blob: 2291ff620d93e2e220823dd3da8094b60ef709fa [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
Mauro Carvalho Chehab875c2962005-11-08 21:38:53 -080062What: Video4Linux API 1 ioctls and video_decoder.h from Video devices.
Mauro Carvalho Chehab48c06d52006-09-06 09:29:00 -030063When: December 2006
Mauro Carvalho Chehab875c2962005-11-08 21:38:53 -080064Why: V4L1 AP1 was replaced by V4L2 API. during migration from 2.4 to 2.6
65 series. The old API have lots of drawbacks and don't provide enough
66 means to work with all video and audio standards. The newer API is
67 already available on the main drivers and should be used instead.
68 Newer drivers should use v4l_compat_translate_ioctl function to handle
69 old calls, replacing to newer ones.
70 Decoder iocts are using internally to allow video drivers to
71 communicate with video decoders. This should also be improved to allow
72 V4L2 calls being translated into compatible internal ioctls.
73Who: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@brturbo.com.br>
74
75---------------------------
76
Dominik Brodowskibf45d9b02005-07-07 17:58:58 -070077What: PCMCIA control ioctl (needed for pcmcia-cs [cardmgr, cardctl])
78When: November 2005
79Files: drivers/pcmcia/: pcmcia_ioctl.c
80Why: With the 16-bit PCMCIA subsystem now behaving (almost) like a
81 normal hotpluggable bus, and with it using the default kernel
82 infrastructure (hotplug, driver core, sysfs) keeping the PCMCIA
83 control ioctl needed by cardmgr and cardctl from pcmcia-cs is
84 unnecessary, and makes further cleanups and integration of the
85 PCMCIA subsystem into the Linux kernel device driver model more
86 difficult. The features provided by cardmgr and cardctl are either
87 handled by the kernel itself now or are available in the new
88 pcmciautils package available at
89 http://kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/pcmcia/
90Who: Dominik Brodowski <linux@brodo.de>
Harald Welte7af4cc32005-08-09 19:44:15 -070091
92---------------------------
93
Christoph Hellwigac515892006-03-24 03:18:22 -080094What: remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(kernel_thread)
95When: August 2006
96Files: arch/*/kernel/*_ksyms.c
97Why: kernel_thread is a low-level implementation detail. Drivers should
98 use the <linux/kthread.h> API instead which shields them from
99 implementation details and provides a higherlevel interface that
100 prevents bugs and code duplication
101Who: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
102
103---------------------------
104
Ingo Molnara9df3d02006-01-14 13:21:33 -0800105What: CONFIG_FORCED_INLINING
106When: June 2006
107Why: Config option is there to see if gcc is good enough. (in january
108 2006). If it is, the behavior should just be the default. If it's not,
109 the option should just go away entirely.
110Who: Arjan van de Ven
111
112---------------------------
113
Bunkc0d3c0c2006-02-07 01:43:31 -0500114What: eepro100 network driver
115When: January 2007
116Why: replaced by the e100 driver
117Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
Jeff Garzik3c9b3a82006-02-07 01:47:12 -0500118
119---------------------------
120
Adrian Bunk1e5f5e52006-08-31 21:27:46 -0700121What: drivers depending on OSS_OBSOLETE_DRIVER
122When: options in 2.6.20, code in 2.6.22
123Why: OSS drivers with ALSA replacements
124Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
125
126---------------------------
127
Arjan van de Venf71d20e2006-06-28 04:26:45 -0700128What: Unused EXPORT_SYMBOL/EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL exports
129 (temporary transition config option provided until then)
130 The transition config option will also be removed at the same time.
131When: before 2.6.19
132Why: Unused symbols are both increasing the size of the kernel binary
133 and are often a sign of "wrong API"
134Who: Arjan van de Ven <arjan@linux.intel.com>
135
136---------------------------
137
Greg Kroah-Hartmanb87ba0a2006-03-20 13:17:13 -0800138What: USB driver API moves to EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL
Matt LaPlantea2ffd272006-10-03 22:49:15 +0200139When: February 2008
Greg Kroah-Hartmanb87ba0a2006-03-20 13:17:13 -0800140Files: include/linux/usb.h, drivers/usb/core/driver.c
141Why: The USB subsystem has changed a lot over time, and it has been
142 possible to create userspace USB drivers using usbfs/libusb/gadgetfs
143 that operate as fast as the USB bus allows. Because of this, the USB
144 subsystem will not be allowing closed source kernel drivers to
145 register with it, after this grace period is over. If anyone needs
146 any help in converting their closed source drivers over to use the
147 userspace filesystems, please contact the
148 linux-usb-devel@lists.sourceforge.net mailing list, and the developers
149 there will be glad to help you out.
150Who: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>
151
152---------------------------
Nick Piggin93fac702006-03-31 02:29:56 -0800153
Thomas Gleixner6e213612006-07-01 19:29:03 -0700154What: Interrupt only SA_* flags
Thomas Gleixner0e8638e2007-05-08 00:28:56 -0700155When: September 2007
Thomas Gleixner6e213612006-07-01 19:29:03 -0700156Why: The interrupt related SA_* flags are replaced by IRQF_* to move them
157 out of the signal namespace.
158
159Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
160
161---------------------------
Jean Delvare5a017482006-07-01 17:13:37 +0200162
Kay Sieversd81d9d62006-08-13 06:17:09 +0200163What: PHYSDEVPATH, PHYSDEVBUS, PHYSDEVDRIVER in the uevent environment
Dominik Brodowskiacbd39f2006-09-30 22:41:43 -0400164When: October 2008
Kay Sieversd81d9d62006-08-13 06:17:09 +0200165Why: The stacking of class devices makes these values misleading and
166 inconsistent.
167 Class devices should not carry any of these properties, and bus
168 devices have SUBSYTEM and DRIVER as a replacement.
169Who: Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@suse.de>
170
171---------------------------
Jean Delvare6c805d22006-08-13 23:45:52 +0200172
173What: i2c-isa
174When: December 2006
175Why: i2c-isa is a non-sense and doesn't fit in the device driver
176 model. Drivers relying on it are better implemented as platform
177 drivers.
178Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>
179
180---------------------------
Jeff Garzik31e7e1a2006-10-03 01:13:54 -0700181
Jean Delvarefccb56e2007-05-01 23:26:27 +0200182What: i2c_adapter.list
David Brownellb119dc32007-01-04 13:07:04 +0100183When: July 2007
Jean Delvarefccb56e2007-05-01 23:26:27 +0200184Why: Superfluous, this list duplicates the one maintained by the driver
185 core.
David Brownellb119dc32007-01-04 13:07:04 +0100186Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>,
187 David Brownell <dbrownell@users.sourceforge.net>
188
189---------------------------
190
Adrian Bunk5aab0ad2007-02-10 01:45:50 -0800191What: drivers depending on OBSOLETE_OSS
192When: options in 2.6.22, code in 2.6.24
193Why: OSS drivers with ALSA replacements
194Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
195
196---------------------------
197
Venkatesh Pallipadi83d05152006-10-03 12:34:28 -0700198What: ACPI hooks (X86_SPEEDSTEP_CENTRINO_ACPI) in speedstep-centrino driver
199When: December 2006
200Why: Speedstep-centrino driver with ACPI hooks and acpi-cpufreq driver are
201 functionally very much similar. They talk to ACPI in same way. Only
202 difference between them is the way they do frequency transitions.
203 One uses MSRs and the other one uses IO ports. Functionaliy of
204 speedstep_centrino with ACPI hooks is now merged into acpi-cpufreq.
205 That means one common driver will support all Intel Enhanced Speedstep
206 capable CPUs. That means less confusion over name of
207 speedstep-centrino driver (with that driver supposed to be used on
208 non-centrino platforms). That means less duplication of code and
209 less maintenance effort and no possibility of these two drivers
210 going out of sync.
211 Current users of speedstep_centrino with ACPI hooks are requested to
212 switch over to acpi-cpufreq driver. speedstep-centrino will continue
213 to work using older non-ACPI static table based scheme even after this
214 date.
215
216Who: Venkatesh Pallipadi <venkatesh.pallipadi@intel.com>
217
218---------------------------
Len Brown1bb67c22007-01-11 01:49:44 -0500219
Len Brown1bb67c22007-01-11 01:49:44 -0500220What: /sys/firmware/acpi/namespace
221When: 2.6.21
222Why: The ACPI namespace is effectively the symbol list for
223 the BIOS. The device names are completely arbitrary
224 and have no place being exposed to user-space.
225
226 For those interested in the BIOS ACPI namespace,
227 the BIOS can be extracted and disassembled with acpidump
228 and iasl as documented in the pmtools package here:
229 http://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/lenb/acpi/utils
Len Brown1bb67c22007-01-11 01:49:44 -0500230Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
231
232---------------------------
233
Zhang Ruib981c592007-01-29 11:02:30 +0800234What: ACPI procfs interface
235When: July 2007
236Why: After ACPI sysfs conversion, ACPI attributes will be duplicated
237 in sysfs and the ACPI procfs interface should be removed.
238Who: Zhang Rui <rui.zhang@intel.com>
239
240---------------------------
241
Len Brown1bb67c22007-01-11 01:49:44 -0500242What: /proc/acpi/button
243When: August 2007
244Why: /proc/acpi/button has been replaced by events to the input layer
245 since 2.6.20.
246Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
247
248---------------------------
Jeff Garzik54b290a2007-01-23 00:29:01 -0500249
Stephen Hemmingerac38dfc2007-02-07 09:18:30 -0800250What: sk98lin network driver
251When: July 2007
252Why: In kernel tree version of driver is unmaintained. Sk98lin driver
253 replaced by the skge driver.
254Who: Stephen Hemminger <shemminger@osdl.org>
255
Richard Purdieff141a02007-02-10 01:29:11 -0500256---------------------------
257
258What: Compaq touchscreen device emulation
259When: Oct 2007
260Files: drivers/input/tsdev.c
261Why: The code says it was obsolete when it was written in 2001.
262 tslib is a userspace library which does anything tsdev can do and
263 much more besides in userspace where this code belongs. There is no
264 longer any need for tsdev and applications should have converted to
265 use tslib by now.
266 The name "tsdev" is also extremely confusing and lots of people have
267 it loaded when they don't need/use it.
268Who: Richard Purdie <rpurdie@rpsys.net>
269
270---------------------------
Johannes Bergcc2ccca2007-03-05 00:30:27 -0800271
Wim Van Sebroeckab97e6c2007-03-11 12:59:47 +0000272What: i8xx_tco watchdog driver
273When: in 2.6.22
274Why: the i8xx_tco watchdog driver has been replaced by the iTCO_wdt
275 watchdog driver.
276Who: Wim Van Sebroeck <wim@iguana.be>
277
278---------------------------
David S. Miller49e9f702007-04-27 01:04:23 -0700279
280What: Multipath cached routing support in ipv4
281When: in 2.6.23
282Why: Code was merged, then submitter immediately disappeared leaving
283 us with no maintainer and lots of bugs. The code should not have
284 been merged in the first place, and many aspects of it's
285 implementation are blocking more critical core networking
286 development. It's marked EXPERIMENTAL and no distribution
287 enables it because it cause obscure crashes due to unfixable bugs
288 (interfaces don't return errors so memory allocation can't be
289 handled, calling contexts of these interfaces make handling
290 errors impossible too because they get called after we've
291 totally commited to creating a route object, for example).
292 This problem has existed for years and no forward progress
293 has ever been made, and nobody steps up to try and salvage
294 this code, so we're going to finally just get rid of it.
295Who: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
296
297---------------------------
Cornelia Huck52706ec2007-05-04 18:47:50 +0200298
299What: read_dev_chars(), read_conf_data{,_lpm}() (s390 common I/O layer)
300When: December 2007
301Why: These functions are a leftover from 2.4 times. They have several
302 problems:
303 - Duplication of checks that are done in the device driver's
304 interrupt handler
305 - common I/O layer can't do device specific error recovery
306 - device driver can't be notified for conditions happening during
307 execution of the function
308 Device drivers should issue the read device characteristics and read
309 configuration data ccws and do the appropriate error handling
310 themselves.
311Who: Cornelia Huck <cornelia.huck@de.ibm.com>
312
313---------------------------
314
Jean Delvare11de70b2007-05-01 23:26:34 +0200315What: i2c-ixp2000, i2c-ixp4xx and scx200_i2c drivers
316When: September 2007
317Why: Obsolete. The new i2c-gpio driver replaces all hardware-specific
318 I2C-over-GPIO drivers.
319Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>
320
321---------------------------
Adrian Bunk274ee1c2007-05-08 00:27:14 -0700322
323What: drivers depending on OSS_OBSOLETE
324When: options in 2.6.23, code in 2.6.25
325Why: obsolete OSS drivers
326Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
327
328---------------------------
329