blob: f5f812daf9f439658bcc710164b2912dc2430e75 [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. Rodriguezb2e1b302008-09-09 23:19:48 -07009What: old static regulatory information and ieee80211_regdom module parameter
10When: 2.6.29
11Why: The old regulatory infrastructure has been replaced with a new one
12 which does not require statically defined regulatory domains. We do
13 not want to keep static regulatory domains in the kernel due to the
14 the dynamic nature of regulatory law and localization. We kept around
15 the old static definitions for the regulatory domains of:
16 * US
17 * JP
18 * EU
19 and used by default the US when CONFIG_WIRELESS_OLD_REGULATORY was
20 set. We also kept around the ieee80211_regdom module parameter in case
21 some applications were relying on it. Changing regulatory domains
22 can now be done instead by using nl80211, as is done with iw.
23Who: Luis R. Rodriguez <lrodriguez@atheros.com>
24
25---------------------------
26
Alan Stern471d0552007-07-12 16:55:07 -040027What: dev->power.power_state
Pavel Machek1ebfd792006-08-30 13:50:27 -070028When: July 2007
29Why: Broken design for runtime control over driver power states, confusing
30 driver-internal runtime power management with: mechanisms to support
31 system-wide sleep state transitions; event codes that distinguish
32 different phases of swsusp "sleep" transitions; and userspace policy
33 inputs. This framework was never widely used, and most attempts to
34 use it were broken. Drivers should instead be exposing domain-specific
35 interfaces either to kernel or to userspace.
36Who: Pavel Machek <pavel@suse.cz>
37
38---------------------------
39
Mauro Carvalho Chehab875c2962005-11-08 21:38:53 -080040What: Video4Linux API 1 ioctls and video_decoder.h from Video devices.
Mauro Carvalho Chehab11a5a102007-10-17 15:32:36 -020041When: December 2008
42Files: include/linux/video_decoder.h include/linux/videodev.h
43Check: include/linux/video_decoder.h include/linux/videodev.h
44Why: V4L1 AP1 was replaced by V4L2 API during migration from 2.4 to 2.6
Mauro Carvalho Chehab875c2962005-11-08 21:38:53 -080045 series. The old API have lots of drawbacks and don't provide enough
46 means to work with all video and audio standards. The newer API is
47 already available on the main drivers and should be used instead.
48 Newer drivers should use v4l_compat_translate_ioctl function to handle
49 old calls, replacing to newer ones.
50 Decoder iocts are using internally to allow video drivers to
51 communicate with video decoders. This should also be improved to allow
52 V4L2 calls being translated into compatible internal ioctls.
Mauro Carvalho Chehab11a5a102007-10-17 15:32:36 -020053 Compatibility ioctls will be provided, for a while, via
54 v4l1-compat module.
55Who: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@infradead.org>
Mauro Carvalho Chehab875c2962005-11-08 21:38:53 -080056
57---------------------------
58
Hans Verkuil051a4ac2008-07-27 14:08:54 -030059What: old tuner-3036 i2c driver
60When: 2.6.28
61Why: This driver is for VERY old i2c-over-parallel port teletext receiver
62 boxes. Rather then spending effort on converting this driver to V4L2,
63 and since it is extremely unlikely that anyone still uses one of these
64 devices, it was decided to drop it.
65Who: Hans Verkuil <hverkuil@xs4all.nl>
66 Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@infradead.org>
67
68 ---------------------------
69
70What: V4L2 dpc7146 driver
71When: 2.6.28
72Why: Old driver for the dpc7146 demonstration board that is no longer
73 relevant. The last time this was tested on actual hardware was
74 probably around 2002. Since this is a driver for a demonstration
75 board the decision was made to remove it rather than spending a
76 lot of effort continually updating this driver to stay in sync
77 with the latest internal V4L2 or I2C API.
78Who: Hans Verkuil <hverkuil@xs4all.nl>
79 Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@infradead.org>
80
81---------------------------
82
Dominik Brodowskibf45d9b02005-07-07 17:58:58 -070083What: PCMCIA control ioctl (needed for pcmcia-cs [cardmgr, cardctl])
84When: November 2005
85Files: drivers/pcmcia/: pcmcia_ioctl.c
86Why: With the 16-bit PCMCIA subsystem now behaving (almost) like a
87 normal hotpluggable bus, and with it using the default kernel
88 infrastructure (hotplug, driver core, sysfs) keeping the PCMCIA
89 control ioctl needed by cardmgr and cardctl from pcmcia-cs is
90 unnecessary, and makes further cleanups and integration of the
91 PCMCIA subsystem into the Linux kernel device driver model more
92 difficult. The features provided by cardmgr and cardctl are either
93 handled by the kernel itself now or are available in the new
94 pcmciautils package available at
95 http://kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/pcmcia/
96Who: Dominik Brodowski <linux@brodo.de>
Harald Welte7af4cc32005-08-09 19:44:15 -070097
98---------------------------
99
Eric W. Biederman7058cb02007-10-18 03:05:58 -0700100What: sys_sysctl
101When: September 2010
102Option: CONFIG_SYSCTL_SYSCALL
103Why: The same information is available in a more convenient from
104 /proc/sys, and none of the sysctl variables appear to be
105 important performance wise.
106
107 Binary sysctls are a long standing source of subtle kernel
108 bugs and security issues.
109
110 When I looked several months ago all I could find after
111 searching several distributions were 5 user space programs and
112 glibc (which falls back to /proc/sys) using this syscall.
113
114 The man page for sysctl(2) documents it as unusable for user
115 space programs.
116
117 sysctl(2) is not generally ABI compatible to a 32bit user
118 space application on a 64bit and a 32bit kernel.
119
120 For the last several months the policy has been no new binary
121 sysctls and no one has put forward an argument to use them.
122
123 Binary sysctls issues seem to keep happening appearing so
124 properly deprecating them (with a warning to user space) and a
125 2 year grace warning period will mean eventually we can kill
126 them and end the pain.
127
128 In the mean time individual binary sysctls can be dealt with
129 in a piecewise fashion.
130
131Who: Eric Biederman <ebiederm@xmission.com>
132
133---------------------------
134
Christoph Hellwigac515892006-03-24 03:18:22 -0800135What: remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(kernel_thread)
136When: August 2006
137Files: arch/*/kernel/*_ksyms.c
Andy Whitcroftf0a594c2007-07-19 01:48:34 -0700138Check: kernel_thread
Christoph Hellwigac515892006-03-24 03:18:22 -0800139Why: kernel_thread is a low-level implementation detail. Drivers should
140 use the <linux/kthread.h> API instead which shields them from
141 implementation details and provides a higherlevel interface that
142 prevents bugs and code duplication
143Who: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
144
145---------------------------
146
Bunkc0d3c0c2006-02-07 01:43:31 -0500147What: eepro100 network driver
148When: January 2007
149Why: replaced by the e100 driver
150Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
Jeff Garzik3c9b3a82006-02-07 01:47:12 -0500151
152---------------------------
153
Arjan van de Venf71d20e2006-06-28 04:26:45 -0700154What: Unused EXPORT_SYMBOL/EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL exports
155 (temporary transition config option provided until then)
156 The transition config option will also be removed at the same time.
157When: before 2.6.19
158Why: Unused symbols are both increasing the size of the kernel binary
159 and are often a sign of "wrong API"
160Who: Arjan van de Ven <arjan@linux.intel.com>
161
162---------------------------
163
Kay Sieversd81d9d62006-08-13 06:17:09 +0200164What: PHYSDEVPATH, PHYSDEVBUS, PHYSDEVDRIVER in the uevent environment
Dominik Brodowskiacbd39f2006-09-30 22:41:43 -0400165When: October 2008
Kay Sieversd81d9d62006-08-13 06:17:09 +0200166Why: The stacking of class devices makes these values misleading and
167 inconsistent.
168 Class devices should not carry any of these properties, and bus
169 devices have SUBSYTEM and DRIVER as a replacement.
170Who: Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@suse.de>
171
172---------------------------
Jean Delvare6c805d22006-08-13 23:45:52 +0200173
Zhang Ruib981c592007-01-29 11:02:30 +0800174What: ACPI procfs interface
Zhang Rui8b8eb7d2007-07-18 17:23:24 +0800175When: July 2008
176Why: ACPI sysfs conversion should be finished by January 2008.
177 ACPI procfs interface will be removed in July 2008 so that
178 there is enough time for the user space to catch up.
Zhang Ruib981c592007-01-29 11:02:30 +0800179Who: Zhang Rui <rui.zhang@intel.com>
180
181---------------------------
182
Len Brown1bb67c22007-01-11 01:49:44 -0500183What: /proc/acpi/button
184When: August 2007
185Why: /proc/acpi/button has been replaced by events to the input layer
186 since 2.6.20.
187Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
188
189---------------------------
Jeff Garzik54b290a2007-01-23 00:29:01 -0500190
Len Brown14e04fb2007-08-23 15:20:26 -0400191What: /proc/acpi/event
192When: February 2008
193Why: /proc/acpi/event has been replaced by events via the input layer
194 and netlink since 2.6.23.
195Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
196
197---------------------------
198
Tejun Heod9aca222007-05-17 16:43:26 +0200199What: libata spindown skipping and warning
Tejun Heo920a4b12007-05-04 21:28:48 +0200200When: Dec 2008
Tejun Heod9aca222007-05-17 16:43:26 +0200201Why: Some halt(8) implementations synchronize caches for and spin
202 down libata disks because libata didn't use to spin down disk on
203 system halt (only synchronized caches).
204 Spin down on system halt is now implemented. sysfs node
205 /sys/class/scsi_disk/h:c:i:l/manage_start_stop is present if
206 spin down support is available.
Tejun Heo920a4b12007-05-04 21:28:48 +0200207 Because issuing spin down command to an already spun down disk
Tejun Heod9aca222007-05-17 16:43:26 +0200208 makes some disks spin up just to spin down again, libata tracks
209 device spindown status to skip the extra spindown command and
210 warn about it.
211 This is to give userspace tools the time to get updated and will
212 be removed after userspace is reasonably updated.
Tejun Heo920a4b12007-05-04 21:28:48 +0200213Who: Tejun Heo <htejun@gmail.com>
214
215---------------------------
216
Thomas Gleixner914d97f2007-10-11 11:20:05 +0200217What: i386/x86_64 bzImage symlinks
Ingo Molnar19b4e7f2008-04-10 10:12:27 +0200218When: April 2010
Thomas Gleixner914d97f2007-10-11 11:20:05 +0200219
220Why: The i386/x86_64 merge provides a symlink to the old bzImage
221 location so not yet updated user space tools, e.g. package
222 scripts, do not break.
223Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Linus Torvalds038a5002007-10-11 19:40:14 -0700224
225---------------------------
226
Jan Engelhardtf9ef8a22008-01-14 23:43:34 -0800227What (Why):
228 - include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ipt_TOS.h ipt_tos.h header files
229 (superseded by xt_TOS/xt_tos target & match)
230
231 - "forwarding" header files like ipt_mac.h in
232 include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ and include/linux/netfilter_ipv6/
233
234 - xt_CONNMARK match revision 0
235 (superseded by xt_CONNMARK match revision 1)
236
237 - xt_MARK target revisions 0 and 1
238 (superseded by xt_MARK match revision 2)
239
240 - xt_connmark match revision 0
241 (superseded by xt_connmark match revision 1)
242
243 - xt_conntrack match revision 0
244 (superseded by xt_conntrack match revision 1)
245
246 - xt_iprange match revision 0,
247 include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ipt_iprange.h
248 (superseded by xt_iprange match revision 1)
249
250 - xt_mark match revision 0
251 (superseded by xt_mark match revision 1)
252
Jan Engelhardt079aa882008-10-08 11:35:00 +0200253 - xt_recent: the old ipt_recent proc dir
254 (superseded by /proc/net/xt_recent)
255
Jan Engelhardtf9ef8a22008-01-14 23:43:34 -0800256When: January 2009 or Linux 2.7.0, whichever comes first
257Why: Superseded by newer revisions or modules
258Who: Jan Engelhardt <jengelh@computergmbh.de>
Michael Buescheb189d82008-01-28 14:47:41 -0800259
260---------------------------
261
262What: b43 support for firmware revision < 410
263When: July 2008
264Why: The support code for the old firmware hurts code readability/maintainability
265 and slightly hurts runtime performance. Bugfixes for the old firmware
266 are not provided by Broadcom anymore.
267Who: Michael Buesch <mb@bu3sch.de>
David S. Millere88bb412008-02-09 23:08:53 -0800268
269---------------------------
270
Ingo Molnar757265b2008-02-28 20:19:06 +0100271What: init_mm export
272When: 2.6.26
273Why: Not used in-tree. The current out-of-tree users used it to
274 work around problems in the CPA code which should be resolved
275 by now. One usecase was described to provide verification code
276 of the CPA operation. That's a good idea in general, but such
277 code / infrastructure should be in the kernel and not in some
278 out-of-tree driver.
279Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Mark Fasheh52f7c212008-01-29 17:08:26 -0800280
Glauber Costafae9a0d2008-04-08 13:20:56 -0300281----------------------------
282
283What: usedac i386 kernel parameter
284When: 2.6.27
285Why: replaced by allowdac and no dac combination
286Who: Glauber Costa <gcosta@redhat.com>
287
Mark Fasheh52f7c212008-01-29 17:08:26 -0800288---------------------------
289
Jiri Slaby02ae9a12008-05-16 11:49:22 +0200290What: remove HID compat support
291When: 2.6.29
292Why: needed only as a temporary solution until distros fix themselves up
293Who: Jiri Slaby <jirislaby@gmail.com>
294
295---------------------------
296
Bjorn Helgaasc80cfb02008-10-15 22:01:35 -0700297What: print_fn_descriptor_symbol()
298When: October 2009
299Why: The %pF vsprintf format provides the same functionality in a
300 simpler way. print_fn_descriptor_symbol() is deprecated but
301 still present to give out-of-tree modules time to change.
302Who: Bjorn Helgaas <bjorn.helgaas@hp.com>
303
304---------------------------
305
Mark Fasheh52f7c212008-01-29 17:08:26 -0800306What: /sys/o2cb symlink
307When: January 2010
308Why: /sys/fs/o2cb is the proper location for this information - /sys/o2cb
309 exists as a symlink for backwards compatibility for old versions of
310 ocfs2-tools. 2 years should be sufficient time to phase in new versions
311 which know to look in /sys/fs/o2cb.
312Who: ocfs2-devel@oss.oracle.com
Matthew Wilcoxd2f5e802008-04-19 13:49:34 -0400313
314---------------------------
315
Vlad Yasevichecbed6a2008-07-01 20:06:22 -0700316What: SCTP_GET_PEER_ADDRS_NUM_OLD, SCTP_GET_PEER_ADDRS_OLD,
317 SCTP_GET_LOCAL_ADDRS_NUM_OLD, SCTP_GET_LOCAL_ADDRS_OLD
318When: June 2009
319Why: A newer version of the options have been introduced in 2005 that
320 removes the limitions of the old API. The sctp library has been
321 converted to use these new options at the same time. Any user
322 space app that directly uses the old options should convert to using
323 the new options.
324Who: Vlad Yasevich <vladislav.yasevich@hp.com>
David S. Millerea2aca02008-07-05 23:08:07 -0700325
326---------------------------
327
Rene Herman16d75232008-06-24 19:38:56 +0200328What: CONFIG_THERMAL_HWMON
329When: January 2009
330Why: This option was introduced just to allow older lm-sensors userspace
331 to keep working over the upgrade to 2.6.26. At the scheduled time of
332 removal fixed lm-sensors (2.x or 3.x) should be readily available.
333Who: Rene Herman <rene.herman@gmail.com>
Johannes Berg22bb1be2008-07-10 11:16:47 +0200334
335---------------------------
336
337What: Code that is now under CONFIG_WIRELESS_EXT_SYSFS
338 (in net/core/net-sysfs.c)
339When: After the only user (hal) has seen a release with the patches
340 for enough time, probably some time in 2010.
341Why: Over 1K .text/.data size reduction, data is available in other
342 ways (ioctls)
343Who: Johannes Berg <johannes@sipsolutions.net>
Krzysztof Piotr Oledzki58401572008-07-21 10:01:34 -0700344
345---------------------------
346
347What: CONFIG_NF_CT_ACCT
348When: 2.6.29
349Why: Accounting can now be enabled/disabled without kernel recompilation.
350 Currently used only to set a default value for a feature that is also
351 controlled by a kernel/module/sysfs/sysctl parameter.
352Who: Krzysztof Piotr Oledzki <ole@ans.pl>
353
FUJITA Tomonori46dfa042008-09-10 22:22:34 +0200354---------------------------
355
356What: ide-scsi (BLK_DEV_IDESCSI)
357When: 2.6.29
358Why: The 2.6 kernel supports direct writing to ide CD drives, which
359 eliminates the need for ide-scsi. The new method is more
360 efficient in every way.
361Who: FUJITA Tomonori <fujita.tomonori@lab.ntt.co.jp>