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 ---------------------------
11 Files: fs/devfs/*, include/linux/devfs_fs*.h and assorted devfs
12 function calls throughout the kernel tree
13 Why: 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.
16 Who: Greg Kroah-Hartman <greg@kroah.com>
18 ---------------------------
20 What: ACPI S4bios support
22 Why: Noone uses it, and it probably does not work, anyway. swsusp is
23 faster, more reliable, and people are actually using it.
24 Who: Pavel Machek <pavel@suse.cz>
26 ---------------------------
28 What: PCI Name Database (CONFIG_PCI_NAMES)
30 Why: It bloats the kernel unnecessarily, and is handled by userspace better
31 (pciutils supports it.) Will eliminate the need to try to keep the
32 pci.ids file in sync with the sf.net database all of the time.
33 Who: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>
35 ---------------------------
37 What: io_remap_page_range() (macro or function)
39 Why: Replaced by io_remap_pfn_range() which allows more memory space
40 addressabilty (by using a pfn) and supports sparc & sparc64
41 iospace as part of the pfn.
42 Who: Randy Dunlap <rddunlap@osdl.org>
44 ---------------------------
46 What: RAW driver (CONFIG_RAW_DRIVER)
48 Why: declared obsolete since kernel 2.6.3
49 O_DIRECT can be used instead
50 Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
52 ---------------------------
54 What: RCU API moves to EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL
56 Files: include/linux/rcupdate.h, kernel/rcupdate.c
57 Why: Outside of Linux, the only implementations of anything even
58 vaguely resembling RCU that I am aware of are in DYNIX/ptx,
59 VM/XA, Tornado, and K42. I do not expect anyone to port binary
60 drivers or kernel modules from any of these, since the first two
61 are owned by IBM and the last two are open-source research OSes.
62 So these will move to GPL after a grace period to allow
63 people, who might be using implementations that I am not aware
64 of, to adjust to this upcoming change.
65 Who: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@us.ibm.com>
67 ---------------------------
69 What: remove verify_area()
71 Files: Various uaccess.h headers.
72 Why: Deprecated and redundant. access_ok() should be used instead.
73 Who: Jesper Juhl <juhl-lkml@dif.dk>
75 ---------------------------
77 What: IEEE1394 Audio and Music Data Transmission Protocol driver,
78 Connection Management Procedures driver
80 Files: drivers/ieee1394/{amdtp,cmp}*
81 Why: These are incomplete, have never worked, and are better implemented
82 in userland via raw1394 (see http://freebob.sourceforge.net/ for
84 Who: Jody McIntyre <scjody@steamballoon.com>
86 ---------------------------
88 What: raw1394: requests of type RAW1394_REQ_ISO_SEND, RAW1394_REQ_ISO_LISTEN
90 Why: Deprecated in favour of the new ioctl-based rawiso interface, which is
91 more efficient. You should really be using libraw1394 for raw1394
93 Who: Jody McIntyre <scjody@steamballoon.com>
95 ---------------------------
97 What: i2c sysfs name change: in1_ref, vid deprecated in favour of cpu0_vid
99 Files: drivers/i2c/chips/adm1025.c, drivers/i2c/chips/adm1026.c
100 Why: Match the other drivers' name for the same function, duplicate names
101 will be available until removal of old names.
102 Who: Grant Coady <gcoady@gmail.com>
104 ---------------------------
106 What: PCMCIA control ioctl (needed for pcmcia-cs [cardmgr, cardctl])
108 Files: drivers/pcmcia/: pcmcia_ioctl.c
109 Why: With the 16-bit PCMCIA subsystem now behaving (almost) like a
110 normal hotpluggable bus, and with it using the default kernel
111 infrastructure (hotplug, driver core, sysfs) keeping the PCMCIA
112 control ioctl needed by cardmgr and cardctl from pcmcia-cs is
113 unnecessary, and makes further cleanups and integration of the
114 PCMCIA subsystem into the Linux kernel device driver model more
115 difficult. The features provided by cardmgr and cardctl are either
116 handled by the kernel itself now or are available in the new
117 pcmciautils package available at
118 http://kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/pcmcia/
119 Who: Dominik Brodowski <linux@brodo.de>
121 ---------------------------
123 What: ip_queue and ip6_queue (old ipv4-only and ipv6-only netfilter queue)
125 Why: This interface has been obsoleted by the new layer3-independent
126 "nfnetlink_queue". The Kernel interface is compatible, so the old
127 ip[6]tables "QUEUE" targets still work and will transparently handle
128 all packets into nfnetlink queue number 0. Userspace users will have
129 to link against API-compatible library on top of libnfnetlink_queue
130 instead of the current 'libipq'.
131 Who: Harald Welte <laforge@netfilter.org>