blob: adc84d521988448f8a79dd8afafeddfe255dc1f5 [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
Jiri Slaby9e402102007-05-08 00:36:28 -07009What: MXSER
10When: December 2007
11Why: Old mxser driver is obsoleted by the mxser_new. Give it some time yet
12 and remove it.
13Who: Jiri Slaby <jirislaby@gmail.com>
14
15---------------------------
16
Hans Verkuil3f3f6a52007-03-10 08:10:11 -030017What: V4L2 VIDIOC_G_MPEGCOMP and VIDIOC_S_MPEGCOMP
18When: October 2007
19Why: Broken attempt to set MPEG compression parameters. These ioctls are
20 not able to implement the wide variety of parameters that can be set
21 by hardware MPEG encoders. A new MPEG control mechanism was created
22 in kernel 2.6.18 that replaces these ioctls. See the V4L2 specification
23 (section 1.9: Extended controls) for more information on this topic.
24Who: Hans Verkuil <hverkuil@xs4all.nl> and
25 Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@infradead.org>
26
27---------------------------
28
Pavel Machek1ebfd792006-08-30 13:50:27 -070029What: /sys/devices/.../power/state
30 dev->power.power_state
31 dpm_runtime_{suspend,resume)()
32When: July 2007
33Why: Broken design for runtime control over driver power states, confusing
34 driver-internal runtime power management with: mechanisms to support
35 system-wide sleep state transitions; event codes that distinguish
36 different phases of swsusp "sleep" transitions; and userspace policy
37 inputs. This framework was never widely used, and most attempts to
38 use it were broken. Drivers should instead be exposing domain-specific
39 interfaces either to kernel or to userspace.
40Who: Pavel Machek <pavel@suse.cz>
41
42---------------------------
43
Adrian Bunk98e7f292005-06-25 14:59:37 -070044What: RAW driver (CONFIG_RAW_DRIVER)
45When: December 2005
46Why: declared obsolete since kernel 2.6.3
47 O_DIRECT can be used instead
48Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
49
50---------------------------
51
Jody McIntyrea1446c72005-05-16 21:53:59 -070052What: raw1394: requests of type RAW1394_REQ_ISO_SEND, RAW1394_REQ_ISO_LISTEN
Stefan Richter9868e0e2006-11-20 00:05:05 +010053When: June 2007
54Why: Deprecated in favour of the more efficient and robust rawiso interface.
55 Affected are applications which use the deprecated part of libraw1394
56 (raw1394_iso_write, raw1394_start_iso_write, raw1394_start_iso_rcv,
57 raw1394_stop_iso_rcv) or bypass libraw1394.
58Who: Dan Dennedy <dan@dennedy.org>, Stefan Richter <stefanr@s5r6.in-berlin.de>
Grant Coady937df8d2005-05-12 11:59:29 +100059
60---------------------------
61
Christoph Hellwiga6bcbc22007-04-30 00:05:48 +020062What: old NCR53C9x driver
63When: October 2007
64Why: Replaced by the much better esp_scsi driver. Actual low-level
Christoph Hellwiged560472007-05-13 22:48:31 +020065 driver can be ported over almost trivially.
Christoph Hellwiga6bcbc22007-04-30 00:05:48 +020066Who: David Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
67 Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
68
69---------------------------
70
Mauro Carvalho Chehab875c2962005-11-08 21:38:53 -080071What: Video4Linux API 1 ioctls and video_decoder.h from Video devices.
Mauro Carvalho Chehab48c06d52006-09-06 09:29:00 -030072When: December 2006
Mauro Carvalho Chehab875c2962005-11-08 21:38:53 -080073Why: V4L1 AP1 was replaced by V4L2 API. during migration from 2.4 to 2.6
74 series. The old API have lots of drawbacks and don't provide enough
75 means to work with all video and audio standards. The newer API is
76 already available on the main drivers and should be used instead.
77 Newer drivers should use v4l_compat_translate_ioctl function to handle
78 old calls, replacing to newer ones.
79 Decoder iocts are using internally to allow video drivers to
80 communicate with video decoders. This should also be improved to allow
81 V4L2 calls being translated into compatible internal ioctls.
82Who: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@brturbo.com.br>
83
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
Christoph Hellwigac515892006-03-24 03:18:22 -0800103What: remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(kernel_thread)
104When: August 2006
105Files: arch/*/kernel/*_ksyms.c
106Why: 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
Ingo Molnara9df3d02006-01-14 13:21:33 -0800114What: CONFIG_FORCED_INLINING
115When: June 2006
116Why: Config option is there to see if gcc is good enough. (in january
117 2006). If it is, the behavior should just be the default. If it's not,
118 the option should just go away entirely.
119Who: Arjan van de Ven
120
121---------------------------
122
Bunkc0d3c0c2006-02-07 01:43:31 -0500123What: eepro100 network driver
124When: January 2007
125Why: replaced by the e100 driver
126Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
Jeff Garzik3c9b3a82006-02-07 01:47:12 -0500127
128---------------------------
129
Adrian Bunk1e5f5e52006-08-31 21:27:46 -0700130What: drivers depending on OSS_OBSOLETE_DRIVER
131When: options in 2.6.20, code in 2.6.22
132Why: OSS drivers with ALSA replacements
133Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
134
135---------------------------
136
Arjan van de Venf71d20e2006-06-28 04:26:45 -0700137What: Unused EXPORT_SYMBOL/EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL exports
138 (temporary transition config option provided until then)
139 The transition config option will also be removed at the same time.
140When: before 2.6.19
141Why: Unused symbols are both increasing the size of the kernel binary
142 and are often a sign of "wrong API"
143Who: Arjan van de Ven <arjan@linux.intel.com>
144
145---------------------------
146
Greg Kroah-Hartmanb87ba0a2006-03-20 13:17:13 -0800147What: USB driver API moves to EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL
Matt LaPlantea2ffd272006-10-03 22:49:15 +0200148When: February 2008
Greg Kroah-Hartmanb87ba0a2006-03-20 13:17:13 -0800149Files: include/linux/usb.h, drivers/usb/core/driver.c
150Why: The USB subsystem has changed a lot over time, and it has been
151 possible to create userspace USB drivers using usbfs/libusb/gadgetfs
152 that operate as fast as the USB bus allows. Because of this, the USB
153 subsystem will not be allowing closed source kernel drivers to
154 register with it, after this grace period is over. If anyone needs
155 any help in converting their closed source drivers over to use the
156 userspace filesystems, please contact the
157 linux-usb-devel@lists.sourceforge.net mailing list, and the developers
158 there will be glad to help you out.
159Who: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>
160
161---------------------------
Nick Piggin93fac702006-03-31 02:29:56 -0800162
Thomas Gleixner6e213612006-07-01 19:29:03 -0700163What: Interrupt only SA_* flags
Thomas Gleixner0e8638e2007-05-08 00:28:56 -0700164When: September 2007
Thomas Gleixner6e213612006-07-01 19:29:03 -0700165Why: The interrupt related SA_* flags are replaced by IRQF_* to move them
166 out of the signal namespace.
167
168Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
169
170---------------------------
Jean Delvare5a017482006-07-01 17:13:37 +0200171
Kay Sieversd81d9d62006-08-13 06:17:09 +0200172What: PHYSDEVPATH, PHYSDEVBUS, PHYSDEVDRIVER in the uevent environment
Dominik Brodowskiacbd39f2006-09-30 22:41:43 -0400173When: October 2008
Kay Sieversd81d9d62006-08-13 06:17:09 +0200174Why: The stacking of class devices makes these values misleading and
175 inconsistent.
176 Class devices should not carry any of these properties, and bus
177 devices have SUBSYTEM and DRIVER as a replacement.
178Who: Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@suse.de>
179
180---------------------------
Jean Delvare6c805d22006-08-13 23:45:52 +0200181
182What: i2c-isa
183When: December 2006
184Why: i2c-isa is a non-sense and doesn't fit in the device driver
185 model. Drivers relying on it are better implemented as platform
186 drivers.
187Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>
188
189---------------------------
Jeff Garzik31e7e1a2006-10-03 01:13:54 -0700190
Jean Delvarefccb56e2007-05-01 23:26:27 +0200191What: i2c_adapter.list
David Brownellb119dc32007-01-04 13:07:04 +0100192When: July 2007
Jean Delvarefccb56e2007-05-01 23:26:27 +0200193Why: Superfluous, this list duplicates the one maintained by the driver
194 core.
David Brownellb119dc32007-01-04 13:07:04 +0100195Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>,
196 David Brownell <dbrownell@users.sourceforge.net>
197
198---------------------------
199
Adrian Bunk5aab0ad2007-02-10 01:45:50 -0800200What: drivers depending on OBSOLETE_OSS
201When: options in 2.6.22, code in 2.6.24
202Why: OSS drivers with ALSA replacements
203Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
204
205---------------------------
206
Venkatesh Pallipadi83d05152006-10-03 12:34:28 -0700207What: ACPI hooks (X86_SPEEDSTEP_CENTRINO_ACPI) in speedstep-centrino driver
208When: December 2006
209Why: Speedstep-centrino driver with ACPI hooks and acpi-cpufreq driver are
210 functionally very much similar. They talk to ACPI in same way. Only
211 difference between them is the way they do frequency transitions.
212 One uses MSRs and the other one uses IO ports. Functionaliy of
213 speedstep_centrino with ACPI hooks is now merged into acpi-cpufreq.
214 That means one common driver will support all Intel Enhanced Speedstep
215 capable CPUs. That means less confusion over name of
216 speedstep-centrino driver (with that driver supposed to be used on
217 non-centrino platforms). That means less duplication of code and
218 less maintenance effort and no possibility of these two drivers
219 going out of sync.
220 Current users of speedstep_centrino with ACPI hooks are requested to
221 switch over to acpi-cpufreq driver. speedstep-centrino will continue
222 to work using older non-ACPI static table based scheme even after this
223 date.
224
225Who: Venkatesh Pallipadi <venkatesh.pallipadi@intel.com>
226
227---------------------------
Len Brown1bb67c22007-01-11 01:49:44 -0500228
Len Brown1bb67c22007-01-11 01:49:44 -0500229What: /sys/firmware/acpi/namespace
230When: 2.6.21
231Why: The ACPI namespace is effectively the symbol list for
232 the BIOS. The device names are completely arbitrary
233 and have no place being exposed to user-space.
234
235 For those interested in the BIOS ACPI namespace,
236 the BIOS can be extracted and disassembled with acpidump
237 and iasl as documented in the pmtools package here:
238 http://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/lenb/acpi/utils
Len Brown1bb67c22007-01-11 01:49:44 -0500239Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
240
241---------------------------
242
Zhang Ruib981c592007-01-29 11:02:30 +0800243What: ACPI procfs interface
244When: July 2007
245Why: After ACPI sysfs conversion, ACPI attributes will be duplicated
246 in sysfs and the ACPI procfs interface should be removed.
247Who: Zhang Rui <rui.zhang@intel.com>
248
249---------------------------
250
Len Brown1bb67c22007-01-11 01:49:44 -0500251What: /proc/acpi/button
252When: August 2007
253Why: /proc/acpi/button has been replaced by events to the input layer
254 since 2.6.20.
255Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
256
257---------------------------
Jeff Garzik54b290a2007-01-23 00:29:01 -0500258
Stephen Hemmingerac38dfc2007-02-07 09:18:30 -0800259What: sk98lin network driver
260When: July 2007
261Why: In kernel tree version of driver is unmaintained. Sk98lin driver
262 replaced by the skge driver.
263Who: Stephen Hemminger <shemminger@osdl.org>
264
Richard Purdieff141a02007-02-10 01:29:11 -0500265---------------------------
266
267What: Compaq touchscreen device emulation
268When: Oct 2007
269Files: drivers/input/tsdev.c
270Why: The code says it was obsolete when it was written in 2001.
271 tslib is a userspace library which does anything tsdev can do and
272 much more besides in userspace where this code belongs. There is no
273 longer any need for tsdev and applications should have converted to
274 use tslib by now.
275 The name "tsdev" is also extremely confusing and lots of people have
276 it loaded when they don't need/use it.
277Who: Richard Purdie <rpurdie@rpsys.net>
278
279---------------------------
Johannes Bergcc2ccca2007-03-05 00:30:27 -0800280
David S. Miller49e9f702007-04-27 01:04:23 -0700281What: Multipath cached routing support in ipv4
282When: in 2.6.23
283Why: Code was merged, then submitter immediately disappeared leaving
284 us with no maintainer and lots of bugs. The code should not have
285 been merged in the first place, and many aspects of it's
286 implementation are blocking more critical core networking
287 development. It's marked EXPERIMENTAL and no distribution
288 enables it because it cause obscure crashes due to unfixable bugs
289 (interfaces don't return errors so memory allocation can't be
290 handled, calling contexts of these interfaces make handling
291 errors impossible too because they get called after we've
292 totally commited to creating a route object, for example).
293 This problem has existed for years and no forward progress
294 has ever been made, and nobody steps up to try and salvage
295 this code, so we're going to finally just get rid of it.
296Who: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
297
298---------------------------
Cornelia Huck52706ec2007-05-04 18:47:50 +0200299
300What: read_dev_chars(), read_conf_data{,_lpm}() (s390 common I/O layer)
301When: December 2007
302Why: These functions are a leftover from 2.4 times. They have several
303 problems:
304 - Duplication of checks that are done in the device driver's
305 interrupt handler
306 - common I/O layer can't do device specific error recovery
307 - device driver can't be notified for conditions happening during
308 execution of the function
309 Device drivers should issue the read device characteristics and read
310 configuration data ccws and do the appropriate error handling
311 themselves.
312Who: Cornelia Huck <cornelia.huck@de.ibm.com>
313
314---------------------------
315
Jean Delvare11de70b2007-05-01 23:26:34 +0200316What: i2c-ixp2000, i2c-ixp4xx and scx200_i2c drivers
317When: September 2007
318Why: Obsolete. The new i2c-gpio driver replaces all hardware-specific
319 I2C-over-GPIO drivers.
320Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>
321
322---------------------------
Adrian Bunk274ee1cd2007-05-08 00:27:14 -0700323
324What: drivers depending on OSS_OBSOLETE
325When: options in 2.6.23, code in 2.6.25
326Why: obsolete OSS drivers
327Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
328
329---------------------------
330
Tejun Heo920a4b12007-05-04 21:28:48 +0200331What: libata.spindown_compat module parameter
332When: Dec 2008
333Why: halt(8) synchronizes caches for and spins down libata disks
334 because libata didn't use to spin down disk on system halt
335 (only synchronized caches).
336 Spin down on system halt is now implemented and can be tested
337 using sysfs node /sys/class/scsi_disk/h:c:i:l/manage_start_stop.
338 Because issuing spin down command to an already spun down disk
339 makes some disks spin up just to spin down again, the old
340 behavior needs to be maintained till userspace tool is updated
341 to check the sysfs node and not to spin down disks with the
342 node set to one.
343 This module parameter is to give userspace tool the time to
344 get updated and should be removed after userspace is
345 reasonably updated.
346Who: Tejun Heo <htejun@gmail.com>
347
348---------------------------
349