| blob | 436697cb93882e174199d7f00efc1d243954ac75 |
1 The following is a list of files and features that are going to be
2 removed in the kernel source tree. Every entry should contain what
3 exactly is going away, why it is happening, and who is going to be doing
4 the work. When the feature is removed from the kernel, it should also
5 be removed from this file.
7 ---------------------------
9 What: /sys/devices/.../power/state
10 dev->power.power_state
11 dpm_runtime_{suspend,resume)()
12 When: July 2007
13 Why: Broken design for runtime control over driver power states, confusing
14 driver-internal runtime power management with: mechanisms to support
15 system-wide sleep state transitions; event codes that distinguish
16 different phases of swsusp "sleep" transitions; and userspace policy
17 inputs. This framework was never widely used, and most attempts to
18 use it were broken. Drivers should instead be exposing domain-specific
19 interfaces either to kernel or to userspace.
20 Who: Pavel Machek <pavel@suse.cz>
22 ---------------------------
24 What: RAW driver (CONFIG_RAW_DRIVER)
25 When: December 2005
26 Why: declared obsolete since kernel 2.6.3
27 O_DIRECT can be used instead
28 Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
30 ---------------------------
32 What: drivers that were depending on OBSOLETE_OSS_DRIVER
33 (config options already removed)
34 When: before 2.6.19
35 Why: OSS drivers with ALSA replacements
36 Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
38 ---------------------------
40 What: raw1394: requests of type RAW1394_REQ_ISO_SEND, RAW1394_REQ_ISO_LISTEN
41 When: November 2006
42 Why: Deprecated in favour of the new ioctl-based rawiso interface, which is
43 more efficient. You should really be using libraw1394 for raw1394
44 access anyway.
45 Who: Jody McIntyre <scjody@modernduck.com>
47 ---------------------------
49 What: sbp2: module parameter "force_inquiry_hack"
50 When: July 2006
51 Why: Superceded by parameter "workarounds". Both parameters are meant to be
52 used ad-hoc and for single devices only, i.e. not in modprobe.conf,
53 therefore the impact of this feature replacement should be low.
54 Who: Stefan Richter <stefanr@s5r6.in-berlin.de>
56 ---------------------------
58 What: Video4Linux API 1 ioctls and video_decoder.h from Video devices.
59 When: July 2006
60 Why: V4L1 AP1 was replaced by V4L2 API. during migration from 2.4 to 2.6
61 series. The old API have lots of drawbacks and don't provide enough
62 means to work with all video and audio standards. The newer API is
63 already available on the main drivers and should be used instead.
64 Newer drivers should use v4l_compat_translate_ioctl function to handle
65 old calls, replacing to newer ones.
66 Decoder iocts are using internally to allow video drivers to
67 communicate with video decoders. This should also be improved to allow
68 V4L2 calls being translated into compatible internal ioctls.
69 Who: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@brturbo.com.br>
71 ---------------------------
73 What: sys_sysctl
74 When: January 2007
75 Why: The same information is available through /proc/sys and that is the
76 interface user space prefers to use. And there do not appear to be
77 any existing user in user space of sys_sysctl. The additional
78 maintenance overhead of keeping a set of binary names gets
79 in the way of doing a good job of maintaining this interface.
81 Who: Eric Biederman <ebiederm@xmission.com>
83 ---------------------------
85 What: PCMCIA control ioctl (needed for pcmcia-cs [cardmgr, cardctl])
86 When: November 2005
87 Files: drivers/pcmcia/: pcmcia_ioctl.c
88 Why: With the 16-bit PCMCIA subsystem now behaving (almost) like a
89 normal hotpluggable bus, and with it using the default kernel
90 infrastructure (hotplug, driver core, sysfs) keeping the PCMCIA
91 control ioctl needed by cardmgr and cardctl from pcmcia-cs is
92 unnecessary, and makes further cleanups and integration of the
93 PCMCIA subsystem into the Linux kernel device driver model more
94 difficult. The features provided by cardmgr and cardctl are either
95 handled by the kernel itself now or are available in the new
96 pcmciautils package available at
97 http://kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/pcmcia/
98 Who: Dominik Brodowski <linux@brodo.de>
100 ---------------------------
102 What: ip_queue and ip6_queue (old ipv4-only and ipv6-only netfilter queue)
103 When: December 2005
104 Why: This interface has been obsoleted by the new layer3-independent
105 "nfnetlink_queue". The Kernel interface is compatible, so the old
106 ip[6]tables "QUEUE" targets still work and will transparently handle
107 all packets into nfnetlink queue number 0. Userspace users will have
108 to link against API-compatible library on top of libnfnetlink_queue
109 instead of the current 'libipq'.
110 Who: Harald Welte <laforge@netfilter.org>
112 ---------------------------
114 What: remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(kernel_thread)
115 When: August 2006
116 Files: arch/*/kernel/*_ksyms.c
117 Why: kernel_thread is a low-level implementation detail. Drivers should
118 use the <linux/kthread.h> API instead which shields them from
119 implementation details and provides a higherlevel interface that
120 prevents bugs and code duplication
121 Who: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
123 ---------------------------
125 What: CONFIG_FORCED_INLINING
126 When: June 2006
127 Why: Config option is there to see if gcc is good enough. (in january
128 2006). If it is, the behavior should just be the default. If it's not,
129 the option should just go away entirely.
130 Who: Arjan van de Ven
132 ---------------------------
134 What: START_ARRAY ioctl for md
135 When: July 2006
136 Files: drivers/md/md.c
137 Why: Not reliable by design - can fail when most needed.
138 Alternatives exist
139 Who: NeilBrown <neilb@suse.de>
141 ---------------------------
143 What: eepro100 network driver
144 When: January 2007
145 Why: replaced by the e100 driver
146 Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
148 ---------------------------
150 What: drivers depending on OSS_OBSOLETE_DRIVER
151 When: options in 2.6.20, code in 2.6.22
152 Why: OSS drivers with ALSA replacements
153 Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
155 ---------------------------
157 What: pci_module_init(driver)
158 When: January 2007
159 Why: Is replaced by pci_register_driver(pci_driver).
160 Who: Richard Knutsson <ricknu-0@student.ltu.se> and Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>
162 ---------------------------
164 What: Usage of invalid timevals in setitimer
165 When: March 2007
166 Why: POSIX requires to validate timevals in the setitimer call. This
167 was never done by Linux. The invalid (e.g. negative timevals) were
168 silently converted to more or less random timeouts and intervals.
169 Until the removal a per boot limited number of warnings is printed
170 and the timevals are sanitized.
172 Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
174 ---------------------------
176 What: I2C interface of the it87 driver
177 When: January 2007
178 Why: The ISA interface is faster and should be always available. The I2C
179 probing is also known to cause trouble in at least one case (see
180 bug #5889.)
181 Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>
183 ---------------------------
185 What: Unused EXPORT_SYMBOL/EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL exports
186 (temporary transition config option provided until then)
187 The transition config option will also be removed at the same time.
188 When: before 2.6.19
189 Why: Unused symbols are both increasing the size of the kernel binary
190 and are often a sign of "wrong API"
191 Who: Arjan van de Ven <arjan@linux.intel.com>
193 ---------------------------
195 What: mount/umount uevents
196 When: February 2007
197 Why: These events are not correct, and do not properly let userspace know
198 when a file system has been mounted or unmounted. Userspace should
199 poll the /proc/mounts file instead to detect this properly.
200 Who: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>
202 ---------------------------
204 What: USB driver API moves to EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL
205 When: Febuary 2008
206 Files: include/linux/usb.h, drivers/usb/core/driver.c
207 Why: The USB subsystem has changed a lot over time, and it has been
208 possible to create userspace USB drivers using usbfs/libusb/gadgetfs
209 that operate as fast as the USB bus allows. Because of this, the USB
210 subsystem will not be allowing closed source kernel drivers to
211 register with it, after this grace period is over. If anyone needs
212 any help in converting their closed source drivers over to use the
213 userspace filesystems, please contact the
214 linux-usb-devel@lists.sourceforge.net mailing list, and the developers
215 there will be glad to help you out.
216 Who: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>
218 ---------------------------
220 What: find_trylock_page
221 When: January 2007
222 Why: The interface no longer has any callers left in the kernel. It
223 is an odd interface (compared with other find_*_page functions), in
224 that it does not take a refcount to the page, only the page lock.
225 It should be replaced with find_get_page or find_lock_page if possible.
226 This feature removal can be reevaluated if users of the interface
227 cannot cleanly use something else.
228 Who: Nick Piggin <npiggin@suse.de>
230 ---------------------------
232 What: Support for the Momentum / PMC-Sierra Jaguar ATX evaluation board
233 When: September 2006
234 Why: Does no longer build since quite some time, and was never popular,
235 due to the platform being replaced by successor models. Apparently
236 no user base left. It also is one of the last users of
237 WANT_PAGE_VIRTUAL.
238 Who: Ralf Baechle <ralf@linux-mips.org>
240 ---------------------------
242 What: Support for the Momentum Ocelot, Ocelot 3, Ocelot C and Ocelot G
243 When: September 2006
244 Why: Some do no longer build and apparently there is no user base left
245 for these platforms.
246 Who: Ralf Baechle <ralf@linux-mips.org>
248 ---------------------------
250 What: Support for MIPS Technologies' Altas and SEAD evaluation board
251 When: September 2006
252 Why: Some do no longer build and apparently there is no user base left
253 for these platforms. Hardware out of production since several years.
254 Who: Ralf Baechle <ralf@linux-mips.org>
256 ---------------------------
258 What: Support for the IT8172-based platforms, ITE 8172G and Globespan IVR
259 When: September 2006
260 Why: Code does no longer build since at least 2.6.0, apparently there is
261 no user base left for these platforms. Hardware out of production
262 since several years and hardly a trace of the manufacturer left on
263 the net.
264 Who: Ralf Baechle <ralf@linux-mips.org>
266 ---------------------------
268 What: Interrupt only SA_* flags
269 When: Januar 2007
270 Why: The interrupt related SA_* flags are replaced by IRQF_* to move them
271 out of the signal namespace.
273 Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
275 ---------------------------
277 What: i2c-ite and i2c-algo-ite drivers
278 When: September 2006
279 Why: These drivers never compiled since they were added to the kernel
280 tree 5 years ago. This feature removal can be reevaluated if
281 someone shows interest in the drivers, fixes them and takes over
282 maintenance.
283 http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-mips&m=115040510817448
284 Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>
286 ---------------------------
288 What: Bridge netfilter deferred IPv4/IPv6 output hook calling
289 When: January 2007
290 Why: The deferred output hooks are a layering violation causing unusual
291 and broken behaviour on bridge devices. Examples of things they
292 break include QoS classifation using the MARK or CLASSIFY targets,
293 the IPsec policy match and connection tracking with VLANs on a
294 bridge. Their only use is to enable bridge output port filtering
295 within iptables with the physdev match, which can also be done by
296 combining iptables and ebtables using netfilter marks. Until it
297 will get removed the hook deferral is disabled by default and is
298 only enabled when needed.
300 Who: Patrick McHardy <kaber@trash.net>
302 ---------------------------
304 What: frame diverter
305 When: November 2006
306 Why: The frame diverter is included in most distribution kernels, but is
307 broken. It does not correctly handle many things:
308 - IPV6
309 - non-linear skb's
310 - network device RCU on removal
311 - input frames not correctly checked for protocol errors
312 It also adds allocation overhead even if not enabled.
313 It is not clear if anyone is still using it.
314 Who: Stephen Hemminger <shemminger@osdl.org>
316 ---------------------------
319 What: PHYSDEVPATH, PHYSDEVBUS, PHYSDEVDRIVER in the uevent environment
320 When: Oktober 2008
321 Why: The stacking of class devices makes these values misleading and
322 inconsistent.
323 Class devices should not carry any of these properties, and bus
324 devices have SUBSYTEM and DRIVER as a replacement.
325 Who: Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@suse.de>
327 ---------------------------
329 What: i2c-isa
330 When: December 2006
331 Why: i2c-isa is a non-sense and doesn't fit in the device driver
332 model. Drivers relying on it are better implemented as platform
333 drivers.
334 Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>
336 ---------------------------