blob: f8cd450be9aa83a4a88cee408f79378ef575ce18 [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
Robin Getz9d9b8fb02009-06-17 16:25:54 -07009What: IRQF_SAMPLE_RANDOM
10Check: IRQF_SAMPLE_RANDOM
11When: July 2009
12
13Why: Many of IRQF_SAMPLE_RANDOM users are technically bogus as entropy
14 sources in the kernel's current entropy model. To resolve this, every
15 input point to the kernel's entropy pool needs to better document the
16 type of entropy source it actually is. This will be replaced with
17 additional add_*_randomness functions in drivers/char/random.c
18
19Who: Robin Getz <rgetz@blackfin.uclinux.org> & Matt Mackall <mpm@selenic.com>
20
21---------------------------
22
Luis R. Rodriguez6ee7d332009-03-20 23:53:06 -040023What: The ieee80211_regdom module parameter
Luis R. Rodriguez8a5117d2009-03-24 21:21:07 -040024When: March 2010 / desktop catchup
Luis R. Rodriguez6ee7d332009-03-20 23:53:06 -040025
26Why: This was inherited by the CONFIG_WIRELESS_OLD_REGULATORY code,
27 and currently serves as an option for users to define an
28 ISO / IEC 3166 alpha2 code for the country they are currently
29 present in. Although there are userspace API replacements for this
30 through nl80211 distributions haven't yet caught up with implementing
31 decent alternatives through standard GUIs. Although available as an
32 option through iw or wpa_supplicant its just a matter of time before
33 distributions pick up good GUI options for this. The ideal solution
34 would actually consist of intelligent designs which would do this for
35 the user automatically even when travelling through different countries.
36 Until then we leave this module parameter as a compromise.
37
38 When userspace improves with reasonable widely-available alternatives for
39 this we will no longer need this module parameter. This entry hopes that
40 by the super-futuristically looking date of "March 2010" we will have
41 such replacements widely available.
42
43Who: Luis R. Rodriguez <lrodriguez@atheros.com>
44
45---------------------------
46
Luis R. Rodriguez8a5117d2009-03-24 21:21:07 -040047What: CONFIG_WIRELESS_OLD_REGULATORY - old static regulatory information
48When: March 2010 / desktop catchup
49
Luis R. Rodriguezb2e1b302008-09-09 23:19:48 -070050Why: The old regulatory infrastructure has been replaced with a new one
51 which does not require statically defined regulatory domains. We do
52 not want to keep static regulatory domains in the kernel due to the
53 the dynamic nature of regulatory law and localization. We kept around
54 the old static definitions for the regulatory domains of:
Luis R. Rodriguez8a5117d2009-03-24 21:21:07 -040055
Luis R. Rodriguezb2e1b302008-09-09 23:19:48 -070056 * US
57 * JP
58 * EU
Luis R. Rodriguez8a5117d2009-03-24 21:21:07 -040059
Luis R. Rodriguezb2e1b302008-09-09 23:19:48 -070060 and used by default the US when CONFIG_WIRELESS_OLD_REGULATORY was
Luis R. Rodriguez8a5117d2009-03-24 21:21:07 -040061 set. We will remove this option once the standard Linux desktop catches
62 up with the new userspace APIs we have implemented.
63
Luis R. Rodriguezb2e1b302008-09-09 23:19:48 -070064Who: Luis R. Rodriguez <lrodriguez@atheros.com>
65
66---------------------------
67
Alan Stern471d0552007-07-12 16:55:07 -040068What: dev->power.power_state
Pavel Machek1ebfd792006-08-30 13:50:27 -070069When: July 2007
70Why: Broken design for runtime control over driver power states, confusing
71 driver-internal runtime power management with: mechanisms to support
72 system-wide sleep state transitions; event codes that distinguish
73 different phases of swsusp "sleep" transitions; and userspace policy
74 inputs. This framework was never widely used, and most attempts to
75 use it were broken. Drivers should instead be exposing domain-specific
76 interfaces either to kernel or to userspace.
77Who: Pavel Machek <pavel@suse.cz>
78
79---------------------------
80
Mauro Carvalho Chehab42d12f52009-03-10 05:02:28 -030081What: Video4Linux API 1 ioctls and from Video devices.
82When: July 2009
83Files: include/linux/videodev.h
84Check: include/linux/videodev.h
Mauro Carvalho Chehab11a5a102007-10-17 15:32:36 -020085Why: V4L1 AP1 was replaced by V4L2 API during migration from 2.4 to 2.6
Mauro Carvalho Chehab875c2962005-11-08 21:38:53 -080086 series. The old API have lots of drawbacks and don't provide enough
87 means to work with all video and audio standards. The newer API is
88 already available on the main drivers and should be used instead.
89 Newer drivers should use v4l_compat_translate_ioctl function to handle
90 old calls, replacing to newer ones.
91 Decoder iocts are using internally to allow video drivers to
92 communicate with video decoders. This should also be improved to allow
93 V4L2 calls being translated into compatible internal ioctls.
Mauro Carvalho Chehab11a5a102007-10-17 15:32:36 -020094 Compatibility ioctls will be provided, for a while, via
95 v4l1-compat module.
96Who: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@infradead.org>
Mauro Carvalho Chehab875c2962005-11-08 21:38:53 -080097
98---------------------------
99
Dominik Brodowskibf45d9b02005-07-07 17:58:58 -0700100What: PCMCIA control ioctl (needed for pcmcia-cs [cardmgr, cardctl])
101When: November 2005
102Files: drivers/pcmcia/: pcmcia_ioctl.c
103Why: With the 16-bit PCMCIA subsystem now behaving (almost) like a
104 normal hotpluggable bus, and with it using the default kernel
105 infrastructure (hotplug, driver core, sysfs) keeping the PCMCIA
106 control ioctl needed by cardmgr and cardctl from pcmcia-cs is
107 unnecessary, and makes further cleanups and integration of the
108 PCMCIA subsystem into the Linux kernel device driver model more
109 difficult. The features provided by cardmgr and cardctl are either
110 handled by the kernel itself now or are available in the new
111 pcmciautils package available at
112 http://kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/pcmcia/
113Who: Dominik Brodowski <linux@brodo.de>
Harald Welte7af4cc32005-08-09 19:44:15 -0700114
115---------------------------
116
Eric W. Biederman7058cb02007-10-18 03:05:58 -0700117What: sys_sysctl
118When: September 2010
119Option: CONFIG_SYSCTL_SYSCALL
120Why: The same information is available in a more convenient from
121 /proc/sys, and none of the sysctl variables appear to be
122 important performance wise.
123
124 Binary sysctls are a long standing source of subtle kernel
125 bugs and security issues.
126
127 When I looked several months ago all I could find after
128 searching several distributions were 5 user space programs and
129 glibc (which falls back to /proc/sys) using this syscall.
130
131 The man page for sysctl(2) documents it as unusable for user
132 space programs.
133
134 sysctl(2) is not generally ABI compatible to a 32bit user
135 space application on a 64bit and a 32bit kernel.
136
137 For the last several months the policy has been no new binary
138 sysctls and no one has put forward an argument to use them.
139
140 Binary sysctls issues seem to keep happening appearing so
141 properly deprecating them (with a warning to user space) and a
142 2 year grace warning period will mean eventually we can kill
143 them and end the pain.
144
145 In the mean time individual binary sysctls can be dealt with
146 in a piecewise fashion.
147
148Who: Eric Biederman <ebiederm@xmission.com>
149
150---------------------------
151
Christoph Hellwigac515892006-03-24 03:18:22 -0800152What: remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(kernel_thread)
153When: August 2006
154Files: arch/*/kernel/*_ksyms.c
Andy Whitcroftf0a594c2007-07-19 01:48:34 -0700155Check: kernel_thread
Christoph Hellwigac515892006-03-24 03:18:22 -0800156Why: kernel_thread is a low-level implementation detail. Drivers should
157 use the <linux/kthread.h> API instead which shields them from
158 implementation details and provides a higherlevel interface that
159 prevents bugs and code duplication
160Who: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
161
162---------------------------
163
Arjan van de Venf71d20e2006-06-28 04:26:45 -0700164What: Unused EXPORT_SYMBOL/EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL exports
165 (temporary transition config option provided until then)
166 The transition config option will also be removed at the same time.
167When: before 2.6.19
168Why: Unused symbols are both increasing the size of the kernel binary
169 and are often a sign of "wrong API"
170Who: Arjan van de Ven <arjan@linux.intel.com>
171
172---------------------------
173
Kay Sieversd81d9d62006-08-13 06:17:09 +0200174What: PHYSDEVPATH, PHYSDEVBUS, PHYSDEVDRIVER in the uevent environment
Dominik Brodowskiacbd39f2006-09-30 22:41:43 -0400175When: October 2008
Kay Sieversd81d9d62006-08-13 06:17:09 +0200176Why: The stacking of class devices makes these values misleading and
177 inconsistent.
178 Class devices should not carry any of these properties, and bus
179 devices have SUBSYTEM and DRIVER as a replacement.
180Who: Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@suse.de>
181
182---------------------------
Jean Delvare6c805d22006-08-13 23:45:52 +0200183
Zhang Ruib981c592007-01-29 11:02:30 +0800184What: ACPI procfs interface
Zhang Rui8b8eb7d2007-07-18 17:23:24 +0800185When: July 2008
186Why: ACPI sysfs conversion should be finished by January 2008.
187 ACPI procfs interface will be removed in July 2008 so that
188 there is enough time for the user space to catch up.
Zhang Ruib981c592007-01-29 11:02:30 +0800189Who: Zhang Rui <rui.zhang@intel.com>
190
191---------------------------
192
Len Brown1bb67c22007-01-11 01:49:44 -0500193What: /proc/acpi/button
194When: August 2007
195Why: /proc/acpi/button has been replaced by events to the input layer
196 since 2.6.20.
197Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
198
199---------------------------
Jeff Garzik54b290a2007-01-23 00:29:01 -0500200
Len Brown14e04fb2007-08-23 15:20:26 -0400201What: /proc/acpi/event
202When: February 2008
203Why: /proc/acpi/event has been replaced by events via the input layer
204 and netlink since 2.6.23.
205Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
206
207---------------------------
208
Tejun Heod9aca222007-05-17 16:43:26 +0200209What: libata spindown skipping and warning
Tejun Heo920a4b12007-05-04 21:28:48 +0200210When: Dec 2008
Tejun Heod9aca222007-05-17 16:43:26 +0200211Why: Some halt(8) implementations synchronize caches for and spin
212 down libata disks because libata didn't use to spin down disk on
213 system halt (only synchronized caches).
214 Spin down on system halt is now implemented. sysfs node
215 /sys/class/scsi_disk/h:c:i:l/manage_start_stop is present if
216 spin down support is available.
Tejun Heo920a4b12007-05-04 21:28:48 +0200217 Because issuing spin down command to an already spun down disk
Tejun Heod9aca222007-05-17 16:43:26 +0200218 makes some disks spin up just to spin down again, libata tracks
219 device spindown status to skip the extra spindown command and
220 warn about it.
221 This is to give userspace tools the time to get updated and will
222 be removed after userspace is reasonably updated.
Tejun Heo920a4b12007-05-04 21:28:48 +0200223Who: Tejun Heo <htejun@gmail.com>
224
225---------------------------
226
Thomas Gleixner914d97f2007-10-11 11:20:05 +0200227What: i386/x86_64 bzImage symlinks
Ingo Molnar19b4e7f2008-04-10 10:12:27 +0200228When: April 2010
Thomas Gleixner914d97f2007-10-11 11:20:05 +0200229
230Why: The i386/x86_64 merge provides a symlink to the old bzImage
231 location so not yet updated user space tools, e.g. package
232 scripts, do not break.
233Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Linus Torvalds038a5002007-10-11 19:40:14 -0700234
235---------------------------
236
Jan Engelhardtf9ef8a22008-01-14 23:43:34 -0800237What (Why):
238 - include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ipt_TOS.h ipt_tos.h header files
239 (superseded by xt_TOS/xt_tos target & match)
240
241 - "forwarding" header files like ipt_mac.h in
242 include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ and include/linux/netfilter_ipv6/
243
244 - xt_CONNMARK match revision 0
245 (superseded by xt_CONNMARK match revision 1)
246
247 - xt_MARK target revisions 0 and 1
248 (superseded by xt_MARK match revision 2)
249
250 - xt_connmark match revision 0
251 (superseded by xt_connmark match revision 1)
252
253 - xt_conntrack match revision 0
254 (superseded by xt_conntrack match revision 1)
255
256 - xt_iprange match revision 0,
257 include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ipt_iprange.h
258 (superseded by xt_iprange match revision 1)
259
260 - xt_mark match revision 0
261 (superseded by xt_mark match revision 1)
262
Jan Engelhardt079aa882008-10-08 11:35:00 +0200263 - xt_recent: the old ipt_recent proc dir
264 (superseded by /proc/net/xt_recent)
265
Jan Engelhardtf9ef8a22008-01-14 23:43:34 -0800266When: January 2009 or Linux 2.7.0, whichever comes first
267Why: Superseded by newer revisions or modules
268Who: Jan Engelhardt <jengelh@computergmbh.de>
Michael Buescheb189d8b2008-01-28 14:47:41 -0800269
270---------------------------
271
David Brownell8a0cecf2009-04-02 16:57:06 -0700272What: GPIO autorequest on gpio_direction_{input,output}() in gpiolib
273When: February 2010
274Why: All callers should use explicit gpio_request()/gpio_free().
275 The autorequest mechanism in gpiolib was provided mostly as a
276 migration aid for legacy GPIO interfaces (for SOC based GPIOs).
277 Those users have now largely migrated. Platforms implementing
278 the GPIO interfaces without using gpiolib will see no changes.
279Who: David Brownell <dbrownell@users.sourceforge.net>
280---------------------------
281
Michael Buescheb189d8b2008-01-28 14:47:41 -0800282What: b43 support for firmware revision < 410
Michael Bueschc5572892008-12-27 18:26:39 +0100283When: The schedule was July 2008, but it was decided that we are going to keep the
284 code as long as there are no major maintanance headaches.
285 So it _could_ be removed _any_ time now, if it conflicts with something new.
Michael Buescheb189d8b2008-01-28 14:47:41 -0800286Why: The support code for the old firmware hurts code readability/maintainability
287 and slightly hurts runtime performance. Bugfixes for the old firmware
288 are not provided by Broadcom anymore.
289Who: Michael Buesch <mb@bu3sch.de>
David S. Millere88bb412008-02-09 23:08:53 -0800290
291---------------------------
292
Glauber Costafae9a0d2008-04-08 13:20:56 -0300293What: usedac i386 kernel parameter
294When: 2.6.27
295Why: replaced by allowdac and no dac combination
296Who: Glauber Costa <gcosta@redhat.com>
297
Mark Fasheh52f7c212008-01-29 17:08:26 -0800298---------------------------
299
Bjorn Helgaasc80cfb02008-10-15 22:01:35 -0700300What: print_fn_descriptor_symbol()
301When: October 2009
302Why: The %pF vsprintf format provides the same functionality in a
303 simpler way. print_fn_descriptor_symbol() is deprecated but
304 still present to give out-of-tree modules time to change.
305Who: Bjorn Helgaas <bjorn.helgaas@hp.com>
306
307---------------------------
308
Mark Fasheh52f7c212008-01-29 17:08:26 -0800309What: /sys/o2cb symlink
310When: January 2010
311Why: /sys/fs/o2cb is the proper location for this information - /sys/o2cb
312 exists as a symlink for backwards compatibility for old versions of
313 ocfs2-tools. 2 years should be sufficient time to phase in new versions
314 which know to look in /sys/fs/o2cb.
315Who: ocfs2-devel@oss.oracle.com
Matthew Wilcoxd2f5e802008-04-19 13:49:34 -0400316
317---------------------------
318
Vlad Yasevichecbed6a2008-07-01 20:06:22 -0700319What: SCTP_GET_PEER_ADDRS_NUM_OLD, SCTP_GET_PEER_ADDRS_OLD,
320 SCTP_GET_LOCAL_ADDRS_NUM_OLD, SCTP_GET_LOCAL_ADDRS_OLD
321When: June 2009
322Why: A newer version of the options have been introduced in 2005 that
323 removes the limitions of the old API. The sctp library has been
324 converted to use these new options at the same time. Any user
325 space app that directly uses the old options should convert to using
326 the new options.
327Who: Vlad Yasevich <vladislav.yasevich@hp.com>
David S. Millerea2aca02008-07-05 23:08:07 -0700328
329---------------------------
330
Ravikiran G Thirumalai2584e512009-03-31 15:21:26 -0700331What: Ability for non root users to shm_get hugetlb pages based on mlock
332 resource limits
333When: 2.6.31
334Why: Non root users need to be part of /proc/sys/vm/hugetlb_shm_group or
335 have CAP_IPC_LOCK to be able to allocate shm segments backed by
336 huge pages. The mlock based rlimit check to allow shm hugetlb is
337 inconsistent with mmap based allocations. Hence it is being
338 deprecated.
339Who: Ravikiran Thirumalai <kiran@scalex86.org>
340
341---------------------------
342
Rene Herman16d75232008-06-24 19:38:56 +0200343What: CONFIG_THERMAL_HWMON
344When: January 2009
345Why: This option was introduced just to allow older lm-sensors userspace
346 to keep working over the upgrade to 2.6.26. At the scheduled time of
347 removal fixed lm-sensors (2.x or 3.x) should be readily available.
348Who: Rene Herman <rene.herman@gmail.com>
Johannes Berg22bb1be2008-07-10 11:16:47 +0200349
350---------------------------
351
352What: Code that is now under CONFIG_WIRELESS_EXT_SYSFS
353 (in net/core/net-sysfs.c)
354When: After the only user (hal) has seen a release with the patches
355 for enough time, probably some time in 2010.
356Why: Over 1K .text/.data size reduction, data is available in other
357 ways (ioctls)
358Who: Johannes Berg <johannes@sipsolutions.net>
Krzysztof Piotr Oledzki58401572008-07-21 10:01:34 -0700359
360---------------------------
361
362What: CONFIG_NF_CT_ACCT
363When: 2.6.29
364Why: Accounting can now be enabled/disabled without kernel recompilation.
365 Currently used only to set a default value for a feature that is also
366 controlled by a kernel/module/sysfs/sysctl parameter.
367Who: Krzysztof Piotr Oledzki <ole@ans.pl>
368
FUJITA Tomonori46dfa042008-09-10 22:22:34 +0200369---------------------------
370
Hans de Goede0589c2d2009-01-07 16:37:33 +0100371What: fscher and fscpos drivers
372When: June 2009
373Why: Deprecated by the new fschmd driver.
374Who: Hans de Goede <hdegoede@redhat.com>
375 Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>
376
377---------------------------
378
Dave Jones753b7ae2009-03-09 15:14:37 -0400379What: sysfs ui for changing p4-clockmod parameters
380When: September 2009
381Why: See commits 129f8ae9b1b5be94517da76009ea956e89104ce8 and
382 e088e4c9cdb618675874becb91b2fd581ee707e6.
383 Removal is subject to fixing any remaining bugs in ACPI which may
384 cause the thermal throttling not to happen at the right time.
385Who: Dave Jones <davej@redhat.com>, Matthew Garrett <mjg@redhat.com>
Thomas Gleixner0e57aa12009-03-13 14:34:05 +0100386
387-----------------------------
388
389What: __do_IRQ all in one fits nothing interrupt handler
390When: 2.6.32
391Why: __do_IRQ was kept for easy migration to the type flow handlers.
392 More than two years of migration time is enough.
393Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Thomas Gleixnercb065c02009-03-13 14:40:27 +0100394
395-----------------------------
396
397What: obsolete generic irq defines and typedefs
398When: 2.6.30
399Why: The defines and typedefs (hw_interrupt_type, no_irq_type, irq_desc_t)
400 have been kept around for migration reasons. After more than two years
401 it's time to remove them finally
402Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Linus Torvaldse76e5b22009-04-01 09:47:12 -0700403
Alex Chiangf110ca42009-03-20 14:56:56 -0600404---------------------------
405
406What: fakephp and associated sysfs files in /sys/bus/pci/slots/
407When: 2011
408Why: In 2.6.27, the semantics of /sys/bus/pci/slots was redefined to
409 represent a machine's physical PCI slots. The change in semantics
410 had userspace implications, as the hotplug core no longer allowed
411 drivers to create multiple sysfs files per physical slot (required
412 for multi-function devices, e.g.). fakephp was seen as a developer's
413 tool only, and its interface changed. Too late, we learned that
414 there were some users of the fakephp interface.
415
416 In 2.6.30, the original fakephp interface was restored. At the same
417 time, the PCI core gained the ability that fakephp provided, namely
418 function-level hot-remove and hot-add.
419
420 Since the PCI core now provides the same functionality, exposed in:
421
422 /sys/bus/pci/rescan
423 /sys/bus/pci/devices/.../remove
424 /sys/bus/pci/devices/.../rescan
425
426 there is no functional reason to maintain fakephp as well.
427
428 We will keep the existing module so that 'modprobe fakephp' will
429 present the old /sys/bus/pci/slots/... interface for compatibility,
430 but users are urged to migrate their applications to the API above.
431
432 After a reasonable transition period, we will remove the legacy
433 fakephp interface.
434Who: Alex Chiang <achiang@hp.com>
Jean Delvare3f307fb2009-04-13 17:02:13 +0200435
436---------------------------
437
438What: i2c-voodoo3 driver
439When: October 2009
440Why: Superseded by tdfxfb. I2C/DDC support used to live in a separate
441 driver but this caused driver conflicts.
442Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>
443 Krzysztof Helt <krzysztof.h1@wp.pl>
Johannes Bergc64fb012009-06-02 13:01:38 +0200444
445---------------------------
446
447What: CONFIG_RFKILL_INPUT
448When: 2.6.33
449Why: Should be implemented in userspace, policy daemon.
450Who: Johannes Berg <johannes@sipsolutions.net>
David S. Miller9cbc1cb2009-06-15 03:02:23 -0700451
Andi Kleen45f458e2009-04-28 23:18:26 +0200452----------------------------
453
454What: CONFIG_X86_OLD_MCE
455When: 2.6.32
456Why: Remove the old legacy 32bit machine check code. This has been
457 superseded by the newer machine check code from the 64bit port,
458 but the old version has been kept around for easier testing. Note this
459 doesn't impact the old P5 and WinChip machine check handlers.
460Who: Andi Kleen <andi@firstfloor.org>