blob: a86152ae2f6f6b5fc8e43b458f750d58df2e700d [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. Rodriguez4d8cd262009-09-08 12:09:47 -07009What: PRISM54
10When: 2.6.34
11
12Why: prism54 FullMAC PCI / Cardbus devices used to be supported only by the
13 prism54 wireless driver. After Intersil stopped selling these
14 devices in preference for the newer more flexible SoftMAC devices
15 a SoftMAC device driver was required and prism54 did not support
16 them. The p54pci driver now exists and has been present in the kernel for
17 a while. This driver supports both SoftMAC devices and FullMAC devices.
18 The main difference between these devices was the amount of memory which
19 could be used for the firmware. The SoftMAC devices support a smaller
20 amount of memory. Because of this the SoftMAC firmware fits into FullMAC
21 devices's memory. p54pci supports not only PCI / Cardbus but also USB
22 and SPI. Since p54pci supports all devices prism54 supports
23 you will have a conflict. I'm not quite sure how distributions are
24 handling this conflict right now. prism54 was kept around due to
25 claims users may experience issues when using the SoftMAC driver.
26 Time has passed users have not reported issues. If you use prism54
27 and for whatever reason you cannot use p54pci please let us know!
28 E-mail us at: linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org
29
30 For more information see the p54 wiki page:
31
32 http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/p54
33
34Who: Luis R. Rodriguez <lrodriguez@atheros.com>
35
36---------------------------
37
Robin Getz9d9b8fb2009-06-17 16:25:54 -070038What: IRQF_SAMPLE_RANDOM
39Check: IRQF_SAMPLE_RANDOM
40When: July 2009
41
42Why: Many of IRQF_SAMPLE_RANDOM users are technically bogus as entropy
43 sources in the kernel's current entropy model. To resolve this, every
44 input point to the kernel's entropy pool needs to better document the
45 type of entropy source it actually is. This will be replaced with
46 additional add_*_randomness functions in drivers/char/random.c
47
48Who: Robin Getz <rgetz@blackfin.uclinux.org> & Matt Mackall <mpm@selenic.com>
49
50---------------------------
51
Jiri Slabyb694e522010-01-27 23:47:50 +010052What: Deprecated snapshot ioctls
53When: 2.6.36
54
55Why: The ioctls in kernel/power/user.c were marked as deprecated long time
56 ago. Now they notify users about that so that they need to replace
57 their userspace. After some more time, remove them completely.
58
59Who: Jiri Slaby <jirislaby@gmail.com>
60
61---------------------------
62
Luis R. Rodriguez6ee7d332009-03-20 23:53:06 -040063What: The ieee80211_regdom module parameter
Luis R. Rodriguez8a5117d2009-03-24 21:21:07 -040064When: March 2010 / desktop catchup
Luis R. Rodriguez6ee7d332009-03-20 23:53:06 -040065
66Why: This was inherited by the CONFIG_WIRELESS_OLD_REGULATORY code,
67 and currently serves as an option for users to define an
68 ISO / IEC 3166 alpha2 code for the country they are currently
69 present in. Although there are userspace API replacements for this
70 through nl80211 distributions haven't yet caught up with implementing
71 decent alternatives through standard GUIs. Although available as an
72 option through iw or wpa_supplicant its just a matter of time before
73 distributions pick up good GUI options for this. The ideal solution
74 would actually consist of intelligent designs which would do this for
75 the user automatically even when travelling through different countries.
76 Until then we leave this module parameter as a compromise.
77
78 When userspace improves with reasonable widely-available alternatives for
79 this we will no longer need this module parameter. This entry hopes that
80 by the super-futuristically looking date of "March 2010" we will have
81 such replacements widely available.
82
83Who: Luis R. Rodriguez <lrodriguez@atheros.com>
84
85---------------------------
86
Alan Stern471d0552007-07-12 16:55:07 -040087What: dev->power.power_state
Pavel Machek1ebfd792006-08-30 13:50:27 -070088When: July 2007
89Why: Broken design for runtime control over driver power states, confusing
90 driver-internal runtime power management with: mechanisms to support
91 system-wide sleep state transitions; event codes that distinguish
92 different phases of swsusp "sleep" transitions; and userspace policy
93 inputs. This framework was never widely used, and most attempts to
94 use it were broken. Drivers should instead be exposing domain-specific
95 interfaces either to kernel or to userspace.
96Who: Pavel Machek <pavel@suse.cz>
97
98---------------------------
99
Mauro Carvalho Chehab42d12f52009-03-10 05:02:28 -0300100What: Video4Linux API 1 ioctls and from Video devices.
101When: July 2009
102Files: include/linux/videodev.h
103Check: include/linux/videodev.h
Mauro Carvalho Chehab11a5a102007-10-17 15:32:36 -0200104Why: V4L1 AP1 was replaced by V4L2 API during migration from 2.4 to 2.6
Mauro Carvalho Chehab875c2962005-11-08 21:38:53 -0800105 series. The old API have lots of drawbacks and don't provide enough
106 means to work with all video and audio standards. The newer API is
107 already available on the main drivers and should be used instead.
108 Newer drivers should use v4l_compat_translate_ioctl function to handle
109 old calls, replacing to newer ones.
110 Decoder iocts are using internally to allow video drivers to
111 communicate with video decoders. This should also be improved to allow
112 V4L2 calls being translated into compatible internal ioctls.
Mauro Carvalho Chehab11a5a102007-10-17 15:32:36 -0200113 Compatibility ioctls will be provided, for a while, via
114 v4l1-compat module.
115Who: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@infradead.org>
Mauro Carvalho Chehab875c2962005-11-08 21:38:53 -0800116
117---------------------------
118
Dominik Brodowskibf45d9b02005-07-07 17:58:58 -0700119What: PCMCIA control ioctl (needed for pcmcia-cs [cardmgr, cardctl])
Dominik Brodowskia3f916f2010-01-15 23:55:21 +0100120When: 2.6.35/2.6.36
Dominik Brodowskibf45d9b02005-07-07 17:58:58 -0700121Files: drivers/pcmcia/: pcmcia_ioctl.c
122Why: With the 16-bit PCMCIA subsystem now behaving (almost) like a
123 normal hotpluggable bus, and with it using the default kernel
124 infrastructure (hotplug, driver core, sysfs) keeping the PCMCIA
125 control ioctl needed by cardmgr and cardctl from pcmcia-cs is
Dominik Brodowskia3f916f2010-01-15 23:55:21 +0100126 unnecessary and potentially harmful (it does not provide for
127 proper locking), and makes further cleanups and integration of the
Dominik Brodowskibf45d9b02005-07-07 17:58:58 -0700128 PCMCIA subsystem into the Linux kernel device driver model more
129 difficult. The features provided by cardmgr and cardctl are either
130 handled by the kernel itself now or are available in the new
131 pcmciautils package available at
132 http://kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/pcmcia/
Dominik Brodowskia3f916f2010-01-15 23:55:21 +0100133
134 For all architectures except ARM, the associated config symbol
135 has been removed from kernel 2.6.34; for ARM, it will be likely
136 be removed from kernel 2.6.35. The actual code will then likely
137 be removed from kernel 2.6.36.
138Who: Dominik Brodowski <linux@dominikbrodowski.net>
Harald Welte7af4cc32005-08-09 19:44:15 -0700139
140---------------------------
141
Eric W. Biederman7058cb02007-10-18 03:05:58 -0700142What: sys_sysctl
143When: September 2010
144Option: CONFIG_SYSCTL_SYSCALL
145Why: The same information is available in a more convenient from
146 /proc/sys, and none of the sysctl variables appear to be
147 important performance wise.
148
149 Binary sysctls are a long standing source of subtle kernel
150 bugs and security issues.
151
152 When I looked several months ago all I could find after
153 searching several distributions were 5 user space programs and
154 glibc (which falls back to /proc/sys) using this syscall.
155
156 The man page for sysctl(2) documents it as unusable for user
157 space programs.
158
159 sysctl(2) is not generally ABI compatible to a 32bit user
160 space application on a 64bit and a 32bit kernel.
161
162 For the last several months the policy has been no new binary
163 sysctls and no one has put forward an argument to use them.
164
165 Binary sysctls issues seem to keep happening appearing so
166 properly deprecating them (with a warning to user space) and a
167 2 year grace warning period will mean eventually we can kill
168 them and end the pain.
169
170 In the mean time individual binary sysctls can be dealt with
171 in a piecewise fashion.
172
173Who: Eric Biederman <ebiederm@xmission.com>
174
175---------------------------
176
Christoph Hellwigac515892006-03-24 03:18:22 -0800177What: remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(kernel_thread)
178When: August 2006
179Files: arch/*/kernel/*_ksyms.c
Andy Whitcroftf0a594c2007-07-19 01:48:34 -0700180Check: kernel_thread
Christoph Hellwigac515892006-03-24 03:18:22 -0800181Why: kernel_thread is a low-level implementation detail. Drivers should
182 use the <linux/kthread.h> API instead which shields them from
183 implementation details and provides a higherlevel interface that
184 prevents bugs and code duplication
185Who: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
186
187---------------------------
188
Arjan van de Venf71d20e2006-06-28 04:26:45 -0700189What: Unused EXPORT_SYMBOL/EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL exports
190 (temporary transition config option provided until then)
191 The transition config option will also be removed at the same time.
192When: before 2.6.19
193Why: Unused symbols are both increasing the size of the kernel binary
194 and are often a sign of "wrong API"
195Who: Arjan van de Ven <arjan@linux.intel.com>
196
197---------------------------
198
Kay Sieversd81d9d62006-08-13 06:17:09 +0200199What: PHYSDEVPATH, PHYSDEVBUS, PHYSDEVDRIVER in the uevent environment
Dominik Brodowskiacbd39f2006-09-30 22:41:43 -0400200When: October 2008
Kay Sieversd81d9d62006-08-13 06:17:09 +0200201Why: The stacking of class devices makes these values misleading and
202 inconsistent.
203 Class devices should not carry any of these properties, and bus
204 devices have SUBSYTEM and DRIVER as a replacement.
205Who: Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@suse.de>
206
207---------------------------
Jean Delvare6c805d22006-08-13 23:45:52 +0200208
Zhang Ruib981c592007-01-29 11:02:30 +0800209What: ACPI procfs interface
Zhang Rui8b8eb7d2007-07-18 17:23:24 +0800210When: July 2008
211Why: ACPI sysfs conversion should be finished by January 2008.
212 ACPI procfs interface will be removed in July 2008 so that
213 there is enough time for the user space to catch up.
Zhang Ruib981c592007-01-29 11:02:30 +0800214Who: Zhang Rui <rui.zhang@intel.com>
215
216---------------------------
217
Len Brown1bb67c22007-01-11 01:49:44 -0500218What: /proc/acpi/button
219When: August 2007
220Why: /proc/acpi/button has been replaced by events to the input layer
221 since 2.6.20.
222Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
223
224---------------------------
Jeff Garzik54b290a2007-01-23 00:29:01 -0500225
Len Brown14e04fb2007-08-23 15:20:26 -0400226What: /proc/acpi/event
227When: February 2008
228Why: /proc/acpi/event has been replaced by events via the input layer
229 and netlink since 2.6.23.
230Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
231
232---------------------------
233
Thomas Gleixner914d97f2007-10-11 11:20:05 +0200234What: i386/x86_64 bzImage symlinks
Ingo Molnar19b4e7f2008-04-10 10:12:27 +0200235When: April 2010
Thomas Gleixner914d97f2007-10-11 11:20:05 +0200236
237Why: The i386/x86_64 merge provides a symlink to the old bzImage
238 location so not yet updated user space tools, e.g. package
239 scripts, do not break.
240Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Linus Torvalds038a5002007-10-11 19:40:14 -0700241
242---------------------------
243
David Brownell8a0cecf2009-04-02 16:57:06 -0700244What: GPIO autorequest on gpio_direction_{input,output}() in gpiolib
245When: February 2010
246Why: All callers should use explicit gpio_request()/gpio_free().
247 The autorequest mechanism in gpiolib was provided mostly as a
248 migration aid for legacy GPIO interfaces (for SOC based GPIOs).
249 Those users have now largely migrated. Platforms implementing
250 the GPIO interfaces without using gpiolib will see no changes.
251Who: David Brownell <dbrownell@users.sourceforge.net>
252---------------------------
253
Michael Buescheb189d82008-01-28 14:47:41 -0800254What: b43 support for firmware revision < 410
Michael Bueschc5572892008-12-27 18:26:39 +0100255When: The schedule was July 2008, but it was decided that we are going to keep the
256 code as long as there are no major maintanance headaches.
257 So it _could_ be removed _any_ time now, if it conflicts with something new.
Michael Buescheb189d82008-01-28 14:47:41 -0800258Why: The support code for the old firmware hurts code readability/maintainability
259 and slightly hurts runtime performance. Bugfixes for the old firmware
260 are not provided by Broadcom anymore.
261Who: Michael Buesch <mb@bu3sch.de>
David S. Millere88bb412008-02-09 23:08:53 -0800262
263---------------------------
264
Mark Fasheh52f7c212008-01-29 17:08:26 -0800265What: /sys/o2cb symlink
266When: January 2010
267Why: /sys/fs/o2cb is the proper location for this information - /sys/o2cb
268 exists as a symlink for backwards compatibility for old versions of
269 ocfs2-tools. 2 years should be sufficient time to phase in new versions
270 which know to look in /sys/fs/o2cb.
271Who: ocfs2-devel@oss.oracle.com
Matthew Wilcoxd2f5e802008-04-19 13:49:34 -0400272
273---------------------------
274
Ravikiran G Thirumalai2584e512009-03-31 15:21:26 -0700275What: Ability for non root users to shm_get hugetlb pages based on mlock
276 resource limits
277When: 2.6.31
278Why: Non root users need to be part of /proc/sys/vm/hugetlb_shm_group or
279 have CAP_IPC_LOCK to be able to allocate shm segments backed by
280 huge pages. The mlock based rlimit check to allow shm hugetlb is
281 inconsistent with mmap based allocations. Hence it is being
282 deprecated.
283Who: Ravikiran Thirumalai <kiran@scalex86.org>
284
285---------------------------
286
Rene Herman16d75232008-06-24 19:38:56 +0200287What: CONFIG_THERMAL_HWMON
288When: January 2009
289Why: This option was introduced just to allow older lm-sensors userspace
290 to keep working over the upgrade to 2.6.26. At the scheduled time of
291 removal fixed lm-sensors (2.x or 3.x) should be readily available.
292Who: Rene Herman <rene.herman@gmail.com>
Johannes Berg22bb1be2008-07-10 11:16:47 +0200293
294---------------------------
295
296What: Code that is now under CONFIG_WIRELESS_EXT_SYSFS
297 (in net/core/net-sysfs.c)
298When: After the only user (hal) has seen a release with the patches
299 for enough time, probably some time in 2010.
300Why: Over 1K .text/.data size reduction, data is available in other
301 ways (ioctls)
302Who: Johannes Berg <johannes@sipsolutions.net>
Krzysztof Piotr Oledzki58401572008-07-21 10:01:34 -0700303
304---------------------------
305
306What: CONFIG_NF_CT_ACCT
307When: 2.6.29
308Why: Accounting can now be enabled/disabled without kernel recompilation.
309 Currently used only to set a default value for a feature that is also
310 controlled by a kernel/module/sysfs/sysctl parameter.
311Who: Krzysztof Piotr Oledzki <ole@ans.pl>
312
FUJITA Tomonori46dfa042008-09-10 22:22:34 +0200313---------------------------
314
Dave Jones753b7ae2009-03-09 15:14:37 -0400315What: sysfs ui for changing p4-clockmod parameters
316When: September 2009
317Why: See commits 129f8ae9b1b5be94517da76009ea956e89104ce8 and
318 e088e4c9cdb618675874becb91b2fd581ee707e6.
319 Removal is subject to fixing any remaining bugs in ACPI which may
320 cause the thermal throttling not to happen at the right time.
321Who: Dave Jones <davej@redhat.com>, Matthew Garrett <mjg@redhat.com>
Thomas Gleixner0e57aa12009-03-13 14:34:05 +0100322
323-----------------------------
324
325What: __do_IRQ all in one fits nothing interrupt handler
326When: 2.6.32
327Why: __do_IRQ was kept for easy migration to the type flow handlers.
328 More than two years of migration time is enough.
329Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Thomas Gleixnercb065c02009-03-13 14:40:27 +0100330
331-----------------------------
332
Alex Chiangf110ca42009-03-20 14:56:56 -0600333What: fakephp and associated sysfs files in /sys/bus/pci/slots/
334When: 2011
335Why: In 2.6.27, the semantics of /sys/bus/pci/slots was redefined to
336 represent a machine's physical PCI slots. The change in semantics
337 had userspace implications, as the hotplug core no longer allowed
338 drivers to create multiple sysfs files per physical slot (required
339 for multi-function devices, e.g.). fakephp was seen as a developer's
340 tool only, and its interface changed. Too late, we learned that
341 there were some users of the fakephp interface.
342
343 In 2.6.30, the original fakephp interface was restored. At the same
344 time, the PCI core gained the ability that fakephp provided, namely
345 function-level hot-remove and hot-add.
346
347 Since the PCI core now provides the same functionality, exposed in:
348
349 /sys/bus/pci/rescan
350 /sys/bus/pci/devices/.../remove
351 /sys/bus/pci/devices/.../rescan
352
353 there is no functional reason to maintain fakephp as well.
354
355 We will keep the existing module so that 'modprobe fakephp' will
356 present the old /sys/bus/pci/slots/... interface for compatibility,
357 but users are urged to migrate their applications to the API above.
358
359 After a reasonable transition period, we will remove the legacy
360 fakephp interface.
361Who: Alex Chiang <achiang@hp.com>
Jean Delvare3f307fb2009-04-13 17:02:13 +0200362
363---------------------------
364
Johannes Bergc64fb012009-06-02 13:01:38 +0200365What: CONFIG_RFKILL_INPUT
366When: 2.6.33
367Why: Should be implemented in userspace, policy daemon.
368Who: Johannes Berg <johannes@sipsolutions.net>
David S. Miller9cbc1cb2009-06-15 03:02:23 -0700369
Eric Pariscdc321f2009-06-29 11:13:30 -0400370---------------------------
371
372What: CONFIG_INOTIFY
373When: 2.6.33
374Why: last user (audit) will be converted to the newer more generic
375 and more easily maintained fsnotify subsystem
376Who: Eric Paris <eparis@redhat.com>
377
Andi Kleen45f458e2009-04-28 23:18:26 +0200378----------------------------
379
venkatesh.pallipadi@intel.com37c90e82009-07-02 17:08:31 -0700380What: lock_policy_rwsem_* and unlock_policy_rwsem_* will not be
381 exported interface anymore.
382When: 2.6.33
383Why: cpu_policy_rwsem has a new cleaner definition making it local to
384 cpufreq core and contained inside cpufreq.c. Other dependent
385 drivers should not use it in order to safely avoid lockdep issues.
386Who: Venkatesh Pallipadi <venkatesh.pallipadi@intel.com>
Tejun Heo93fe4482009-08-06 18:14:26 +0900387
388----------------------------
389
390What: sound-slot/service-* module aliases and related clutters in
391 sound/sound_core.c
392When: August 2010
393Why: OSS sound_core grabs all legacy minors (0-255) of SOUND_MAJOR
394 (14) and requests modules using custom sound-slot/service-*
395 module aliases. The only benefit of doing this is allowing
396 use of custom module aliases which might as well be considered
397 a bug at this point. This preemptive claiming prevents
398 alternative OSS implementations.
399
400 Till the feature is removed, the kernel will be requesting
401 both sound-slot/service-* and the standard char-major-* module
402 aliases and allow turning off the pre-claiming selectively via
403 CONFIG_SOUND_OSS_CORE_PRECLAIM and soundcore.preclaim_oss
404 kernel parameter.
405
406 After the transition phase is complete, both the custom module
407 aliases and switches to disable it will go away. This removal
408 will also allow making ALSA OSS emulation independent of
409 sound_core. The dependency will be broken then too.
410Who: Tejun Heo <tj@kernel.org>
Alok Katariad0153ca2009-09-29 10:25:24 -0700411
412----------------------------
413
414What: Support for VMware's guest paravirtuliazation technique [VMI] will be
415 dropped.
416When: 2.6.37 or earlier.
417Why: With the recent innovations in CPU hardware acceleration technologies
418 from Intel and AMD, VMware ran a few experiments to compare these
419 techniques to guest paravirtualization technique on VMware's platform.
420 These hardware assisted virtualization techniques have outperformed the
421 performance benefits provided by VMI in most of the workloads. VMware
422 expects that these hardware features will be ubiquitous in a couple of
423 years, as a result, VMware has started a phased retirement of this
424 feature from the hypervisor. We will be removing this feature from the
425 Kernel too. Right now we are targeting 2.6.37 but can retire earlier if
426 technical reasons (read opportunity to remove major chunk of pvops)
427 arise.
428
429 Please note that VMI has always been an optimization and non-VMI kernels
430 still work fine on VMware's platform.
431 Latest versions of VMware's product which support VMI are,
432 Workstation 7.0 and VSphere 4.0 on ESX side, future maintainence
433 releases for these products will continue supporting VMI.
434
435 For more details about VMI retirement take a look at this,
436 http://blogs.vmware.com/guestosguide/2009/09/vmi-retirement.html
437
438Who: Alok N Kataria <akataria@vmware.com>
439
440----------------------------
Jean Delvareb180d052009-12-09 20:36:02 +0100441
Corentin Chary728900f2009-12-03 07:45:17 +0000442What: Support for lcd_switch and display_get in asus-laptop driver
443When: March 2010
444Why: These two features use non-standard interfaces. There are the
445 only features that really need multiple path to guess what's
446 the right method name on a specific laptop.
447
448 Removing them will allow to remove a lot of code an significantly
449 clean the drivers.
450
451 This will affect the backlight code which won't be able to know
452 if the backlight is on or off. The platform display file will also be
453 write only (like the one in eeepc-laptop).
454
455 This should'nt affect a lot of user because they usually know
456 when their display is on or off.
457
458Who: Corentin Chary <corentin.chary@gmail.com>
459
460----------------------------
Hans de Goedeceafe1d2010-01-11 10:50:53 -0200461
462What: usbvideo quickcam_messenger driver
463When: 2.6.35
464Files: drivers/media/video/usbvideo/quickcam_messenger.[ch]
465Why: obsolete v4l1 driver replaced by gspca_stv06xx
466Who: Hans de Goede <hdegoede@redhat.com>
467
468----------------------------
469
470What: ov511 v4l1 driver
471When: 2.6.35
472Files: drivers/media/video/ov511.[ch]
473Why: obsolete v4l1 driver replaced by gspca_ov519
474Who: Hans de Goede <hdegoede@redhat.com>
475
476----------------------------
477
478What: w9968cf v4l1 driver
479When: 2.6.35
480Files: drivers/media/video/w9968cf*.[ch]
481Why: obsolete v4l1 driver replaced by gspca_ov519
482Who: Hans de Goede <hdegoede@redhat.com>
483
484----------------------------
485
486What: ovcamchip sensor framework
487When: 2.6.35
488Files: drivers/media/video/ovcamchip/*
489Why: Only used by obsoleted v4l1 drivers
490Who: Hans de Goede <hdegoede@redhat.com>
491
492----------------------------
493
494What: stv680 v4l1 driver
495When: 2.6.35
496Files: drivers/media/video/stv680.[ch]
497Why: obsolete v4l1 driver replaced by gspca_stv0680
498Who: Hans de Goede <hdegoede@redhat.com>
499
500----------------------------
501
502What: zc0301 v4l driver
503When: 2.6.35
504Files: drivers/media/video/zc0301/*
505Why: Duplicate functionality with the gspca_zc3xx driver, zc0301 only
506 supports 2 USB-ID's (because it only supports a limited set of
507 sensors) wich are also supported by the gspca_zc3xx driver
508 (which supports 53 USB-ID's in total)
509Who: Hans de Goede <hdegoede@redhat.com>
Eric Miao74e7e722010-02-07 23:10:05 -0800510
511----------------------------
512
florian@mickler.org69c86372010-02-24 12:05:16 +0100513What: sysfs-class-rfkill state file
514When: Feb 2014
515Files: net/rfkill/core.c
516Why: Documented as obsolete since Feb 2010. This file is limited to 3
517 states while the rfkill drivers can have 4 states.
518Who: anybody or Florian Mickler <florian@mickler.org>
519
520----------------------------
521
522What: sysfs-class-rfkill claim file
523When: Feb 2012
524Files: net/rfkill/core.c
525Why: It is not possible to claim an rfkill driver since 2007. This is
526 Documented as obsolete since Feb 2010.
527Who: anybody or Florian Mickler <florian@mickler.org>
528
529----------------------------
530
Jan Kiszka79e95f42010-02-08 10:12:44 +0000531What: capifs
532When: February 2011
533Files: drivers/isdn/capi/capifs.*
534Why: udev fully replaces this special file system that only contains CAPI
535 NCCI TTY device nodes. User space (pppdcapiplugin) works without
536 noticing the difference.
537Who: Jan Kiszka <jan.kiszka@web.de>
Linus Torvaldsc812a512010-03-05 13:12:34 -0800538
539----------------------------
540
Avi Kivitydb358792010-01-26 16:30:06 +0200541What: KVM memory aliases support
542When: July 2010
543Why: Memory aliasing support is used for speeding up guest vga access
544 through the vga windows.
545
546 Modern userspace no longer uses this feature, so it's just bitrotted
547 code and can be removed with no impact.
548Who: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>
549
550----------------------------
551
Ingo Molnar12b8aee2010-03-15 08:17:33 +0100552What: xtime, wall_to_monotonic
553When: 2.6.36+
554Files: kernel/time/timekeeping.c include/linux/time.h
555Why: Cleaning up timekeeping internal values. Please use
556 existing timekeeping accessor functions to access
557 the equivalent functionality.
558Who: John Stultz <johnstul@us.ibm.com>
559
560----------------------------
561
Avi Kivitydb358792010-01-26 16:30:06 +0200562What: KVM kernel-allocated memory slots
563When: July 2010
564Why: Since 2.6.25, kvm supports user-allocated memory slots, which are
565 much more flexible than kernel-allocated slots. All current userspace
566 supports the newer interface and this code can be removed with no
567 impact.
568Who: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>
569
570----------------------------
571
572What: KVM paravirt mmu host support
573When: January 2011
574Why: The paravirt mmu host support is slower than non-paravirt mmu, both
575 on newer and older hardware. It is already not exposed to the guest,
576 and kept only for live migration purposes.
577Who: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>
Linus Torvaldsc812a512010-03-05 13:12:34 -0800578
579----------------------------
Len Brown4c81ba42010-03-14 16:28:46 -0400580
581What: "acpi=ht" boot option
582When: 2.6.35
583Why: Useful in 2003, implementation is a hack.
584 Generally invoked by accident today.
585 Seen as doing more harm than good.
586Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
Hans Verkuilb75396a2010-03-22 05:43:08 -0300587
588----------------------------
589
Wey-Yi Guy2b068612010-03-22 09:17:39 -0700590What: iwlwifi 50XX module parameters
591When: 2.6.40
592Why: The "..50" modules parameters were used to configure 5000 series and
593 up devices; different set of module parameters also available for 4965
594 with same functionalities. Consolidate both set into single place
595 in drivers/net/wireless/iwlwifi/iwl-agn.c
596
597Who: Wey-Yi Guy <wey-yi.w.guy@intel.com>
Wey-Yi Guyd34a5a62010-03-23 10:17:03 -0700598
599----------------------------
600
601What: iwl4965 alias support
602When: 2.6.40
603Why: Internal alias support has been present in module-init-tools for some
604 time, the MODULE_ALIAS("iwl4965") boilerplate aliases can be removed
605 with no impact.
606
607Who: Wey-Yi Guy <wey-yi.w.guy@intel.com>
Patrick McHardy62910552010-04-20 16:02:01 +0200608
Jan Engelhardt0cb47ea2010-03-16 18:25:12 +0100609---------------------------
610
611What: xt_NOTRACK
612Files: net/netfilter/xt_NOTRACK.c
613When: April 2011
614Why: Superseded by xt_CT
615Who: Netfilter developer team <netfilter-devel@vger.kernel.org>
David S. Miller278554b2010-05-12 00:05:35 -0700616
617---------------------------
618
Hans Verkuilb75396a2010-03-22 05:43:08 -0300619What: video4linux /dev/vtx teletext API support
620When: 2.6.35
621Files: drivers/media/video/saa5246a.c drivers/media/video/saa5249.c
622 include/linux/videotext.h
623Why: The vtx device nodes have been superseded by vbi device nodes
624 for many years. No applications exist that use the vtx support.
625 Of the two i2c drivers that actually support this API the saa5249
626 has been impossible to use for a year now and no known hardware
627 that supports this device exists. The saa5246a is theoretically
628 supported by the old mxb boards, but it never actually worked.
629
630 In summary: there is no hardware that can use this API and there
631 are no applications actually implementing this API.
632
633 The vtx support still reserves minors 192-223 and we would really
634 like to reuse those for upcoming new functionality. In the unlikely
635 event that new hardware appears that wants to use the functionality
636 provided by the vtx API, then that functionality should be build
637 around the sliced VBI API instead.
638Who: Hans Verkuil <hverkuil@xs4all.nl>
Linus Torvalds6e0b7b22010-05-19 17:09:40 -0700639
640----------------------------
641
Thomas Gleixner6932bf32010-03-26 00:06:55 +0000642What: IRQF_DISABLED
643When: 2.6.36
644Why: The flag is a NOOP as we run interrupt handlers with interrupts disabled
645Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Linus Torvalds6e0b7b22010-05-19 17:09:40 -0700646
647----------------------------
648