blob: eb1a47b974278270242c2da772420f6a984ff706 [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
Mauro Carvalho Chehab875c2962005-11-08 21:38:53 -080022What: Video4Linux API 1 ioctls and video_decoder.h from Video devices.
Mauro Carvalho Chehab11a5a102007-10-17 15:32:36 -020023When: December 2008
24Files: include/linux/video_decoder.h include/linux/videodev.h
25Check: include/linux/video_decoder.h include/linux/videodev.h
26Why: V4L1 AP1 was replaced by V4L2 API during migration from 2.4 to 2.6
Mauro Carvalho Chehab875c2962005-11-08 21:38:53 -080027 series. The old API have lots of drawbacks and don't provide enough
28 means to work with all video and audio standards. The newer API is
29 already available on the main drivers and should be used instead.
30 Newer drivers should use v4l_compat_translate_ioctl function to handle
31 old calls, replacing to newer ones.
32 Decoder iocts are using internally to allow video drivers to
33 communicate with video decoders. This should also be improved to allow
34 V4L2 calls being translated into compatible internal ioctls.
Mauro Carvalho Chehab11a5a102007-10-17 15:32:36 -020035 Compatibility ioctls will be provided, for a while, via
36 v4l1-compat module.
37Who: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@infradead.org>
Mauro Carvalho Chehab875c2962005-11-08 21:38:53 -080038
39---------------------------
40
Hans Verkuil051a4ac2008-07-27 14:08:54 -030041What: old tuner-3036 i2c driver
42When: 2.6.28
43Why: This driver is for VERY old i2c-over-parallel port teletext receiver
44 boxes. Rather then spending effort on converting this driver to V4L2,
45 and since it is extremely unlikely that anyone still uses one of these
46 devices, it was decided to drop it.
47Who: Hans Verkuil <hverkuil@xs4all.nl>
48 Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@infradead.org>
49
50 ---------------------------
51
52What: V4L2 dpc7146 driver
53When: 2.6.28
54Why: Old driver for the dpc7146 demonstration board that is no longer
55 relevant. The last time this was tested on actual hardware was
56 probably around 2002. Since this is a driver for a demonstration
57 board the decision was made to remove it rather than spending a
58 lot of effort continually updating this driver to stay in sync
59 with the latest internal V4L2 or I2C API.
60Who: Hans Verkuil <hverkuil@xs4all.nl>
61 Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@infradead.org>
62
63---------------------------
64
Dominik Brodowskibf45d9b02005-07-07 17:58:58 -070065What: PCMCIA control ioctl (needed for pcmcia-cs [cardmgr, cardctl])
66When: November 2005
67Files: drivers/pcmcia/: pcmcia_ioctl.c
68Why: With the 16-bit PCMCIA subsystem now behaving (almost) like a
69 normal hotpluggable bus, and with it using the default kernel
70 infrastructure (hotplug, driver core, sysfs) keeping the PCMCIA
71 control ioctl needed by cardmgr and cardctl from pcmcia-cs is
72 unnecessary, and makes further cleanups and integration of the
73 PCMCIA subsystem into the Linux kernel device driver model more
74 difficult. The features provided by cardmgr and cardctl are either
75 handled by the kernel itself now or are available in the new
76 pcmciautils package available at
77 http://kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/pcmcia/
78Who: Dominik Brodowski <linux@brodo.de>
Harald Welte7af4cc32005-08-09 19:44:15 -070079
80---------------------------
81
Eric W. Biederman7058cb02007-10-18 03:05:58 -070082What: sys_sysctl
83When: September 2010
84Option: CONFIG_SYSCTL_SYSCALL
85Why: The same information is available in a more convenient from
86 /proc/sys, and none of the sysctl variables appear to be
87 important performance wise.
88
89 Binary sysctls are a long standing source of subtle kernel
90 bugs and security issues.
91
92 When I looked several months ago all I could find after
93 searching several distributions were 5 user space programs and
94 glibc (which falls back to /proc/sys) using this syscall.
95
96 The man page for sysctl(2) documents it as unusable for user
97 space programs.
98
99 sysctl(2) is not generally ABI compatible to a 32bit user
100 space application on a 64bit and a 32bit kernel.
101
102 For the last several months the policy has been no new binary
103 sysctls and no one has put forward an argument to use them.
104
105 Binary sysctls issues seem to keep happening appearing so
106 properly deprecating them (with a warning to user space) and a
107 2 year grace warning period will mean eventually we can kill
108 them and end the pain.
109
110 In the mean time individual binary sysctls can be dealt with
111 in a piecewise fashion.
112
113Who: Eric Biederman <ebiederm@xmission.com>
114
115---------------------------
116
Christoph Hellwigac515892006-03-24 03:18:22 -0800117What: remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(kernel_thread)
118When: August 2006
119Files: arch/*/kernel/*_ksyms.c
Andy Whitcroftf0a594c2007-07-19 01:48:34 -0700120Check: kernel_thread
Christoph Hellwigac515892006-03-24 03:18:22 -0800121Why: kernel_thread is a low-level implementation detail. Drivers should
122 use the <linux/kthread.h> API instead which shields them from
123 implementation details and provides a higherlevel interface that
124 prevents bugs and code duplication
125Who: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
126
127---------------------------
128
Bunkc0d3c0c2006-02-07 01:43:31 -0500129What: eepro100 network driver
130When: January 2007
131Why: replaced by the e100 driver
132Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
Jeff Garzik3c9b3a82006-02-07 01:47:12 -0500133
134---------------------------
135
Arjan van de Venf71d20e2006-06-28 04:26:45 -0700136What: Unused EXPORT_SYMBOL/EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL exports
137 (temporary transition config option provided until then)
138 The transition config option will also be removed at the same time.
139When: before 2.6.19
140Why: Unused symbols are both increasing the size of the kernel binary
141 and are often a sign of "wrong API"
142Who: Arjan van de Ven <arjan@linux.intel.com>
143
144---------------------------
145
Kay Sieversd81d9d62006-08-13 06:17:09 +0200146What: PHYSDEVPATH, PHYSDEVBUS, PHYSDEVDRIVER in the uevent environment
Dominik Brodowskiacbd39f2006-09-30 22:41:43 -0400147When: October 2008
Kay Sieversd81d9d62006-08-13 06:17:09 +0200148Why: The stacking of class devices makes these values misleading and
149 inconsistent.
150 Class devices should not carry any of these properties, and bus
151 devices have SUBSYTEM and DRIVER as a replacement.
152Who: Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@suse.de>
153
154---------------------------
Jean Delvare6c805d22006-08-13 23:45:52 +0200155
Zhang Ruib981c592007-01-29 11:02:30 +0800156What: ACPI procfs interface
Zhang Rui8b8eb7d2007-07-18 17:23:24 +0800157When: July 2008
158Why: ACPI sysfs conversion should be finished by January 2008.
159 ACPI procfs interface will be removed in July 2008 so that
160 there is enough time for the user space to catch up.
Zhang Ruib981c592007-01-29 11:02:30 +0800161Who: Zhang Rui <rui.zhang@intel.com>
162
163---------------------------
164
Len Brown1bb67c22007-01-11 01:49:44 -0500165What: /proc/acpi/button
166When: August 2007
167Why: /proc/acpi/button has been replaced by events to the input layer
168 since 2.6.20.
169Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
170
171---------------------------
Jeff Garzik54b290a2007-01-23 00:29:01 -0500172
Len Brown14e04fb2007-08-23 15:20:26 -0400173What: /proc/acpi/event
174When: February 2008
175Why: /proc/acpi/event has been replaced by events via the input layer
176 and netlink since 2.6.23.
177Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
178
179---------------------------
180
Tejun Heod9aca222007-05-17 16:43:26 +0200181What: libata spindown skipping and warning
Tejun Heo920a4b12007-05-04 21:28:48 +0200182When: Dec 2008
Tejun Heod9aca222007-05-17 16:43:26 +0200183Why: Some halt(8) implementations synchronize caches for and spin
184 down libata disks because libata didn't use to spin down disk on
185 system halt (only synchronized caches).
186 Spin down on system halt is now implemented. sysfs node
187 /sys/class/scsi_disk/h:c:i:l/manage_start_stop is present if
188 spin down support is available.
Tejun Heo920a4b12007-05-04 21:28:48 +0200189 Because issuing spin down command to an already spun down disk
Tejun Heod9aca222007-05-17 16:43:26 +0200190 makes some disks spin up just to spin down again, libata tracks
191 device spindown status to skip the extra spindown command and
192 warn about it.
193 This is to give userspace tools the time to get updated and will
194 be removed after userspace is reasonably updated.
Tejun Heo920a4b12007-05-04 21:28:48 +0200195Who: Tejun Heo <htejun@gmail.com>
196
197---------------------------
198
Thomas Gleixner914d97f2007-10-11 11:20:05 +0200199What: i386/x86_64 bzImage symlinks
Ingo Molnar19b4e7f2008-04-10 10:12:27 +0200200When: April 2010
Thomas Gleixner914d97f2007-10-11 11:20:05 +0200201
202Why: The i386/x86_64 merge provides a symlink to the old bzImage
203 location so not yet updated user space tools, e.g. package
204 scripts, do not break.
205Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Linus Torvalds038a5002007-10-11 19:40:14 -0700206
207---------------------------
208
Jan Engelhardtf9ef8a22008-01-14 23:43:34 -0800209What (Why):
210 - include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ipt_TOS.h ipt_tos.h header files
211 (superseded by xt_TOS/xt_tos target & match)
212
213 - "forwarding" header files like ipt_mac.h in
214 include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ and include/linux/netfilter_ipv6/
215
216 - xt_CONNMARK match revision 0
217 (superseded by xt_CONNMARK match revision 1)
218
219 - xt_MARK target revisions 0 and 1
220 (superseded by xt_MARK match revision 2)
221
222 - xt_connmark match revision 0
223 (superseded by xt_connmark match revision 1)
224
225 - xt_conntrack match revision 0
226 (superseded by xt_conntrack match revision 1)
227
228 - xt_iprange match revision 0,
229 include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ipt_iprange.h
230 (superseded by xt_iprange match revision 1)
231
232 - xt_mark match revision 0
233 (superseded by xt_mark match revision 1)
234
235When: January 2009 or Linux 2.7.0, whichever comes first
236Why: Superseded by newer revisions or modules
237Who: Jan Engelhardt <jengelh@computergmbh.de>
Michael Buescheb189d82008-01-28 14:47:41 -0800238
239---------------------------
240
241What: b43 support for firmware revision < 410
242When: July 2008
243Why: The support code for the old firmware hurts code readability/maintainability
244 and slightly hurts runtime performance. Bugfixes for the old firmware
245 are not provided by Broadcom anymore.
246Who: Michael Buesch <mb@bu3sch.de>
David S. Millere88bb412008-02-09 23:08:53 -0800247
248---------------------------
249
Ingo Molnar757265b2008-02-28 20:19:06 +0100250What: init_mm export
251When: 2.6.26
252Why: Not used in-tree. The current out-of-tree users used it to
253 work around problems in the CPA code which should be resolved
254 by now. One usecase was described to provide verification code
255 of the CPA operation. That's a good idea in general, but such
256 code / infrastructure should be in the kernel and not in some
257 out-of-tree driver.
258Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Mark Fasheh52f7c212008-01-29 17:08:26 -0800259
Glauber Costafae9a0d2008-04-08 13:20:56 -0300260----------------------------
261
262What: usedac i386 kernel parameter
263When: 2.6.27
264Why: replaced by allowdac and no dac combination
265Who: Glauber Costa <gcosta@redhat.com>
266
Mark Fasheh52f7c212008-01-29 17:08:26 -0800267---------------------------
268
Sebastian Siewiorf7c5a772008-05-14 16:05:30 -0700269What: old style serial driver for ColdFire (CONFIG_SERIAL_COLDFIRE)
270When: 2.6.28
271Why: This driver still uses the old interface and has been replaced
272 by CONFIG_SERIAL_MCF.
273Who: Sebastian Siewior <sebastian@breakpoint.cc>
274
275---------------------------
276
Mark Fasheh52f7c212008-01-29 17:08:26 -0800277What: /sys/o2cb symlink
278When: January 2010
279Why: /sys/fs/o2cb is the proper location for this information - /sys/o2cb
280 exists as a symlink for backwards compatibility for old versions of
281 ocfs2-tools. 2 years should be sufficient time to phase in new versions
282 which know to look in /sys/fs/o2cb.
283Who: ocfs2-devel@oss.oracle.com
Matthew Wilcoxd2f5e802008-04-19 13:49:34 -0400284
285---------------------------
286
Vlad Yasevichecbed6a2008-07-01 20:06:22 -0700287What: SCTP_GET_PEER_ADDRS_NUM_OLD, SCTP_GET_PEER_ADDRS_OLD,
288 SCTP_GET_LOCAL_ADDRS_NUM_OLD, SCTP_GET_LOCAL_ADDRS_OLD
289When: June 2009
290Why: A newer version of the options have been introduced in 2005 that
291 removes the limitions of the old API. The sctp library has been
292 converted to use these new options at the same time. Any user
293 space app that directly uses the old options should convert to using
294 the new options.
295Who: Vlad Yasevich <vladislav.yasevich@hp.com>
David S. Millerea2aca02008-07-05 23:08:07 -0700296
297---------------------------
298
Rene Herman16d75232008-06-24 19:38:56 +0200299What: CONFIG_THERMAL_HWMON
300When: January 2009
301Why: This option was introduced just to allow older lm-sensors userspace
302 to keep working over the upgrade to 2.6.26. At the scheduled time of
303 removal fixed lm-sensors (2.x or 3.x) should be readily available.
304Who: Rene Herman <rene.herman@gmail.com>
Johannes Berg22bb1be2008-07-10 11:16:47 +0200305
306---------------------------
307
308What: Code that is now under CONFIG_WIRELESS_EXT_SYSFS
309 (in net/core/net-sysfs.c)
310When: After the only user (hal) has seen a release with the patches
311 for enough time, probably some time in 2010.
312Why: Over 1K .text/.data size reduction, data is available in other
313 ways (ioctls)
314Who: Johannes Berg <johannes@sipsolutions.net>
Krzysztof Piotr Oledzki58401572008-07-21 10:01:34 -0700315
316---------------------------
317
318What: CONFIG_NF_CT_ACCT
319When: 2.6.29
320Why: Accounting can now be enabled/disabled without kernel recompilation.
321 Currently used only to set a default value for a feature that is also
322 controlled by a kernel/module/sysfs/sysctl parameter.
323Who: Krzysztof Piotr Oledzki <ole@ans.pl>
324