blob: 599fe55bf2970bb56b512f77d8ce5170d1e0199d [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
Kay Sieversd81d9d62006-08-13 06:17:09 +0200131What: PHYSDEVPATH, PHYSDEVBUS, PHYSDEVDRIVER in the uevent environment
Dominik Brodowskiacbd39f2006-09-30 22:41:43 -0400132When: October 2008
Kay Sieversd81d9d62006-08-13 06:17:09 +0200133Why: The stacking of class devices makes these values misleading and
134 inconsistent.
135 Class devices should not carry any of these properties, and bus
136 devices have SUBSYTEM and DRIVER as a replacement.
137Who: Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@suse.de>
138
139---------------------------
Jean Delvare6c805d22006-08-13 23:45:52 +0200140
Zhang Ruib981c592007-01-29 11:02:30 +0800141What: ACPI procfs interface
Zhang Rui8b8eb7d2007-07-18 17:23:24 +0800142When: July 2008
143Why: ACPI sysfs conversion should be finished by January 2008.
144 ACPI procfs interface will be removed in July 2008 so that
145 there is enough time for the user space to catch up.
Zhang Ruib981c592007-01-29 11:02:30 +0800146Who: Zhang Rui <rui.zhang@intel.com>
147
148---------------------------
149
Len Brown1bb67c22007-01-11 01:49:44 -0500150What: /proc/acpi/button
151When: August 2007
152Why: /proc/acpi/button has been replaced by events to the input layer
153 since 2.6.20.
154Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
155
156---------------------------
Jeff Garzik54b290a2007-01-23 00:29:01 -0500157
Len Brown14e04fb2007-08-23 15:20:26 -0400158What: /proc/acpi/event
159When: February 2008
160Why: /proc/acpi/event has been replaced by events via the input layer
161 and netlink since 2.6.23.
162Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
163
164---------------------------
165
Tejun Heod9aca222007-05-17 16:43:26 +0200166What: libata spindown skipping and warning
Tejun Heo920a4b12007-05-04 21:28:48 +0200167When: Dec 2008
Tejun Heod9aca222007-05-17 16:43:26 +0200168Why: Some halt(8) implementations synchronize caches for and spin
169 down libata disks because libata didn't use to spin down disk on
170 system halt (only synchronized caches).
171 Spin down on system halt is now implemented. sysfs node
172 /sys/class/scsi_disk/h:c:i:l/manage_start_stop is present if
173 spin down support is available.
Tejun Heo920a4b12007-05-04 21:28:48 +0200174 Because issuing spin down command to an already spun down disk
Tejun Heod9aca222007-05-17 16:43:26 +0200175 makes some disks spin up just to spin down again, libata tracks
176 device spindown status to skip the extra spindown command and
177 warn about it.
178 This is to give userspace tools the time to get updated and will
179 be removed after userspace is reasonably updated.
Tejun Heo920a4b12007-05-04 21:28:48 +0200180Who: Tejun Heo <htejun@gmail.com>
181
182---------------------------
183
Josh Boyer0b7dbfb2007-07-03 23:25:46 +1000184What: The arch/ppc and include/asm-ppc directories
185When: Jun 2008
186Why: The arch/powerpc tree is the merged architecture for ppc32 and ppc64
187 platforms. Currently there are efforts underway to port the remaining
188 arch/ppc platforms to the merged tree. New submissions to the arch/ppc
189 tree have been frozen with the 2.6.22 kernel release and that tree will
190 remain in bug-fix only mode until its scheduled removal. Platforms
191 that are not ported by June 2008 will be removed due to the lack of an
192 interested maintainer.
193Who: linuxppc-dev@ozlabs.org
194
195---------------------------
Roland Dreierf6be6fb2007-07-17 18:37:41 -0700196
Thomas Gleixner914d97f2007-10-11 11:20:05 +0200197What: i386/x86_64 bzImage symlinks
Ingo Molnar19b4e7f2008-04-10 10:12:27 +0200198When: April 2010
Thomas Gleixner914d97f2007-10-11 11:20:05 +0200199
200Why: The i386/x86_64 merge provides a symlink to the old bzImage
201 location so not yet updated user space tools, e.g. package
202 scripts, do not break.
203Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Linus Torvalds038a5002007-10-11 19:40:14 -0700204
205---------------------------
206
Jean Delvare0f79b722008-01-27 18:14:47 +0100207What: i2c-i810, i2c-prosavage and i2c-savage4
208When: May 2008
209Why: These drivers are superseded by i810fb, intelfb and savagefb.
210Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>
211
212---------------------------
John W. Linville003faaa2008-01-27 22:48:37 -0800213
Jan Engelhardtf9ef8a22008-01-14 23:43:34 -0800214What (Why):
215 - include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ipt_TOS.h ipt_tos.h header files
216 (superseded by xt_TOS/xt_tos target & match)
217
218 - "forwarding" header files like ipt_mac.h in
219 include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ and include/linux/netfilter_ipv6/
220
221 - xt_CONNMARK match revision 0
222 (superseded by xt_CONNMARK match revision 1)
223
224 - xt_MARK target revisions 0 and 1
225 (superseded by xt_MARK match revision 2)
226
227 - xt_connmark match revision 0
228 (superseded by xt_connmark match revision 1)
229
230 - xt_conntrack match revision 0
231 (superseded by xt_conntrack match revision 1)
232
233 - xt_iprange match revision 0,
234 include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ipt_iprange.h
235 (superseded by xt_iprange match revision 1)
236
237 - xt_mark match revision 0
238 (superseded by xt_mark match revision 1)
239
240When: January 2009 or Linux 2.7.0, whichever comes first
241Why: Superseded by newer revisions or modules
242Who: Jan Engelhardt <jengelh@computergmbh.de>
Michael Buescheb189d8b2008-01-28 14:47:41 -0800243
244---------------------------
245
246What: b43 support for firmware revision < 410
247When: July 2008
248Why: The support code for the old firmware hurts code readability/maintainability
249 and slightly hurts runtime performance. Bugfixes for the old firmware
250 are not provided by Broadcom anymore.
251Who: Michael Buesch <mb@bu3sch.de>
David S. Millere88bb412008-02-09 23:08:53 -0800252
253---------------------------
254
Ingo Molnar757265b2008-02-28 20:19:06 +0100255What: init_mm export
256When: 2.6.26
257Why: Not used in-tree. The current out-of-tree users used it to
258 work around problems in the CPA code which should be resolved
259 by now. One usecase was described to provide verification code
260 of the CPA operation. That's a good idea in general, but such
261 code / infrastructure should be in the kernel and not in some
262 out-of-tree driver.
263Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Mark Fasheh52f7c212008-01-29 17:08:26 -0800264
Glauber Costafae9a0d2008-04-08 13:20:56 -0300265----------------------------
266
267What: usedac i386 kernel parameter
268When: 2.6.27
269Why: replaced by allowdac and no dac combination
270Who: Glauber Costa <gcosta@redhat.com>
271
Mark Fasheh52f7c212008-01-29 17:08:26 -0800272---------------------------
273
274What: /sys/o2cb symlink
275When: January 2010
276Why: /sys/fs/o2cb is the proper location for this information - /sys/o2cb
277 exists as a symlink for backwards compatibility for old versions of
278 ocfs2-tools. 2 years should be sufficient time to phase in new versions
279 which know to look in /sys/fs/o2cb.
280Who: ocfs2-devel@oss.oracle.com
Matthew Wilcoxd2f5e802008-04-19 13:49:34 -0400281
282---------------------------
283
284What: asm/semaphore.h
285When: 2.6.26
286Why: Implementation became generic; users should now include
287 linux/semaphore.h instead.
288Who: Matthew Wilcox <willy@linux.intel.com>