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 | |
| 9 | What: devfs |
| 10 | When: July 2005 |
| 11 | Files: fs/devfs/*, include/linux/devfs_fs*.h and assorted devfs |
| 12 | function calls throughout the kernel tree |
| 13 | Why: It has been unmaintained for a number of years, has unfixable |
| 14 | races, contains a naming policy within the kernel that is |
| 15 | against the LSB, and can be replaced by using udev. |
| 16 | Who: Greg Kroah-Hartman <greg@kroah.com> |
| 17 | |
| 18 | --------------------------- |
| 19 | |
Adrian Bunk | 98e7f29 | 2005-06-25 14:59:37 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 20 | What: RAW driver (CONFIG_RAW_DRIVER) |
| 21 | When: December 2005 |
| 22 | Why: declared obsolete since kernel 2.6.3 |
| 23 | O_DIRECT can be used instead |
| 24 | Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de> |
| 25 | |
| 26 | --------------------------- |
| 27 | |
Adrian Bunk | cecd1ca | 2005-11-08 21:34:45 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 28 | What: drivers depending on OBSOLETE_OSS_DRIVER |
| 29 | When: January 2006 |
| 30 | Why: OSS drivers with ALSA replacements |
| 31 | Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de> |
| 32 | |
| 33 | --------------------------- |
| 34 | |
Paul E. McKenney | 66cf8f1 | 2005-05-01 08:59:03 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 35 | What: RCU API moves to EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL |
| 36 | When: April 2006 |
| 37 | Files: include/linux/rcupdate.h, kernel/rcupdate.c |
| 38 | Why: Outside of Linux, the only implementations of anything even |
| 39 | vaguely resembling RCU that I am aware of are in DYNIX/ptx, |
| 40 | VM/XA, Tornado, and K42. I do not expect anyone to port binary |
| 41 | drivers or kernel modules from any of these, since the first two |
| 42 | are owned by IBM and the last two are open-source research OSes. |
| 43 | So these will move to GPL after a grace period to allow |
| 44 | people, who might be using implementations that I am not aware |
| 45 | of, to adjust to this upcoming change. |
| 46 | Who: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@us.ibm.com> |
Jody McIntyre | a1446c7 | 2005-05-16 21:53:59 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 47 | |
| 48 | --------------------------- |
| 49 | |
Jody McIntyre | a1446c7 | 2005-05-16 21:53:59 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 50 | What: raw1394: requests of type RAW1394_REQ_ISO_SEND, RAW1394_REQ_ISO_LISTEN |
| 51 | When: November 2005 |
| 52 | Why: Deprecated in favour of the new ioctl-based rawiso interface, which is |
| 53 | more efficient. You should really be using libraw1394 for raw1394 |
| 54 | access anyway. |
| 55 | Who: Jody McIntyre <scjody@steamballoon.com> |
Grant Coady | 937df8d | 2005-05-12 11:59:29 +1000 | [diff] [blame] | 56 | |
| 57 | --------------------------- |
| 58 | |
Mauro Carvalho Chehab | 875c296 | 2005-11-08 21:38:53 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 59 | What: Video4Linux API 1 ioctls and video_decoder.h from Video devices. |
| 60 | When: July 2006 |
| 61 | Why: V4L1 AP1 was replaced by V4L2 API. during migration from 2.4 to 2.6 |
| 62 | series. The old API have lots of drawbacks and don't provide enough |
| 63 | means to work with all video and audio standards. The newer API is |
| 64 | already available on the main drivers and should be used instead. |
| 65 | Newer drivers should use v4l_compat_translate_ioctl function to handle |
| 66 | old calls, replacing to newer ones. |
| 67 | Decoder iocts are using internally to allow video drivers to |
| 68 | communicate with video decoders. This should also be improved to allow |
| 69 | V4L2 calls being translated into compatible internal ioctls. |
| 70 | Who: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@brturbo.com.br> |
| 71 | |
| 72 | --------------------------- |
| 73 | |
Adrian Bunk | dfed044 | 2005-11-07 01:01:44 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 74 | What: remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(panic_timeout) |
| 75 | When: April 2006 |
| 76 | Files: kernel/panic.c |
| 77 | Why: No modular usage in the kernel. |
| 78 | Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de> |
| 79 | |
| 80 | --------------------------- |
| 81 | |
Adrian Bunk | 24622ef | 2005-11-07 01:01:44 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 82 | What: remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(insert_resource) |
| 83 | When: April 2006 |
| 84 | Files: kernel/resource.c |
| 85 | Why: No modular usage in the kernel. |
| 86 | Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de> |
| 87 | |
| 88 | --------------------------- |
| 89 | |
Dominik Brodowski | bf45d9b0 | 2005-07-07 17:58:58 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 90 | What: PCMCIA control ioctl (needed for pcmcia-cs [cardmgr, cardctl]) |
| 91 | When: November 2005 |
| 92 | Files: drivers/pcmcia/: pcmcia_ioctl.c |
| 93 | Why: With the 16-bit PCMCIA subsystem now behaving (almost) like a |
| 94 | normal hotpluggable bus, and with it using the default kernel |
| 95 | infrastructure (hotplug, driver core, sysfs) keeping the PCMCIA |
| 96 | control ioctl needed by cardmgr and cardctl from pcmcia-cs is |
| 97 | unnecessary, and makes further cleanups and integration of the |
| 98 | PCMCIA subsystem into the Linux kernel device driver model more |
| 99 | difficult. The features provided by cardmgr and cardctl are either |
| 100 | handled by the kernel itself now or are available in the new |
| 101 | pcmciautils package available at |
| 102 | http://kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/pcmcia/ |
| 103 | Who: Dominik Brodowski <linux@brodo.de> |
Harald Welte | 7af4cc3 | 2005-08-09 19:44:15 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 104 | |
| 105 | --------------------------- |
| 106 | |
| 107 | What: ip_queue and ip6_queue (old ipv4-only and ipv6-only netfilter queue) |
| 108 | When: December 2005 |
| 109 | Why: This interface has been obsoleted by the new layer3-independent |
| 110 | "nfnetlink_queue". The Kernel interface is compatible, so the old |
| 111 | ip[6]tables "QUEUE" targets still work and will transparently handle |
| 112 | all packets into nfnetlink queue number 0. Userspace users will have |
| 113 | to link against API-compatible library on top of libnfnetlink_queue |
| 114 | instead of the current 'libipq'. |
| 115 | Who: Harald Welte <laforge@netfilter.org> |
Christoph Hellwig | 49705b7 | 2005-11-08 21:35:06 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 116 | |
| 117 | --------------------------- |
| 118 | |
Christoph Hellwig | ac51589 | 2006-03-24 03:18:22 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 119 | What: remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(kernel_thread) |
| 120 | When: August 2006 |
| 121 | Files: arch/*/kernel/*_ksyms.c |
| 122 | Why: kernel_thread is a low-level implementation detail. Drivers should |
| 123 | use the <linux/kthread.h> API instead which shields them from |
| 124 | implementation details and provides a higherlevel interface that |
| 125 | prevents bugs and code duplication |
| 126 | Who: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de> |
| 127 | |
| 128 | --------------------------- |
| 129 | |
Christoph Hellwig | 49705b7 | 2005-11-08 21:35:06 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 130 | What: EXPORT_SYMBOL(lookup_hash) |
| 131 | When: January 2006 |
| 132 | Why: Too low-level interface. Use lookup_one_len or lookup_create instead. |
| 133 | Who: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de> |
NeilBrown | e8a0033 | 2005-11-15 00:09:11 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 134 | |
| 135 | --------------------------- |
| 136 | |
Ingo Molnar | a9df3d0 | 2006-01-14 13:21:33 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 137 | What: CONFIG_FORCED_INLINING |
| 138 | When: June 2006 |
| 139 | Why: Config option is there to see if gcc is good enough. (in january |
| 140 | 2006). If it is, the behavior should just be the default. If it's not, |
| 141 | the option should just go away entirely. |
| 142 | Who: Arjan van de Ven |
| 143 | |
| 144 | --------------------------- |
| 145 | |
NeilBrown | e8a0033 | 2005-11-15 00:09:11 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 146 | What: START_ARRAY ioctl for md |
| 147 | When: July 2006 |
| 148 | Files: drivers/md/md.c |
| 149 | Why: Not reliable by design - can fail when most needed. |
| 150 | Alternatives exist |
| 151 | Who: NeilBrown <neilb@suse.de> |
Ralf Baechle | e0c9b79 | 2005-11-08 22:36:48 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 152 | |
| 153 | --------------------------- |
| 154 | |
| 155 | What: au1x00_uart driver |
| 156 | When: January 2006 |
| 157 | Why: The 8250 serial driver now has the ability to deal with the differences |
| 158 | between the standard 8250 family of UARTs and their slightly strange |
| 159 | brother on Alchemy SOCs. The loss of features is not considered an |
| 160 | issue. |
| 161 | Who: Ralf Baechle <ralf@linux-mips.org> |
Adrian Bunk | b4b2c04 | 2005-12-29 20:07:25 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 162 | |
Bunk | c0d3c0c | 2006-02-07 01:43:31 -0500 | [diff] [blame] | 163 | --------------------------- |
| 164 | |
| 165 | What: eepro100 network driver |
| 166 | When: January 2007 |
| 167 | Why: replaced by the e100 driver |
| 168 | Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de> |
Jeff Garzik | 3c9b3a8 | 2006-02-07 01:47:12 -0500 | [diff] [blame] | 169 | |
| 170 | --------------------------- |
| 171 | |
Richard Knutsson | 051d989 | 2005-12-03 02:34:12 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 172 | What: pci_module_init(driver) |
| 173 | When: January 2007 |
| 174 | Why: Is replaced by pci_register_driver(pci_driver). |
| 175 | Who: Richard Knutsson <ricknu-0@student.ltu.se> and Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de> |
Jean Delvare | c5e3fbf | 2006-01-18 22:39:48 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 176 | |
| 177 | --------------------------- |
| 178 | |
| 179 | What: I2C interface of the it87 driver |
| 180 | When: January 2007 |
| 181 | Why: The ISA interface is faster and should be always available. The I2C |
| 182 | probing is also known to cause trouble in at least one case (see |
| 183 | bug #5889.) |
| 184 | Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org> |
Greg Kroah-Hartman | fa67576 | 2006-02-22 09:39:02 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 185 | |
| 186 | --------------------------- |
| 187 | |
Christoph Hellwig | de62a97 | 2006-03-24 03:18:33 -0800 | [diff] [blame^] | 188 | What: remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(tasklist_lock) |
| 189 | When: August 2006 |
| 190 | Files: kernel/fork.c |
| 191 | Why: tasklist_lock protects the kernel internal task list. Modules have |
| 192 | no business looking at it, and all instances in drivers have been due |
| 193 | to use of too-lowlevel APIs. Having this symbol exported prevents |
| 194 | moving to more scalable locking schemes for the task list. |
| 195 | Who: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de> |
| 196 | |
| 197 | --------------------------- |
| 198 | |
Greg Kroah-Hartman | fa67576 | 2006-02-22 09:39:02 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 199 | What: mount/umount uevents |
| 200 | When: February 2007 |
| 201 | Why: These events are not correct, and do not properly let userspace know |
| 202 | when a file system has been mounted or unmounted. Userspace should |
| 203 | poll the /proc/mounts file instead to detect this properly. |
| 204 | Who: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de> |
Ralf Baechle | cf028d1 | 2006-03-02 16:50:12 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 205 | |
| 206 | --------------------------- |
| 207 | |
| 208 | What: Support for NEC DDB5074 and DDB5476 evaluation boards. |
| 209 | When: June 2006 |
| 210 | Why: Board specific code doesn't build anymore since ~2.6.0 and no |
| 211 | users have complained indicating there is no more need for these |
| 212 | boards. This should really be considered a last call. |
| 213 | Who: Ralf Baechle <ralf@linux-mips.org> |
Greg Kroah-Hartman | b87ba0a | 2006-03-20 13:17:13 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 214 | |
| 215 | --------------------------- |
| 216 | |
| 217 | What: USB driver API moves to EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL |
| 218 | When: Febuary 2008 |
| 219 | Files: include/linux/usb.h, drivers/usb/core/driver.c |
| 220 | Why: The USB subsystem has changed a lot over time, and it has been |
| 221 | possible to create userspace USB drivers using usbfs/libusb/gadgetfs |
| 222 | that operate as fast as the USB bus allows. Because of this, the USB |
| 223 | subsystem will not be allowing closed source kernel drivers to |
| 224 | register with it, after this grace period is over. If anyone needs |
| 225 | any help in converting their closed source drivers over to use the |
| 226 | userspace filesystems, please contact the |
| 227 | linux-usb-devel@lists.sourceforge.net mailing list, and the developers |
| 228 | there will be glad to help you out. |
| 229 | Who: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de> |
| 230 | |
| 231 | --------------------------- |