blob: 1d171fe5fcdc7a1dc76509987fbfc0769a5f1d20 [file] [log] [blame]
Linus Torvalds1da177e2005-04-16 15:20:36 -07001The 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
7---------------------------
8
Alan Stern471d0552007-07-12 16:55:07 -04009What: dev->power.power_state
Pavel Machek1ebfd792006-08-30 13:50:27 -070010When: July 2007
11Why: 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.
18Who: Pavel Machek <pavel@suse.cz>
19
20---------------------------
21
Christoph Hellwiga6bcbc22007-04-30 00:05:48 +020022What: old NCR53C9x driver
23When: October 2007
24Why: Replaced by the much better esp_scsi driver. Actual low-level
Christoph Hellwiged560472007-05-13 22:48:31 +020025 driver can be ported over almost trivially.
Christoph Hellwiga6bcbc22007-04-30 00:05:48 +020026Who: David Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
27 Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
28
29---------------------------
30
Mauro Carvalho Chehab875c2962005-11-08 21:38:53 -080031What: Video4Linux API 1 ioctls and video_decoder.h from Video devices.
Mauro Carvalho Chehab11a5a102007-10-17 15:32:36 -020032When: December 2008
33Files: include/linux/video_decoder.h include/linux/videodev.h
34Check: include/linux/video_decoder.h include/linux/videodev.h
35Why: V4L1 AP1 was replaced by V4L2 API during migration from 2.4 to 2.6
Mauro Carvalho Chehab875c2962005-11-08 21:38:53 -080036 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.
Mauro Carvalho Chehab11a5a102007-10-17 15:32:36 -020044 Compatibility ioctls will be provided, for a while, via
45 v4l1-compat module.
46Who: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@infradead.org>
Mauro Carvalho Chehab875c2962005-11-08 21:38:53 -080047
48---------------------------
49
Dominik Brodowskibf45d9b02005-07-07 17:58:58 -070050What: PCMCIA control ioctl (needed for pcmcia-cs [cardmgr, cardctl])
51When: November 2005
52Files: drivers/pcmcia/: pcmcia_ioctl.c
53Why: 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/
63Who: Dominik Brodowski <linux@brodo.de>
Harald Welte7af4cc32005-08-09 19:44:15 -070064
65---------------------------
66
Eric W. Biederman7058cb02007-10-18 03:05:58 -070067What: sys_sysctl
68When: September 2010
69Option: CONFIG_SYSCTL_SYSCALL
70Why: 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
98Who: Eric Biederman <ebiederm@xmission.com>
99
100---------------------------
101
Christoph Hellwigac515892006-03-24 03:18:22 -0800102What: remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(kernel_thread)
103When: August 2006
104Files: arch/*/kernel/*_ksyms.c
Andy Whitcroftf0a594c2007-07-19 01:48:34 -0700105Check: kernel_thread
Christoph Hellwigac515892006-03-24 03:18:22 -0800106Why: 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
110Who: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
111
112---------------------------
113
Bunkc0d3c0c2006-02-07 01:43:31 -0500114What: eepro100 network driver
115When: January 2007
116Why: replaced by the e100 driver
117Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
Jeff Garzik3c9b3a82006-02-07 01:47:12 -0500118
119---------------------------
120
Arjan van de Venf71d20e2006-06-28 04:26:45 -0700121What: 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.
124When: before 2.6.19
125Why: Unused symbols are both increasing the size of the kernel binary
126 and are often a sign of "wrong API"
127Who: Arjan van de Ven <arjan@linux.intel.com>
128
129---------------------------
130
Nick Piggin54cb8822007-07-19 01:46:59 -0700131What: vm_ops.nopage
Nick Piggind0217ac2007-07-19 01:47:03 -0700132When: Soon, provided in-kernel callers have been converted
Nick Piggin54cb8822007-07-19 01:46:59 -0700133Why: 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.
136Who: Nick Piggin <npiggin@suse.de>
137
138---------------------------
139
Kay Sieversd81d9d62006-08-13 06:17:09 +0200140What: PHYSDEVPATH, PHYSDEVBUS, PHYSDEVDRIVER in the uevent environment
Dominik Brodowskiacbd39f2006-09-30 22:41:43 -0400141When: October 2008
Kay Sieversd81d9d62006-08-13 06:17:09 +0200142Why: 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.
146Who: Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@suse.de>
147
148---------------------------
Jean Delvare6c805d22006-08-13 23:45:52 +0200149
Zhang Ruib981c592007-01-29 11:02:30 +0800150What: ACPI procfs interface
Zhang Rui8b8eb7d2007-07-18 17:23:24 +0800151When: July 2008
152Why: 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.
Zhang Ruib981c592007-01-29 11:02:30 +0800155Who: Zhang Rui <rui.zhang@intel.com>
156
157---------------------------
158
Len Brown1bb67c22007-01-11 01:49:44 -0500159What: /proc/acpi/button
160When: August 2007
161Why: /proc/acpi/button has been replaced by events to the input layer
162 since 2.6.20.
163Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
164
165---------------------------
Jeff Garzik54b290a2007-01-23 00:29:01 -0500166
Len Brown14e04fb2007-08-23 15:20:26 -0400167What: /proc/acpi/event
168When: February 2008
169Why: /proc/acpi/event has been replaced by events via the input layer
170 and netlink since 2.6.23.
171Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
172
173---------------------------
174
Borislav Petkovd48567d2008-02-26 21:50:36 +0100175What: ide-tape driver
176When: July 2008
177Files: drivers/ide/ide-tape.c
178Why: This driver might not have any users anymore and maintaining it for no
179 reason is an effort no one wants to make.
180Who: Bartlomiej Zolnierkiewicz <bzolnier@gmail.com>, Borislav Petkov
181 <petkovbb@googlemail.com>
182
183---------------------------
184
Tejun Heod9aca222007-05-17 16:43:26 +0200185What: libata spindown skipping and warning
Tejun Heo920a4b12007-05-04 21:28:48 +0200186When: Dec 2008
Tejun Heod9aca222007-05-17 16:43:26 +0200187Why: Some halt(8) implementations synchronize caches for and spin
188 down libata disks because libata didn't use to spin down disk on
189 system halt (only synchronized caches).
190 Spin down on system halt is now implemented. sysfs node
191 /sys/class/scsi_disk/h:c:i:l/manage_start_stop is present if
192 spin down support is available.
Tejun Heo920a4b12007-05-04 21:28:48 +0200193 Because issuing spin down command to an already spun down disk
Tejun Heod9aca222007-05-17 16:43:26 +0200194 makes some disks spin up just to spin down again, libata tracks
195 device spindown status to skip the extra spindown command and
196 warn about it.
197 This is to give userspace tools the time to get updated and will
198 be removed after userspace is reasonably updated.
Tejun Heo920a4b12007-05-04 21:28:48 +0200199Who: Tejun Heo <htejun@gmail.com>
200
201---------------------------
202
Josh Boyer0b7dbfb2007-07-03 23:25:46 +1000203What: The arch/ppc and include/asm-ppc directories
204When: Jun 2008
205Why: The arch/powerpc tree is the merged architecture for ppc32 and ppc64
206 platforms. Currently there are efforts underway to port the remaining
207 arch/ppc platforms to the merged tree. New submissions to the arch/ppc
208 tree have been frozen with the 2.6.22 kernel release and that tree will
209 remain in bug-fix only mode until its scheduled removal. Platforms
210 that are not ported by June 2008 will be removed due to the lack of an
211 interested maintainer.
212Who: linuxppc-dev@ozlabs.org
213
214---------------------------
Roland Dreierf6be6fb2007-07-17 18:37:41 -0700215
Thomas Gleixner914d97f2007-10-11 11:20:05 +0200216What: i386/x86_64 bzImage symlinks
217When: April 2008
218
219Why: The i386/x86_64 merge provides a symlink to the old bzImage
220 location so not yet updated user space tools, e.g. package
221 scripts, do not break.
222Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Linus Torvalds038a5002007-10-11 19:40:14 -0700223
224---------------------------
225
Jean Delvare0f79b722008-01-27 18:14:47 +0100226What: i2c-i810, i2c-prosavage and i2c-savage4
227When: May 2008
228Why: These drivers are superseded by i810fb, intelfb and savagefb.
229Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>
230
231---------------------------
John W. Linville003faaa2008-01-27 22:48:37 -0800232
Jan Engelhardtf9ef8a22008-01-14 23:43:34 -0800233What (Why):
234 - include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ipt_TOS.h ipt_tos.h header files
235 (superseded by xt_TOS/xt_tos target & match)
236
237 - "forwarding" header files like ipt_mac.h in
238 include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ and include/linux/netfilter_ipv6/
239
240 - xt_CONNMARK match revision 0
241 (superseded by xt_CONNMARK match revision 1)
242
243 - xt_MARK target revisions 0 and 1
244 (superseded by xt_MARK match revision 2)
245
246 - xt_connmark match revision 0
247 (superseded by xt_connmark match revision 1)
248
249 - xt_conntrack match revision 0
250 (superseded by xt_conntrack match revision 1)
251
252 - xt_iprange match revision 0,
253 include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ipt_iprange.h
254 (superseded by xt_iprange match revision 1)
255
256 - xt_mark match revision 0
257 (superseded by xt_mark match revision 1)
258
259When: January 2009 or Linux 2.7.0, whichever comes first
260Why: Superseded by newer revisions or modules
261Who: Jan Engelhardt <jengelh@computergmbh.de>
Michael Buescheb189d8b2008-01-28 14:47:41 -0800262
263---------------------------
264
265What: b43 support for firmware revision < 410
266When: July 2008
267Why: The support code for the old firmware hurts code readability/maintainability
268 and slightly hurts runtime performance. Bugfixes for the old firmware
269 are not provided by Broadcom anymore.
270Who: Michael Buesch <mb@bu3sch.de>
David S. Millere88bb412008-02-09 23:08:53 -0800271
272---------------------------
273
274What: Solaris/SunOS syscall and binary support on Sparc
275When: 2.6.26
276Why: Largely unmaintained and almost entirely unused. File system
277 layering used to divert library and dynamic linker searches to
278 /usr/gnemul is extremely buggy and unfixable. Making it work
279 is largely pointless as without a lot of work only the most
280 trivial of Solaris binaries can work with the emulation code.
281Who: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
Ingo Molnar757265b2008-02-28 20:19:06 +0100282
283---------------------------
284
285What: init_mm export
286When: 2.6.26
287Why: Not used in-tree. The current out-of-tree users used it to
288 work around problems in the CPA code which should be resolved
289 by now. One usecase was described to provide verification code
290 of the CPA operation. That's a good idea in general, but such
291 code / infrastructure should be in the kernel and not in some
292 out-of-tree driver.
293Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>