives through standard GUIs. Although available as an |
| 72 | option through iw or wpa_supplicant its just a matter of time before |
| 73 | distributions pick up good GUI options for this. The ideal solution |
| 74 | would actually consist of intelligent designs which would do this for |
| 75 | the user automatically even when travelling through different countries. |
| 76 | Until then we leave this module parameter as a compromise. |
| 77 | |
| 78 | When userspace improves with reasonable widely-available alternatives for |
| 79 | this we will no longer need this module parameter. This entry hopes that |
| 80 | by the super-futuristically looking date of "March 2010" we will have |
| 81 | such replacements widely available. |
| 82 | |
| 83 | Who: Luis R. Rodriguez <lrodriguez@atheros.com> |
| 84 | |
| 85 | --------------------------- |
| 86 | |
Alan Stern | 471d055 | 2007-07-12 16:55:07 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 87 | What: dev->power.power_state |
Pavel Machek | 1ebfd79 | 2006-08-30 13:50:27 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 88 | When: July 2007 |
| 89 | Why: Broken design for runtime control over driver power states, confusing |
| 90 | driver-internal runtime power management with: mechanisms to support |
| 91 | system-wide sleep state transitions; event codes that distinguish |
| 92 | different phases of swsusp "sleep" transitions; and userspace policy |
| 93 | inputs. This framework was never widely used, and most attempts to |
| 94 | use it were broken. Drivers should instead be exposing domain-specific |
| 95 | interfaces either to kernel or to userspace. |
| 96 | Who: Pavel Machek <pavel@suse.cz> |
| 97 | |
| 98 | --------------------------- |
| 99 | |
Mauro Carvalho Chehab | 42d12f5 | 2009-03-10 05:02:28 -0300 | [diff] [blame] | 100 | What: Video4Linux API 1 ioctls and from Video devices. |
| 101 | When: July 2009 |
| 102 | Files: include/linux/videodev.h |
| 103 | Check: include/linux/videodev.h |
Mauro Carvalho Chehab | 11a5a10 | 2007-10-17 15:32:36 -0200 | [diff] [blame] | 104 | Why: V4L1 AP1 was replaced by V4L2 API during migration from 2.4 to 2.6 |
Mauro Carvalho Chehab | 875c296 | 2005-11-08 21:38:53 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 105 | series. The old API have lots of drawbacks and don't provide enough |
| 106 | means to work with all video and audio standards. The newer API is |
| 107 | already available on the main drivers and should be used instead. |
| 108 | Newer drivers should use v4l_compat_translate_ioctl function to handle |
| 109 | old calls, replacing to newer ones. |
| 110 | Decoder iocts are using internally to allow video drivers to |
| 111 | communicate with video decoders. This should also be improved to allow |
| 112 | V4L2 calls being translated into compatible internal ioctls. |
Mauro Carvalho Chehab | 11a5a10 | 2007-10-17 15:32:36 -0200 | [diff] [blame] | 113 | Compatibility ioctls will be provided, for a while, via |
| 114 | v4l1-compat module. |
| 115 | Who: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@infradead.org> |
Mauro Carvalho Chehab | 875c296 | 2005-11-08 21:38:53 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 116 | |
| 117 | --------------------------- |
| 118 | |
Dominik Brodowski | bf45d9b0 | 2005-07-07 17:58:58 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 119 | What: PCMCIA control ioctl (needed for pcmcia-cs [cardmgr, cardctl]) |
Dominik Brodowski | a3f916f | 2010-01-15 23:55:21 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 120 | When: 2.6.35/2.6.36 |
Dominik Brodowski | bf45d9b0 | 2005-07-07 17:58:58 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 121 | Files: drivers/pcmcia/: pcmcia_ioctl.c |
| 122 | Why: With the 16-bit PCMCIA subsystem now behaving (almost) like a |
| 123 | normal hotpluggable bus, and with it using the default kernel |
| 124 | infrastructure (hotplug, driver core, sysfs) keeping the PCMCIA |
| 125 | control ioctl needed by cardmgr and cardctl from pcmcia-cs is |
Dominik Brodowski | a3f916f | 2010-01-15 23:55:21 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 126 | unnecessary and potentially harmful (it does not provide for |
| 127 | proper locking), and makes further cleanups and integration of the |
Dominik Brodowski | bf45d9b0 | 2005-07-07 17:58:58 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 128 | PCMCIA subsystem into the Linux kernel device driver model more |
| 129 | difficult. The features provided by cardmgr and cardctl are either |
| 130 | handled by the kernel itself now or are available in the new |
| 131 | pcmciautils package available at |
| 132 | http://kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/pcmcia/ |
Dominik Brodowski | a3f916f | 2010-01-15 23:55:21 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 133 | |
| 134 | For all architectures except ARM, the associated config symbol |
| 135 | has been removed from kernel 2.6.34; for ARM, it will be likely |
| 136 | be removed from kernel 2.6.35. The actual code will then likely |
| 137 | be removed from kernel 2.6.36. |
| 138 | Who: Dominik Brodowski <linux@dominikbrodowski.net> |
Harald Welte | 7af4cc3 | 2005-08-09 19:44:15 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 139 | |
| 140 | --------------------------- |
| 141 | |
Eric W. Biederman | 7058cb0 | 2007-10-18 03:05:58 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 142 | What: sys_sysctl |
| 143 | When: September 2010 |
| 144 | Option: CONFIG_SYSCTL_SYSCALL |
| 145 | Why: The same information is available in a more convenient from |
| 146 | /proc/sys, and none of the sysctl variables appear to be |
| 147 | important performance wise. |
| 148 | |
| 149 | Binary sysctls are a long standing source of subtle kernel |
| 150 | bugs and security issues. |
| 151 | |
| 152 | When I looked several months ago all I could find after |
| 153 | searching several distributions were 5 user space programs and |
| 154 | glibc (which falls back to /proc/sys) using this syscall. |
| 155 | |
| 156 | The man page for sysctl(2) documents it as unusable for user |
| 157 | space programs. |
| 158 | |
| 159 | sysctl(2) is not generally ABI compatible to a 32bit user |
| 160 | space application on a 64bit and a 32bit kernel. |
| 161 | |
| 162 | For the last several months the policy has been no new binary |
| 163 | sysctls and no one has put forward an argument to use them. |
| 164 | |
| 165 | Binary sysctls issues seem to keep happening appearing so |
| 166 | properly deprecating them (with a warning to user space) and a |
| 167 | 2 year grace warning period will mean eventually we can kill |
| 168 | them and end the pain. |
| 169 | |
| 170 | In the mean time individual binary sysctls can be dealt with |
| 171 | in a piecewise fashion. |
| 172 | |
| 173 | Who: Eric Biederman <ebiederm@xmission.com> |
| 174 | |
| 175 | --------------------------- |
| 176 | |
Christoph Hellwig | ac51589 | 2006-03-24 03:18:22 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 177 | What: remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(kernel_thread) |
| 178 | When: August 2006 |
| 179 | Files: arch/*/kernel/*_ksyms.c |
Andy Whitcroft | f0a594c | 2007-07-19 01:48:34 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 180 | Check: kernel_thread |
Christoph Hellwig | ac51589 | 2006-03-24 03:18:22 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 181 | Why: kernel_thread is a low-level implementation detail. Drivers should |
| 182 | use the <linux/kthread.h> API instead which shields them from |
| 183 | implementation details and provides a higherlevel interface that |
| 184 | prevents bugs and code duplication |
| 185 | Who: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de> |
| 186 | |
| 187 | --------------------------- |
| 188 | |
Arjan van de Ven | f71d20e | 2006-06-28 04:26:45 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 189 | What: Unused EXPORT_SYMBOL/EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL exports |
| 190 | (temporary transition config option provided until then) |
| 191 | The transition config option will also be removed at the same time. |
| 192 | When: before 2.6.19 |
| 193 | Why: Unused symbols are both increasing the size of the kernel binary |
| 194 | and are often a sign of "wrong API" |
| 195 | Who: Arjan van de Ven <arjan@linux.intel.com> |
| 196 | |
| 197 | --------------------------- |
| 198 | |
Kay Sievers | d81d9d6 | 2006-08-13 06:17:09 +0200 | [diff] [blame] | 199 | What: PHYSDEVPATH, PHYSDEVBUS, PHYSDEVDRIVER in the uevent environment |
Dominik Brodowski | acbd39f | 2006-09-30 22:41:43 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 200 | When: October 2008 |
Kay Sievers | d81d9d6 | 2006-08-13 06:17:09 +0200 | [diff] [blame] | 201 | Why: The stacking of class devices makes these values misleading and |
| 202 | inconsistent. |
| 203 | Class devices should not carry any of these properties, and bus |
| 204 | devices have SUBSYTEM and DRIVER as a replacement. |
| 205 | Who: Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@suse.de> |
| 206 | |
| 207 | --------------------------- |
Jean Delvare | 6c805d2 | 2006-08-13 23:45:52 +0200 | [diff] [blame] | 208 | |
Zhang Rui | b981c59 | 2007-01-29 11:02:30 +0800 | [diff] [blame] | 209 | What: ACPI procfs interface |
Zhang Rui | 8b8eb7d | 2007-07-18 17:23:24 +0800 | [diff] [blame] | 210 | When: July 2008 |
| 211 | Why: ACPI sysfs conversion should be finished by January 2008. |
| 212 | ACPI procfs interface will be removed in July 2008 so that |
| 213 | there is enough time for the user space to catch up. |
Zhang Rui | b981c59 | 2007-01-29 11:02:30 +0800 | [diff] [blame] | 214 | Who: Zhang Rui <rui.zhang@intel.com> |
| 215 | |
| 216 | --------------------------- |
| 217 | |
Len Brown | 1bb67c2 | 2007-01-11 01:49:44 -0500 | [diff] [blame] | 218 | What: /proc/acpi/button |
| 219 | When: August 2007 |
| 220 | Why: /proc/acpi/button has been replaced by events to the input layer |
| 221 | since 2.6.20. |
| 222 | Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com> |
| 223 | |
| 224 | --------------------------- |
Jeff Garzik | 54b290a | 2007-01-23 00:29:01 -0500 | [diff] [blame] | 225 | |
Len Brown | 14e04fb | 2007-08-23 15:20:26 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 226 | What: /proc/acpi/event |
| 227 | When: February 2008 |
| 228 | Why: /proc/acpi/event has been replaced by events via the input layer |
| 229 | and netlink since 2.6.23. |
| 230 | Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com> |
| 231 | |
| 232 | --------------------------- |
| 233 | |
Thomas Gleixner | 914d97f | 2007-10-11 11:20:05 +0200 | [diff] [blame] | 234 | What: i386/x86_64 bzImage symlinks |
Ingo Molnar | 19b4e7f | 2008-04-10 10:12:27 +0200 | [diff] [blame] | 235 | When: April 2010 |
Thomas Gleixner | 914d97f | 2007-10-11 11:20:05 +0200 | [diff] [blame] | 236 | |
| 237 | Why: The i386/x86_64 merge provides a symlink to the old bzImage |
| 238 | location so not yet updated user space tools, e.g. package |
| 239 | scripts, do not break. |
| 240 | Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de> |
Linus Torvalds | 038a500 | 2007-10-11 19:40:14 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 241 | |
| 242 | --------------------------- |
| 243 | |
Jan Engelhardt | f9ef8a2 | 2008-01-14 23:43:34 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 244 | What (Why): |
Jan Engelhardt | 079aa88 | 2008-10-08 11:35:00 +0200 | [diff] [blame] | 245 | - xt_recent: the old ipt_recent proc dir |
| 246 | (superseded by /proc/net/xt_recent) |
| 247 | |
Jan Engelhardt | f9ef8a2 | 2008-01-14 23:43:34 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 248 | When: January 2009 or Linux 2.7.0, whichever comes first |
| 249 | Why: Superseded by newer revisions or modules |
| 250 | Who: Jan Engelhardt <jengelh@computergmbh.de> |
Michael Buesch | eb189d8 | 2008-01-28 14:47:41 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 251 | |
| 252 | --------------------------- |
| 253 | |
David Brownell | 8a0cecf | 2009-04-02 16:57:06 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 254 | What: GPIO autorequest on gpio_direction_{input,output}() in gpiolib |
| 255 | When: February 2010 |
| 256 | Why: All callers should use explicit gpio_request()/gpio_free(). |
| 257 | The autorequest mechanism in gpiolib was provided mostly as a |
| 258 | migration aid for legacy GPIO interfaces (for SOC based GPIOs). |
| 259 | Those users have now largely migrated. Platforms implementing |
| 260 | the GPIO interfaces without using gpiolib will see no changes. |
| 261 | Who: David Brownell <dbrownell@users.sourceforge.net> |
| 262 | --------------------------- |
| 263 | |
Michael Buesch | eb189d8 | 2008-01-28 14:47:41 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 264 | What: b43 support for firmware revision < 410 |
Michael Buesch | c557289 | 2008-12-27 18:26:39 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 265 | When: The schedule was July 2008, but it was decided that we are going to keep the |
| 266 | code as long as there are no major maintanance headaches. |
| 267 | So it _could_ be removed _any_ time now, if it conflicts with something new. |
Michael Buesch | eb189d8 | 2008-01-28 14:47:41 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 268 | Why: The support code for the old firmware hurts code readability/maintainability |
| 269 | and slightly hurts runtime performance. Bugfixes for the old firmware |
| 270 | are not provided by Broadcom anymore. |
| 271 | Who: Michael Buesch <mb@bu3sch.de> |
David S. Miller | e88bb41 | 2008-02-09 23:08:53 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 272 | |
| 273 | --------------------------- |
| 274 | |
Mark Fasheh | 52f7c21 | 2008-01-29 17:08:26 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 275 | What: /sys/o2cb symlink |
| 276 | When: January 2010 |
| 277 | Why: /sys/fs/o2cb is the proper location for this information - /sys/o2cb |
| 278 | exists as a symlink for backwards compatibility for old versions of |
| 279 | ocfs2-tools. 2 years should be sufficient time to phase in new versions |
| 280 | which know to look in /sys/fs/o2cb. |
| 281 | Who: ocfs2-devel@oss.oracle.com |
Matthew Wilcox | d2f5e80 | 2008-04-19 13:49:34 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 282 | |
| 283 | --------------------------- |
| 284 | |
Ravikiran G Thirumalai | 2584e51 | 2009-03-31 15:21:26 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 285 | What: Ability for non root users to shm_get hugetlb pages based on mlock |
| 286 | resource limits |
| 287 | When: 2.6.31 |
| 288 | Why: Non root users need to be part of /proc/sys/vm/hugetlb_shm_group or |
| 289 | have CAP_IPC_LOCK to be able to allocate shm segments backed by |
| 290 | huge pages. The mlock based rlimit check to allow shm hugetlb is |
| 291 | inconsistent with mmap based allocations. Hence it is being |
| 292 | deprecated. |
| 293 | Who: Ravikiran Thirumalai <kiran@scalex86.org> |
| 294 | |
| 295 | --------------------------- |
| 296 | |
Rene Herman | 16d7523 | 2008-06-24 19:38:56 +0200 | [diff] [blame] | 297 | What: CONFIG_THERMAL_HWMON |
| 298 | When: January 2009 |
| 299 | Why: This option was introduced just to allow older lm-sensors userspace |
| 300 | to keep working over the upgrade to 2.6.26. At the scheduled time of |
| 301 | removal fixed lm-sensors (2.x or 3.x) should be readily available. |
| 302 | Who: Rene Herman <rene.herman@gmail.com> |
Johannes Berg | 22bb1be | 2008-07-10 11:16:47 +0200 | [diff] [blame] | 303 | |
| 304 | --------------------------- |
| 305 | |
| 306 | What: Code that is now under CONFIG_WIRELESS_EXT_SYSFS |
| 307 | (in net/core/net-sysfs.c) |
| 308 | When: After the only user (hal) has seen a release with the patches |
| 309 | for enough time, probably some time in 2010. |
| 310 | Why: Over 1K .text/.data size reduction, data is available in other |
| 311 | ways (ioctls) |
| 312 | Who: Johannes Berg <johannes@sipsolutions.net> |
Krzysztof Piotr Oledzki | 5840157 | 2008-07-21 10:01:34 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 313 | |
| 314 | --------------------------- |
| 315 | |
| 316 | What: CONFIG_NF_CT_ACCT |
| 317 | When: 2.6.29 |
| 318 | Why: Accounting can now be enabled/disabled without kernel recompilation. |
| 319 | Currently used only to set a default value for a feature that is also |
| 320 | controlled by a kernel/module/sysfs/sysctl parameter. |
| 321 | Who: Krzysztof Piotr Oledzki <ole@ans.pl> |
| 322 | |
FUJITA Tomonori | 46dfa04 | 2008-09-10 22:22:34 +0200 | [diff] [blame] | 323 | --------------------------- |
| 324 | |
Dave Jones | 753b7ae | 2009-03-09 15:14:37 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 325 | What: sysfs ui for changing p4-clockmod parameters |
| 326 | When: September 2009 |
| 327 | Why: See commits 129f8ae9b1b5be94517da76009ea956e89104ce8 and |
| 328 | e088e4c9cdb618675874becb91b2fd581ee707e6. |
| 329 | Removal is subject to fixing any remaining bugs in ACPI which may |
| 330 | cause the thermal throttling not to happen at the right time. |
| 331 | Who: Dave Jones <davej@redhat.com>, Matthew Garrett <mjg@redhat.com> |
Thomas Gleixner | 0e57aa1 | 2009-03-13 14:34:05 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 332 | |
| 333 | ----------------------------- |
| 334 | |
| 335 | What: __do_IRQ all in one fits nothing interrupt handler |
| 336 | When: 2.6.32 |
| 337 | Why: __do_IRQ was kept for easy migration to the type flow handlers. |
| 338 | More than two years of migration time is enough. |
| 339 | Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de> |
Thomas Gleixner | cb065c0 | 2009-03-13 14:40:27 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 340 | |
| 341 | ----------------------------- |
| 342 | |
Alex Chiang | f110ca4 | 2009-03-20 14:56:56 -0600 | [diff] [blame] | 343 | What: fakephp and associated sysfs files in /sys/bus/pci/slots/ |
| 344 | When: 2011 |
| 345 | Why: In 2.6.27, the semantics of /sys/bus/pci/slots was redefined to |
| 346 | represent a machine's physical PCI slots. The change in semantics |
| 347 | had userspace implications, as the hotplug core no longer allowed |
| 348 | drivers to create multiple sysfs files per physical slot (required |
| 349 | for multi-function devices, e.g.). fakephp was seen as a developer's |
| 350 | tool only, and its interface changed. Too late, we learned that |
| 351 | there were some users of the fakephp interface. |
| 352 | |
| 353 | In 2.6.30, the original fakephp interface was restored. At the same |
| 354 | time, the PCI core gained the ability that fakephp provided, namely |
| 355 | function-level hot-remove and hot-add. |
| 356 | |
| 357 | Since the PCI core now provides the same functionality, exposed in: |
| 358 | |
| 359 | /sys/bus/pci/rescan |
| 360 | /sys/bus/pci/devices/.../remove |
| 361 | /sys/bus/pci/devices/.../rescan |
| 362 | |
| 363 | there is no functional reason to maintain fakephp as well. |
| 364 | |
| 365 | We will keep the existing module so that 'modprobe fakephp' will |
| 366 | present the old /sys/bus/pci/slots/... interface for compatibility, |
| 367 | but users are urged to migrate their applications to the API above. |
| 368 | |
| 369 | After a reasonable transition period, we will remove the legacy |
| 370 | fakephp interface. |
| 371 | Who: Alex Chiang <achiang@hp.com> |
Jean Delvare | 3f307fb | 2009-04-13 17:02:13 +0200 | [diff] [blame] | 372 | |
| 373 | --------------------------- |
| 374 | |
Johannes Berg | c64fb01 | 2009-06-02 13:01:38 +0200 | [diff] [blame] | 375 | What: CONFIG_RFKILL_INPUT |
| 376 | When: 2.6.33 |
| 377 | Why: Should be implemented in userspace, policy daemon. |
| 378 | Who: Johannes Berg <johannes@sipsolutions.net> |
David S. Miller | 9cbc1cb | 2009-06-15 03:02:23 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 379 | |
Eric Paris | cdc321f | 2009-06-29 11:13:30 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 380 | --------------------------- |
| 381 | |
| 382 | What: CONFIG_INOTIFY |
| 383 | When: 2.6.33 |
| 384 | Why: last user (audit) will be converted to the newer more generic |
| 385 | and more easily maintained fsnotify subsystem |
| 386 | Who: Eric Paris <eparis@redhat.com> |
| 387 | |
Andi Kleen | 45f458e | 2009-04-28 23:18:26 +0200 | [diff] [blame] | 388 | ---------------------------- |
| 389 | |
venkatesh.pallipadi@intel.com | 37c90e8 | 2009-07-02 17:08:31 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 390 | What: lock_policy_rwsem_* and unlock_policy_rwsem_* will not be |
| 391 | exported interface anymore. |
| 392 | When: 2.6.33 |
| 393 | Why: cpu_policy_rwsem has a new cleaner definition making it local to |
| 394 | cpufreq core and contained inside cpufreq.c. Other dependent |
| 395 | drivers should not use it in order to safely avoid lockdep issues. |
| 396 | Who: Venkatesh Pallipadi <venkatesh.pallipadi@intel.com> |
Tejun Heo | 93fe448 | 2009-08-06 18:14:26 +0900 | [diff] [blame] | 397 | |
| 398 | ---------------------------- |
| 399 | |
| 400 | What: sound-slot/service-* module aliases and related clutters in |
| 401 | sound/sound_core.c |
| 402 | When: August 2010 |
| 403 | Why: OSS sound_core grabs all legacy minors (0-255) of SOUND_MAJOR |
| 404 | (14) and requests modules using custom sound-slot/service-* |
| 405 | module aliases. The only benefit of doing this is allowing |
| 406 | use of custom module aliases which might as well be considered |
| 407 | a bug at this point. This preemptive claiming prevents |
| 408 | alternative OSS implementations. |
| 409 | |
| 410 | Till the feature is removed, the kernel will be requesting |
| 411 | both sound-slot/service-* and the standard char-major-* module |
| 412 | aliases and allow turning off the pre-claiming selectively via |
| 413 | CONFIG_SOUND_OSS_CORE_PRECLAIM and soundcore.preclaim_oss |
| 414 | kernel parameter. |
| 415 | |
| 416 | After the transition phase is complete, both the custom module |
| 417 | aliases and switches to disable it will go away. This removal |
| 418 | will also allow making ALSA OSS emulation independent of |
| 419 | sound_core. The dependency will be broken then too. |
| 420 | Who: Tejun Heo <tj@kernel.org> |
Alok Kataria | d0153ca | 2009-09-29 10:25:24 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 421 | |
| 422 | ---------------------------- |
| 423 | |
| 424 | What: Support for VMware's guest paravirtuliazation technique [VMI] will be |
| 425 | dropped. |
| 426 | When: 2.6.37 or earlier. |
| 427 | Why: With the recent innovations in CPU hardware acceleration technologies |
| 428 | from Intel and AMD, VMware ran a few experiments to compare these |
| 429 | techniques to guest paravirtualization technique on VMware's platform. |
| 430 | These hardware assisted virtualization techniques have outperformed the |
| 431 | performance benefits provided by VMI in most of the workloads. VMware |
| 432 | expects that these hardware features will be ubiquitous in a couple of |
| 433 | years, as a result, VMware has started a phased retirement of this |
| 434 | feature from the hypervisor. We will be removing this feature from the |
| 435 | Kernel too. Right now we are targeting 2.6.37 but can retire earlier if |
| 436 | technical reasons (read opportunity to remove major chunk of pvops) |
| 437 | arise. |
| 438 | |
| 439 | Please note that VMI has always been an optimization and non-VMI kernels |
| 440 | still work fine on VMware's platform. |
| 441 | Latest versions of VMware's product which support VMI are, |
| 442 | Workstation 7.0 and VSphere 4.0 on ESX side, future maintainence |
| 443 | releases for these products will continue supporting VMI. |
| 444 | |
| 445 | For more details about VMI retirement take a look at this, |
| 446 | http://blogs.vmware.com/guestosguide/2009/09/vmi-retirement.html |
| 447 | |
| 448 | Who: Alok N Kataria <akataria@vmware.com> |
| 449 | |
| 450 | ---------------------------- |
Jean Delvare | b180d05 | 2009-12-09 20:36:02 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 451 | |
Corentin Chary | 728900f | 2009-12-03 07:45:17 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 452 | What: Support for lcd_switch and display_get in asus-laptop driver |
| 453 | When: March 2010 |
| 454 | Why: These two features use non-standard interfaces. There are the |
| 455 | only features that really need multiple path to guess what's |
| 456 | the right method name on a specific laptop. |
| 457 | |
| 458 | Removing them will allow to remove a lot of code an significantly |
| 459 | clean the drivers. |
| 460 | |
| 461 | This will affect the backlight code which won't be able to know |
| 462 | if the backlight is on or off. The platform display file will also be |
| 463 | write only (like the one in eeepc-laptop). |
| 464 | |
| 465 | This should'nt affect a lot of user because they usually know |
| 466 | when their display is on or off. |
| 467 | |
| 468 | Who: Corentin Chary <corentin.chary@gmail.com> |
| 469 | |
| 470 | ---------------------------- |
Hans de Goede | ceafe1d | 2010-01-11 10:50:53 -0200 | [diff] [blame] | 471 | |
| 472 | What: usbvideo quickcam_messenger driver |
| 473 | When: 2.6.35 |
| 474 | Files: drivers/media/video/usbvideo/quickcam_messenger.[ch] |
| 475 | Why: obsolete v4l1 driver replaced by gspca_stv06xx |
| 476 | Who: Hans de Goede <hdegoede@redhat.com> |
| 477 | |
| 478 | ---------------------------- |
| 479 | |
| 480 | What: ov511 v4l1 driver |
| 481 | When: 2.6.35 |
| 482 | Files: drivers/media/video/ov511.[ch] |
| 483 | Why: obsolete v4l1 driver replaced by gspca_ov519 |
| 484 | Who: Hans de Goede <hdegoede@redhat.com> |
| 485 | |
| 486 | ---------------------------- |
| 487 | |
| 488 | What: w9968cf v4l1 driver |
| 489 | When: 2.6.35 |
| 490 | Files: drivers/media/video/w9968cf*.[ch] |
| 491 | Why: obsolete v4l1 driver replaced by gspca_ov519 |
| 492 | Who: Hans de Goede <hdegoede@redhat.com> |
| 493 | |
| 494 | ---------------------------- |
| 495 | |
| 496 | What: ovcamchip sensor framework |
| 497 | When: 2.6.35 |
| 498 | Files: drivers/media/video/ovcamchip/* |
| 499 | Why: Only used by obsoleted v4l1 drivers |
| 500 | Who: Hans de Goede <hdegoede@redhat.com> |
| 501 | |
| 502 | ---------------------------- |
| 503 | |
| 504 | What: stv680 v4l1 driver |
| 505 | When: 2.6.35 |
| 506 | Files: drivers/media/video/stv680.[ch] |
| 507 | Why: obsolete v4l1 driver replaced by gspca_stv0680 |
| 508 | Who: Hans de Goede <hdegoede@redhat.com> |
| 509 | |
| 510 | ---------------------------- |
| 511 | |
| 512 | What: zc0301 v4l driver |
| 513 | When: 2.6.35 |
| 514 | Files: drivers/media/video/zc0301/* |
| 515 | Why: Duplicate functionality with the gspca_zc3xx driver, zc0301 only |
| 516 | supports 2 USB-ID's (because it only supports a limited set of |
| 517 | sensors) wich are also supported by the gspca_zc3xx driver |
| 518 | (which supports 53 USB-ID's in total) |
| 519 | Who: Hans de Goede <hdegoede@redhat.com> |
Eric Miao | 74e7e72 | 2010-02-07 23:10:05 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 520 | |
| 521 | ---------------------------- |
| 522 | |
| 523 | What: corgikbd, spitzkbd, tosakbd driver |
| 524 | When: 2.6.35 |
| 525 | Files: drivers/input/keyboard/{corgi,spitz,tosa}kbd.c |
| 526 | Why: We now have a generic GPIO based matrix keyboard driver that |
| 527 | are fully capable of handling all the keys on these devices. |
| 528 | The original drivers manipulate the GPIO registers directly |
| 529 | and so are difficult to maintain. |
| 530 | Who: Eric Miao <eric.y.miao@gmail.com> |
Eric Miao | b63de38 | 2010-02-07 23:10:05 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 531 | |
| 532 | ---------------------------- |
| 533 | |
| 534 | What: corgi_ssp and corgi_ts driver |
| 535 | When: 2.6.35 |
| 536 | Files: arch/arm/mach-pxa/corgi_ssp.c, drivers/input/touchscreen/corgi_ts.c |
| 537 | Why: The corgi touchscreen is now deprecated in favour of the generic |
| 538 | ads7846.c driver. The noise reduction technique used in corgi_ts.c, |
| 539 | that's to wait till vsync before ADC sampling, is also integrated into |
| 540 | ads7846 driver now. Provided that the original driver is not generic |
| 541 | and is difficult to maintain, it will be removed later. |
| 542 | Who: Eric Miao <eric.y.miao@gmail.com> |
Linus Torvalds | 6d6b89b | 2010-03-02 07:55:08 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 543 | |
| 544 | ---------------------------- |
| 545 | |
Jan Kiszka | 79e95f4 | 2010-02-08 10:12:44 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 546 | What: capifs |
| 547 | When: February 2011 |
| 548 | Files: drivers/isdn/capi/capifs.* |
| 549 | Why: udev fully replaces this special file system that only contains CAPI |
| 550 | NCCI TTY device nodes. User space (pppdcapiplugin) works without |
| 551 | noticing the difference. |
| 552 | Who: Jan Kiszka <jan.kiszka@web.de> |
Linus Torvalds | c812a51 | 2010-03-05 13:12:34 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 553 | |
| 554 | ---------------------------- |
| 555 | |
Avi Kivity | db35879 | 2010-01-26 16:30:06 +0200 | [diff] [blame] | 556 | What: KVM memory aliases support |
| 557 | When: July 2010 |
| 558 | Why: Memory aliasing support is used for speeding up guest vga access |
| 559 | through the vga windows. |
| 560 | |
| 561 | Modern userspace no longer uses this feature, so it's just bitrotted |
| 562 | code and can be removed with no impact. |
| 563 | Who: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com> |
| 564 | |
| 565 | ---------------------------- |
| 566 | |
Ingo Molnar | 12b8aee | 2010-03-15 08:17:33 +0100 | [diff] [blame^] | 567 | What: xtime, wall_to_monotonic |
| 568 | When: 2.6.36+ |
| 569 | Files: kernel/time/timekeeping.c include/linux/time.h |
| 570 | Why: Cleaning up timekeeping internal values. Please use |
| 571 | existing timekeeping accessor functions to access |
| 572 | the equivalent functionality. |
| 573 | Who: John Stultz <johnstul@us.ibm.com> |
| 574 | |
| 575 | ---------------------------- |
| 576 | |
Avi Kivity | db35879 | 2010-01-26 16:30:06 +0200 | [diff] [blame] | 577 | What: KVM kernel-allocated memory slots |
| 578 | When: July 2010 |
| 579 | Why: Since 2.6.25, kvm supports user-allocated memory slots, which are |
| 580 | much more flexible than kernel-allocated slots. All current userspace |
| 581 | supports the newer interface and this code can be removed with no |
| 582 | impact. |
| 583 | Who: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com> |
| 584 | |
| 585 | ---------------------------- |
| 586 | |
| 587 | What: KVM paravirt mmu host support |
| 588 | When: January 2011 |
| 589 | Why: The paravirt mmu host support is slower than non-paravirt mmu, both |
| 590 | on newer and older hardware. It is already not exposed to the guest, |
| 591 | and kept only for live migration purposes. |
| 592 | Who: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com> |
Linus Torvalds | c812a51 | 2010-03-05 13:12:34 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 593 | |
| 594 | ---------------------------- |
John Stultz | 2526849 | 2010-03-12 14:56:00 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 595 | |
Len Brown | 4c81ba4 | 2010-03-14 16:28:46 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 596 | What: "acpi=ht" boot option |
| 597 | When: 2.6.35 |
| 598 | Why: Useful in 2003, implementation is a hack. |
| 599 | Generally invoked by accident today. |
| 600 | Seen as doing more harm than good. |
| 601 | Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com> |