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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
9What: devfs
10When: July 2005
11Files: fs/devfs/*, include/linux/devfs_fs*.h and assorted devfs
12 function calls throughout the kernel tree
13Why: 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.
16Who: Greg Kroah-Hartman <greg@kroah.com>
17
18---------------------------
19
Adrian Bunk98e7f292005-06-25 14:59:37 -070020What: RAW driver (CONFIG_RAW_DRIVER)
21When: December 2005
22Why: declared obsolete since kernel 2.6.3
23 O_DIRECT can be used instead
24Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
25
26---------------------------
27
Adrian Bunkcecd1ca2005-11-08 21:34:45 -080028What: drivers depending on OBSOLETE_OSS_DRIVER
29When: January 2006
30Why: OSS drivers with ALSA replacements
31Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
32
33---------------------------
34
Paul E. McKenney66cf8f12005-05-01 08:59:03 -070035What: RCU API moves to EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL
36When: April 2006
37Files: include/linux/rcupdate.h, kernel/rcupdate.c
38Why: 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.
46Who: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@us.ibm.com>
Jody McIntyrea1446c72005-05-16 21:53:59 -070047
48---------------------------
49
Jody McIntyrea1446c72005-05-16 21:53:59 -070050What: raw1394: requests of type RAW1394_REQ_ISO_SEND, RAW1394_REQ_ISO_LISTEN
51When: November 2005
52Why: 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.
55Who: Jody McIntyre <scjody@steamballoon.com>
Grant Coady937df8d2005-05-12 11:59:29 +100056
57---------------------------
58
Mauro Carvalho Chehab875c2962005-11-08 21:38:53 -080059What: Video4Linux API 1 ioctls and video_decoder.h from Video devices.
60When: July 2006
61Why: 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.
70Who: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@brturbo.com.br>
71
72---------------------------
73
Adrian Bunkdfed0442005-11-07 01:01:44 -080074What: remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(panic_timeout)
75When: April 2006
76Files: kernel/panic.c
77Why: No modular usage in the kernel.
78Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
79
80---------------------------
81
Adrian Bunk24622ef2005-11-07 01:01:44 -080082What: remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(insert_resource)
83When: April 2006
84Files: kernel/resource.c
85Why: No modular usage in the kernel.
86Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
87
88---------------------------
89
Dominik Brodowskibf45d9b02005-07-07 17:58:58 -070090What: PCMCIA control ioctl (needed for pcmcia-cs [cardmgr, cardctl])
91When: November 2005
92Files: drivers/pcmcia/: pcmcia_ioctl.c
93Why: 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/
103Who: Dominik Brodowski <linux@brodo.de>
Harald Welte7af4cc32005-08-09 19:44:15 -0700104
105---------------------------
106
107What: ip_queue and ip6_queue (old ipv4-only and ipv6-only netfilter queue)
108When: December 2005
109Why: 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'.
115Who: Harald Welte <laforge@netfilter.org>
Christoph Hellwig49705b72005-11-08 21:35:06 -0800116
117---------------------------
118
Christoph Hellwigac515892006-03-24 03:18:22 -0800119What: remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(kernel_thread)
120When: August 2006
121Files: arch/*/kernel/*_ksyms.c
122Why: 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
126Who: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
127
128---------------------------
129
Christoph Hellwig49705b72005-11-08 21:35:06 -0800130What: EXPORT_SYMBOL(lookup_hash)
131When: January 2006
132Why: Too low-level interface. Use lookup_one_len or lookup_create instead.
133Who: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
NeilBrowne8a00332005-11-15 00:09:11 -0800134
135---------------------------
136
Ingo Molnara9df3d02006-01-14 13:21:33 -0800137What: CONFIG_FORCED_INLINING
138When: June 2006
139Why: 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.
142Who: Arjan van de Ven
143
144---------------------------
145
NeilBrowne8a00332005-11-15 00:09:11 -0800146What: START_ARRAY ioctl for md
147When: July 2006
148Files: drivers/md/md.c
149Why: Not reliable by design - can fail when most needed.
150 Alternatives exist
151Who: NeilBrown <neilb@suse.de>
Ralf Baechlee0c9b792005-11-08 22:36:48 +0000152
153---------------------------
154
155What: au1x00_uart driver
156When: January 2006
157Why: 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.
161Who: Ralf Baechle <ralf@linux-mips.org>
Adrian Bunkb4b2c042005-12-29 20:07:25 +0100162
Bunkc0d3c0c2006-02-07 01:43:31 -0500163---------------------------
164
165What: eepro100 network driver
166When: January 2007
167Why: replaced by the e100 driver
168Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
Jeff Garzik3c9b3a82006-02-07 01:47:12 -0500169
170---------------------------
171
Richard Knutsson051d9892005-12-03 02:34:12 +0100172What: pci_module_init(driver)
173When: January 2007
174Why: Is replaced by pci_register_driver(pci_driver).
175Who: Richard Knutsson <ricknu-0@student.ltu.se> and Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>
Jean Delvarec5e3fbf2006-01-18 22:39:48 +0100176
177---------------------------
178
179What: I2C interface of the it87 driver
180When: January 2007
181Why: 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.)
184Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>
Greg Kroah-Hartmanfa675762006-02-22 09:39:02 -0800185
186---------------------------
187
188What: mount/umount uevents
189When: February 2007
190Why: These events are not correct, and do not properly let userspace know
191 when a file system has been mounted or unmounted. Userspace should
192 poll the /proc/mounts file instead to detect this properly.
193Who: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>
Ralf Baechlecf028d12006-03-02 16:50:12 +0000194
195---------------------------
196
197What: Support for NEC DDB5074 and DDB5476 evaluation boards.
198When: June 2006
199Why: Board specific code doesn't build anymore since ~2.6.0 and no
200 users have complained indicating there is no more need for these
201 boards. This should really be considered a last call.
202Who: Ralf Baechle <ralf@linux-mips.org>
Greg Kroah-Hartmanb87ba0a2006-03-20 13:17:13 -0800203
204---------------------------
205
206What: USB driver API moves to EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL
207When: Febuary 2008
208Files: include/linux/usb.h, drivers/usb/core/driver.c
209Why: The USB subsystem has changed a lot over time, and it has been
210 possible to create userspace USB drivers using usbfs/libusb/gadgetfs
211 that operate as fast as the USB bus allows. Because of this, the USB
212 subsystem will not be allowing closed source kernel drivers to
213 register with it, after this grace period is over. If anyone needs
214 any help in converting their closed source drivers over to use the
215 userspace filesystems, please contact the
216 linux-usb-devel@lists.sourceforge.net mailing list, and the developers
217 there will be glad to help you out.
218Who: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>
219
220---------------------------