blob: a23361e80c645835c7ef34b9fc969da22f93bed9 [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
Luis R. Rodriguez6ee7d332009-03-20 23:53:06 -04009What: The ieee80211_regdom module parameter
Luis R. Rodriguez8a5117d2009-03-24 21:21:07 -040010When: March 2010 / desktop catchup
Luis R. Rodriguez6ee7d332009-03-20 23:53:06 -040011
12Why: This was inherited by the CONFIG_WIRELESS_OLD_REGULATORY code,
13 and currently serves as an option for users to define an
14 ISO / IEC 3166 alpha2 code for the country they are currently
15 present in. Although there are userspace API replacements for this
16 through nl80211 distributions haven't yet caught up with implementing
17 decent alternatives through standard GUIs. Although available as an
18 option through iw or wpa_supplicant its just a matter of time before
19 distributions pick up good GUI options for this. The ideal solution
20 would actually consist of intelligent designs which would do this for
21 the user automatically even when travelling through different countries.
22 Until then we leave this module parameter as a compromise.
23
24 When userspace improves with reasonable widely-available alternatives for
25 this we will no longer need this module parameter. This entry hopes that
26 by the super-futuristically looking date of "March 2010" we will have
27 such replacements widely available.
28
29Who: Luis R. Rodriguez <lrodriguez@atheros.com>
30
31---------------------------
32
Luis R. Rodriguez8a5117d2009-03-24 21:21:07 -040033What: CONFIG_WIRELESS_OLD_REGULATORY - old static regulatory information
34When: March 2010 / desktop catchup
35
Luis R. Rodriguezb2e1b302008-09-09 23:19:48 -070036Why: The old regulatory infrastructure has been replaced with a new one
37 which does not require statically defined regulatory domains. We do
38 not want to keep static regulatory domains in the kernel due to the
39 the dynamic nature of regulatory law and localization. We kept around
40 the old static definitions for the regulatory domains of:
Luis R. Rodriguez8a5117d2009-03-24 21:21:07 -040041
Luis R. Rodriguezb2e1b302008-09-09 23:19:48 -070042 * US
43 * JP
44 * EU
Luis R. Rodriguez8a5117d2009-03-24 21:21:07 -040045
Luis R. Rodriguezb2e1b302008-09-09 23:19:48 -070046 and used by default the US when CONFIG_WIRELESS_OLD_REGULATORY was
Luis R. Rodriguez8a5117d2009-03-24 21:21:07 -040047 set. We will remove this option once the standard Linux desktop catches
48 up with the new userspace APIs we have implemented.
49
Luis R. Rodriguezb2e1b302008-09-09 23:19:48 -070050Who: Luis R. Rodriguez <lrodriguez@atheros.com>
51
52---------------------------
53
Alan Stern471d0552007-07-12 16:55:07 -040054What: dev->power.power_state
Pavel Machek1ebfd792006-08-30 13:50:27 -070055When: July 2007
56Why: Broken design for runtime control over driver power states, confusing
57 driver-internal runtime power management with: mechanisms to support
58 system-wide sleep state transitions; event codes that distinguish
59 different phases of swsusp "sleep" transitions; and userspace policy
60 inputs. This framework was never widely used, and most attempts to
61 use it were broken. Drivers should instead be exposing domain-specific
62 interfaces either to kernel or to userspace.
63Who: Pavel Machek <pavel@suse.cz>
64
65---------------------------
66
Mauro Carvalho Chehab42d12f52009-03-10 05:02:28 -030067What: Video4Linux API 1 ioctls and from Video devices.
68When: July 2009
69Files: include/linux/videodev.h
70Check: include/linux/videodev.h
Mauro Carvalho Chehab11a5a102007-10-17 15:32:36 -020071Why: V4L1 AP1 was replaced by V4L2 API during migration from 2.4 to 2.6
Mauro Carvalho Chehab875c2962005-11-08 21:38:53 -080072 series. The old API have lots of drawbacks and don't provide enough
73 means to work with all video and audio standards. The newer API is
74 already available on the main drivers and should be used instead.
75 Newer drivers should use v4l_compat_translate_ioctl function to handle
76 old calls, replacing to newer ones.
77 Decoder iocts are using internally to allow video drivers to
78 communicate with video decoders. This should also be improved to allow
79 V4L2 calls being translated into compatible internal ioctls.
Mauro Carvalho Chehab11a5a102007-10-17 15:32:36 -020080 Compatibility ioctls will be provided, for a while, via
81 v4l1-compat module.
82Who: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@infradead.org>
Mauro Carvalho Chehab875c2962005-11-08 21:38:53 -080083
84---------------------------
85
Dominik Brodowskibf45d9b02005-07-07 17:58:58 -070086What: PCMCIA control ioctl (needed for pcmcia-cs [cardmgr, cardctl])
87When: November 2005
88Files: drivers/pcmcia/: pcmcia_ioctl.c
89Why: With the 16-bit PCMCIA subsystem now behaving (almost) like a
90 normal hotpluggable bus, and with it using the default kernel
91 infrastructure (hotplug, driver core, sysfs) keeping the PCMCIA
92 control ioctl needed by cardmgr and cardctl from pcmcia-cs is
93 unnecessary, and makes further cleanups and integration of the
94 PCMCIA subsystem into the Linux kernel device driver model more
95 difficult. The features provided by cardmgr and cardctl are either
96 handled by the kernel itself now or are available in the new
97 pcmciautils package available at
98 http://kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/pcmcia/
99Who: Dominik Brodowski <linux@brodo.de>
Harald Welte7af4cc32005-08-09 19:44:15 -0700100
101---------------------------
102
Eric W. Biederman7058cb02007-10-18 03:05:58 -0700103What: sys_sysctl
104When: September 2010
105Option: CONFIG_SYSCTL_SYSCALL
106Why: The same information is available in a more convenient from
107 /proc/sys, and none of the sysctl variables appear to be
108 important performance wise.
109
110 Binary sysctls are a long standing source of subtle kernel
111 bugs and security issues.
112
113 When I looked several months ago all I could find after
114 searching several distributions were 5 user space programs and
115 glibc (which falls back to /proc/sys) using this syscall.
116
117 The man page for sysctl(2) documents it as unusable for user
118 space programs.
119
120 sysctl(2) is not generally ABI compatible to a 32bit user
121 space application on a 64bit and a 32bit kernel.
122
123 For the last several months the policy has been no new binary
124 sysctls and no one has put forward an argument to use them.
125
126 Binary sysctls issues seem to keep happening appearing so
127 properly deprecating them (with a warning to user space) and a
128 2 year grace warning period will mean eventually we can kill
129 them and end the pain.
130
131 In the mean time individual binary sysctls can be dealt with
132 in a piecewise fashion.
133
134Who: Eric Biederman <ebiederm@xmission.com>
135
136---------------------------
137
Christoph Hellwigac515892006-03-24 03:18:22 -0800138What: remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(kernel_thread)
139When: August 2006
140Files: arch/*/kernel/*_ksyms.c
Andy Whitcroftf0a594c2007-07-19 01:48:34 -0700141Check: kernel_thread
Christoph Hellwigac515892006-03-24 03:18:22 -0800142Why: kernel_thread is a low-level implementation detail. Drivers should
143 use the <linux/kthread.h> API instead which shields them from
144 implementation details and provides a higherlevel interface that
145 prevents bugs and code duplication
146Who: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
147
148---------------------------
149
Arjan van de Venf71d20e2006-06-28 04:26:45 -0700150What: Unused EXPORT_SYMBOL/EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL exports
151 (temporary transition config option provided until then)
152 The transition config option will also be removed at the same time.
153When: before 2.6.19
154Why: Unused symbols are both increasing the size of the kernel binary
155 and are often a sign of "wrong API"
156Who: Arjan van de Ven <arjan@linux.intel.com>
157
158---------------------------
159
Kay Sieversd81d9d62006-08-13 06:17:09 +0200160What: PHYSDEVPATH, PHYSDEVBUS, PHYSDEVDRIVER in the uevent environment
Dominik Brodowskiacbd39f2006-09-30 22:41:43 -0400161When: October 2008
Kay Sieversd81d9d62006-08-13 06:17:09 +0200162Why: The stacking of class devices makes these values misleading and
163 inconsistent.
164 Class devices should not carry any of these properties, and bus
165 devices have SUBSYTEM and DRIVER as a replacement.
166Who: Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@suse.de>
167
168---------------------------
Jean Delvare6c805d22006-08-13 23:45:52 +0200169
Zhang Ruib981c592007-01-29 11:02:30 +0800170What: ACPI procfs interface
Zhang Rui8b8eb7d2007-07-18 17:23:24 +0800171When: July 2008
172Why: ACPI sysfs conversion should be finished by January 2008.
173 ACPI procfs interface will be removed in July 2008 so that
174 there is enough time for the user space to catch up.
Zhang Ruib981c592007-01-29 11:02:30 +0800175Who: Zhang Rui <rui.zhang@intel.com>
176
177---------------------------
178
Len Brown1bb67c22007-01-11 01:49:44 -0500179What: /proc/acpi/button
180When: August 2007
181Why: /proc/acpi/button has been replaced by events to the input layer
182 since 2.6.20.
183Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
184
185---------------------------
Jeff Garzik54b290a2007-01-23 00:29:01 -0500186
Len Brown14e04fb2007-08-23 15:20:26 -0400187What: /proc/acpi/event
188When: February 2008
189Why: /proc/acpi/event has been replaced by events via the input layer
190 and netlink since 2.6.23.
191Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
192
193---------------------------
194
Tejun Heod9aca222007-05-17 16:43:26 +0200195What: libata spindown skipping and warning
Tejun Heo920a4b12007-05-04 21:28:48 +0200196When: Dec 2008
Tejun Heod9aca222007-05-17 16:43:26 +0200197Why: Some halt(8) implementations synchronize caches for and spin
198 down libata disks because libata didn't use to spin down disk on
199 system halt (only synchronized caches).
200 Spin down on system halt is now implemented. sysfs node
201 /sys/class/scsi_disk/h:c:i:l/manage_start_stop is present if
202 spin down support is available.
Tejun Heo920a4b12007-05-04 21:28:48 +0200203 Because issuing spin down command to an already spun down disk
Tejun Heod9aca222007-05-17 16:43:26 +0200204 makes some disks spin up just to spin down again, libata tracks
205 device spindown status to skip the extra spindown command and
206 warn about it.
207 This is to give userspace tools the time to get updated and will
208 be removed after userspace is reasonably updated.
Tejun Heo920a4b12007-05-04 21:28:48 +0200209Who: Tejun Heo <htejun@gmail.com>
210
211---------------------------
212
Thomas Gleixner914d97f2007-10-11 11:20:05 +0200213What: i386/x86_64 bzImage symlinks
Ingo Molnar19b4e7f2008-04-10 10:12:27 +0200214When: April 2010
Thomas Gleixner914d97f2007-10-11 11:20:05 +0200215
216Why: The i386/x86_64 merge provides a symlink to the old bzImage
217 location so not yet updated user space tools, e.g. package
218 scripts, do not break.
219Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Linus Torvalds038a5002007-10-11 19:40:14 -0700220
221---------------------------
222
Jan Engelhardtf9ef8a22008-01-14 23:43:34 -0800223What (Why):
224 - include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ipt_TOS.h ipt_tos.h header files
225 (superseded by xt_TOS/xt_tos target & match)
226
227 - "forwarding" header files like ipt_mac.h in
228 include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ and include/linux/netfilter_ipv6/
229
230 - xt_CONNMARK match revision 0
231 (superseded by xt_CONNMARK match revision 1)
232
233 - xt_MARK target revisions 0 and 1
234 (superseded by xt_MARK match revision 2)
235
236 - xt_connmark match revision 0
237 (superseded by xt_connmark match revision 1)
238
239 - xt_conntrack match revision 0
240 (superseded by xt_conntrack match revision 1)
241
242 - xt_iprange match revision 0,
243 include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ipt_iprange.h
244 (superseded by xt_iprange match revision 1)
245
246 - xt_mark match revision 0
247 (superseded by xt_mark match revision 1)
248
Jan Engelhardt079aa882008-10-08 11:35:00 +0200249 - xt_recent: the old ipt_recent proc dir
250 (superseded by /proc/net/xt_recent)
251
Jan Engelhardtf9ef8a22008-01-14 23:43:34 -0800252When: January 2009 or Linux 2.7.0, whichever comes first
253Why: Superseded by newer revisions or modules
254Who: Jan Engelhardt <jengelh@computergmbh.de>
Michael Buescheb189d8b2008-01-28 14:47:41 -0800255
256---------------------------
257
David Brownell8a0cecf2009-04-02 16:57:06 -0700258What: GPIO autorequest on gpio_direction_{input,output}() in gpiolib
259When: February 2010
260Why: All callers should use explicit gpio_request()/gpio_free().
261 The autorequest mechanism in gpiolib was provided mostly as a
262 migration aid for legacy GPIO interfaces (for SOC based GPIOs).
263 Those users have now largely migrated. Platforms implementing
264 the GPIO interfaces without using gpiolib will see no changes.
265Who: David Brownell <dbrownell@users.sourceforge.net>
266---------------------------
267
Michael Buescheb189d8b2008-01-28 14:47:41 -0800268What: b43 support for firmware revision < 410
Michael Bueschc5572892008-12-27 18:26:39 +0100269When: The schedule was July 2008, but it was decided that we are going to keep the
270 code as long as there are no major maintanance headaches.
271 So it _could_ be removed _any_ time now, if it conflicts with something new.
Michael Buescheb189d8b2008-01-28 14:47:41 -0800272Why: The support code for the old firmware hurts code readability/maintainability
273 and slightly hurts runtime performance. Bugfixes for the old firmware
274 are not provided by Broadcom anymore.
275Who: Michael Buesch <mb@bu3sch.de>
David S. Millere88bb412008-02-09 23:08:53 -0800276
277---------------------------
278
Glauber Costafae9a0d2008-04-08 13:20:56 -0300279What: usedac i386 kernel parameter
280When: 2.6.27
281Why: replaced by allowdac and no dac combination
282Who: Glauber Costa <gcosta@redhat.com>
283
Mark Fasheh52f7c212008-01-29 17:08:26 -0800284---------------------------
285
Jiri Slaby02ae9a12008-05-16 11:49:22 +0200286What: remove HID compat support
287When: 2.6.29
288Why: needed only as a temporary solution until distros fix themselves up
289Who: Jiri Slaby <jirislaby@gmail.com>
290
291---------------------------
292
Bjorn Helgaasc80cfb02008-10-15 22:01:35 -0700293What: print_fn_descriptor_symbol()
294When: October 2009
295Why: The %pF vsprintf format provides the same functionality in a
296 simpler way. print_fn_descriptor_symbol() is deprecated but
297 still present to give out-of-tree modules time to change.
298Who: Bjorn Helgaas <bjorn.helgaas@hp.com>
299
300---------------------------
301
Mark Fasheh52f7c212008-01-29 17:08:26 -0800302What: /sys/o2cb symlink
303When: January 2010
304Why: /sys/fs/o2cb is the proper location for this information - /sys/o2cb
305 exists as a symlink for backwards compatibility for old versions of
306 ocfs2-tools. 2 years should be sufficient time to phase in new versions
307 which know to look in /sys/fs/o2cb.
308Who: ocfs2-devel@oss.oracle.com
Matthew Wilcoxd2f5e802008-04-19 13:49:34 -0400309
310---------------------------
311
Vlad Yasevichecbed6a2008-07-01 20:06:22 -0700312What: SCTP_GET_PEER_ADDRS_NUM_OLD, SCTP_GET_PEER_ADDRS_OLD,
313 SCTP_GET_LOCAL_ADDRS_NUM_OLD, SCTP_GET_LOCAL_ADDRS_OLD
314When: June 2009
315Why: A newer version of the options have been introduced in 2005 that
316 removes the limitions of the old API. The sctp library has been
317 converted to use these new options at the same time. Any user
318 space app that directly uses the old options should convert to using
319 the new options.
320Who: Vlad Yasevich <vladislav.yasevich@hp.com>
David S. Millerea2aca02008-07-05 23:08:07 -0700321
322---------------------------
323
Ravikiran G Thirumalai2584e512009-03-31 15:21:26 -0700324What: Ability for non root users to shm_get hugetlb pages based on mlock
325 resource limits
326When: 2.6.31
327Why: Non root users need to be part of /proc/sys/vm/hugetlb_shm_group or
328 have CAP_IPC_LOCK to be able to allocate shm segments backed by
329 huge pages. The mlock based rlimit check to allow shm hugetlb is
330 inconsistent with mmap based allocations. Hence it is being
331 deprecated.
332Who: Ravikiran Thirumalai <kiran@scalex86.org>
333
334---------------------------
335
Rene Herman16d75232008-06-24 19:38:56 +0200336What: CONFIG_THERMAL_HWMON
337When: January 2009
338Why: This option was introduced just to allow older lm-sensors userspace
339 to keep working over the upgrade to 2.6.26. At the scheduled time of
340 removal fixed lm-sensors (2.x or 3.x) should be readily available.
341Who: Rene Herman <rene.herman@gmail.com>
Johannes Berg22bb1be2008-07-10 11:16:47 +0200342
343---------------------------
344
345What: Code that is now under CONFIG_WIRELESS_EXT_SYSFS
346 (in net/core/net-sysfs.c)
347When: After the only user (hal) has seen a release with the patches
348 for enough time, probably some time in 2010.
349Why: Over 1K .text/.data size reduction, data is available in other
350 ways (ioctls)
351Who: Johannes Berg <johannes@sipsolutions.net>
Krzysztof Piotr Oledzki58401572008-07-21 10:01:34 -0700352
353---------------------------
354
355What: CONFIG_NF_CT_ACCT
356When: 2.6.29
357Why: Accounting can now be enabled/disabled without kernel recompilation.
358 Currently used only to set a default value for a feature that is also
359 controlled by a kernel/module/sysfs/sysctl parameter.
360Who: Krzysztof Piotr Oledzki <ole@ans.pl>
361
FUJITA Tomonori46dfa042008-09-10 22:22:34 +0200362---------------------------
363
Jean Delvare00155a92008-10-22 20:21:32 +0200364What: i2c_attach_client(), i2c_detach_client(), i2c_driver->detach_client()
Jean Delvaref02e3d72009-03-28 21:34:40 +0100365When: 2.6.30
366Check: i2c_attach_client i2c_detach_client
Jean Delvare00155a92008-10-22 20:21:32 +0200367Why: Deprecated by the new (standard) device driver binding model. Use
368 i2c_driver->probe() and ->remove() instead.
369Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>
Paul Moore277d3422008-12-31 12:54:11 -0500370
371---------------------------
372
Hans de Goede0589c2d2009-01-07 16:37:33 +0100373What: fscher and fscpos drivers
374When: June 2009
375Why: Deprecated by the new fschmd driver.
376Who: Hans de Goede <hdegoede@redhat.com>
377 Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>
378
379---------------------------
380
Dave Jones753b7ae2009-03-09 15:14:37 -0400381What: sysfs ui for changing p4-clockmod parameters
382When: September 2009
383Why: See commits 129f8ae9b1b5be94517da76009ea956e89104ce8 and
384 e088e4c9cdb618675874becb91b2fd581ee707e6.
385 Removal is subject to fixing any remaining bugs in ACPI which may
386 cause the thermal throttling not to happen at the right time.
387Who: Dave Jones <davej@redhat.com>, Matthew Garrett <mjg@redhat.com>
Thomas Gleixner0e57aa12009-03-13 14:34:05 +0100388
389-----------------------------
390
391What: __do_IRQ all in one fits nothing interrupt handler
392When: 2.6.32
393Why: __do_IRQ was kept for easy migration to the type flow handlers.
394 More than two years of migration time is enough.
395Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Thomas Gleixnercb065c02009-03-13 14:40:27 +0100396
397-----------------------------
398
399What: obsolete generic irq defines and typedefs
400When: 2.6.30
401Why: The defines and typedefs (hw_interrupt_type, no_irq_type, irq_desc_t)
402 have been kept around for migration reasons. After more than two years
403 it's time to remove them finally
404Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Linus Torvaldse76e5b22009-04-01 09:47:12 -0700405
Alex Chiangf110ca42009-03-20 14:56:56 -0600406---------------------------
407
408What: fakephp and associated sysfs files in /sys/bus/pci/slots/
409When: 2011
410Why: In 2.6.27, the semantics of /sys/bus/pci/slots was redefined to
411 represent a machine's physical PCI slots. The change in semantics
412 had userspace implications, as the hotplug core no longer allowed
413 drivers to create multiple sysfs files per physical slot (required
414 for multi-function devices, e.g.). fakephp was seen as a developer's
415 tool only, and its interface changed. Too late, we learned that
416 there were some users of the fakephp interface.
417
418 In 2.6.30, the original fakephp interface was restored. At the same
419 time, the PCI core gained the ability that fakephp provided, namely
420 function-level hot-remove and hot-add.
421
422 Since the PCI core now provides the same functionality, exposed in:
423
424 /sys/bus/pci/rescan
425 /sys/bus/pci/devices/.../remove
426 /sys/bus/pci/devices/.../rescan
427
428 there is no functional reason to maintain fakephp as well.
429
430 We will keep the existing module so that 'modprobe fakephp' will
431 present the old /sys/bus/pci/slots/... interface for compatibility,
432 but users are urged to migrate their applications to the API above.
433
434 After a reasonable transition period, we will remove the legacy
435 fakephp interface.
436Who: Alex Chiang <achiang@hp.com>