| blob | 280ec06573e659314a4ddcb4e0b17511e8208ea6 |
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: MXSER
10 When: December 2007
11 Why: Old mxser driver is obsoleted by the mxser_new. Give it some time yet
12 and remove it.
13 Who: Jiri Slaby <jirislaby@gmail.com>
15 ---------------------------
17 What: V4L2 VIDIOC_G_MPEGCOMP and VIDIOC_S_MPEGCOMP
18 When: October 2007
19 Why: 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.
24 Who: Hans Verkuil <hverkuil@xs4all.nl> and
25 Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@infradead.org>
27 ---------------------------
29 What: dev->power.power_state
30 When: July 2007
31 Why: Broken design for runtime control over driver power states, confusing
32 driver-internal runtime power management with: mechanisms to support
33 system-wide sleep state transitions; event codes that distinguish
34 different phases of swsusp "sleep" transitions; and userspace policy
35 inputs. This framework was never widely used, and most attempts to
36 use it were broken. Drivers should instead be exposing domain-specific
37 interfaces either to kernel or to userspace.
38 Who: Pavel Machek <pavel@suse.cz>
40 ---------------------------
42 What: old NCR53C9x driver
43 When: October 2007
44 Why: Replaced by the much better esp_scsi driver. Actual low-level
45 driver can be ported over almost trivially.
46 Who: David Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
47 Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
49 ---------------------------
51 What: Video4Linux API 1 ioctls and video_decoder.h from Video devices.
52 When: December 2006
53 Files: include/linux/video_decoder.h
54 Check: include/linux/video_decoder.h
55 Why: V4L1 AP1 was replaced by V4L2 API. during migration from 2.4 to 2.6
56 series. The old API have lots of drawbacks and don't provide enough
57 means to work with all video and audio standards. The newer API is
58 already available on the main drivers and should be used instead.
59 Newer drivers should use v4l_compat_translate_ioctl function to handle
60 old calls, replacing to newer ones.
61 Decoder iocts are using internally to allow video drivers to
62 communicate with video decoders. This should also be improved to allow
63 V4L2 calls being translated into compatible internal ioctls.
64 Who: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@brturbo.com.br>
66 ---------------------------
68 What: PCMCIA control ioctl (needed for pcmcia-cs [cardmgr, cardctl])
69 When: November 2005
70 Files: drivers/pcmcia/: pcmcia_ioctl.c
71 Why: With the 16-bit PCMCIA subsystem now behaving (almost) like a
72 normal hotpluggable bus, and with it using the default kernel
73 infrastructure (hotplug, driver core, sysfs) keeping the PCMCIA
74 control ioctl needed by cardmgr and cardctl from pcmcia-cs is
75 unnecessary, and makes further cleanups and integration of the
76 PCMCIA subsystem into the Linux kernel device driver model more
77 difficult. The features provided by cardmgr and cardctl are either
78 handled by the kernel itself now or are available in the new
79 pcmciautils package available at
80 http://kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/pcmcia/
81 Who: Dominik Brodowski <linux@brodo.de>
83 ---------------------------
85 What: a.out interpreter support for ELF executables
86 When: 2.6.25
87 Files: fs/binfmt_elf.c
88 Why: Using a.out interpreters for ELF executables was a feature for
89 transition from a.out to ELF. But now it is unlikely to be still
90 needed anymore and removing it would simplify the hairy ELF
91 loader code.
92 Who: Andi Kleen <ak@suse.de>
94 ---------------------------
96 What: remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(kernel_thread)
97 When: August 2006
98 Files: arch/*/kernel/*_ksyms.c
99 Check: kernel_thread
100 Why: kernel_thread is a low-level implementation detail. Drivers should
101 use the <linux/kthread.h> API instead which shields them from
102 implementation details and provides a higherlevel interface that
103 prevents bugs and code duplication
104 Who: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
106 ---------------------------
108 What: CONFIG_FORCED_INLINING
109 When: June 2006
110 Why: Config option is there to see if gcc is good enough. (in january
111 2006). If it is, the behavior should just be the default. If it's not,
112 the option should just go away entirely.
113 Who: Arjan van de Ven
115 ---------------------------
117 What: eepro100 network driver
118 When: January 2007
119 Why: replaced by the e100 driver
120 Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
122 ---------------------------
124 What: Unused EXPORT_SYMBOL/EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL exports
125 (temporary transition config option provided until then)
126 The transition config option will also be removed at the same time.
127 When: before 2.6.19
128 Why: Unused symbols are both increasing the size of the kernel binary
129 and are often a sign of "wrong API"
130 Who: Arjan van de Ven <arjan@linux.intel.com>
132 ---------------------------
134 What: USB driver API moves to EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL
135 When: February 2008
136 Files: include/linux/usb.h, drivers/usb/core/driver.c
137 Why: The USB subsystem has changed a lot over time, and it has been
138 possible to create userspace USB drivers using usbfs/libusb/gadgetfs
139 that operate as fast as the USB bus allows. Because of this, the USB
140 subsystem will not be allowing closed source kernel drivers to
141 register with it, after this grace period is over. If anyone needs
142 any help in converting their closed source drivers over to use the
143 userspace filesystems, please contact the
144 linux-usb-devel@lists.sourceforge.net mailing list, and the developers
145 there will be glad to help you out.
146 Who: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>
148 ---------------------------
150 What: vm_ops.nopage
151 When: Soon, provided in-kernel callers have been converted
152 Why: This interface is replaced by vm_ops.fault, but it has been around
153 forever, is used by a lot of drivers, and doesn't cost much to
154 maintain.
155 Who: Nick Piggin <npiggin@suse.de>
157 ---------------------------
159 What: Interrupt only SA_* flags
160 When: September 2007
161 Why: The interrupt related SA_* flags are replaced by IRQF_* to move them
162 out of the signal namespace.
164 Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
166 ---------------------------
168 What: PHYSDEVPATH, PHYSDEVBUS, PHYSDEVDRIVER in the uevent environment
169 When: October 2008
170 Why: The stacking of class devices makes these values misleading and
171 inconsistent.
172 Class devices should not carry any of these properties, and bus
173 devices have SUBSYTEM and DRIVER as a replacement.
174 Who: Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@suse.de>
176 ---------------------------
178 What: i2c_adapter.list
179 When: July 2007
180 Why: Superfluous, this list duplicates the one maintained by the driver
181 core.
182 Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>,
183 David Brownell <dbrownell@users.sourceforge.net>
185 ---------------------------
187 What: drivers depending on OBSOLETE_OSS
188 When: options in 2.6.22, code in 2.6.24
189 Why: OSS drivers with ALSA replacements
190 Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
192 ---------------------------
194 What: ACPI procfs interface
195 When: July 2008
196 Why: ACPI sysfs conversion should be finished by January 2008.
197 ACPI procfs interface will be removed in July 2008 so that
198 there is enough time for the user space to catch up.
199 Who: Zhang Rui <rui.zhang@intel.com>
201 ---------------------------
203 What: /proc/acpi/button
204 When: August 2007
205 Why: /proc/acpi/button has been replaced by events to the input layer
206 since 2.6.20.
207 Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
209 ---------------------------
211 What: /proc/acpi/event
212 When: February 2008
213 Why: /proc/acpi/event has been replaced by events via the input layer
214 and netlink since 2.6.23.
215 Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
217 ---------------------------
219 What: i2c-ixp2000, i2c-ixp4xx and scx200_i2c drivers
220 When: September 2007
221 Why: Obsolete. The new i2c-gpio driver replaces all hardware-specific
222 I2C-over-GPIO drivers.
223 Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>
225 ---------------------------
227 What: 'time' kernel boot parameter
228 When: January 2008
229 Why: replaced by 'printk.time=<value>' so that printk timestamps can be
230 enabled or disabled as needed
231 Who: Randy Dunlap <randy.dunlap@oracle.com>
233 ---------------------------
235 What: drivers depending on OSS_OBSOLETE
236 When: options in 2.6.23, code in 2.6.25
237 Why: obsolete OSS drivers
238 Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
240 ---------------------------
242 What: libata spindown skipping and warning
243 When: Dec 2008
244 Why: Some halt(8) implementations synchronize caches for and spin
245 down libata disks because libata didn't use to spin down disk on
246 system halt (only synchronized caches).
247 Spin down on system halt is now implemented. sysfs node
248 /sys/class/scsi_disk/h:c:i:l/manage_start_stop is present if
249 spin down support is available.
250 Because issuing spin down command to an already spun down disk
251 makes some disks spin up just to spin down again, libata tracks
252 device spindown status to skip the extra spindown command and
253 warn about it.
254 This is to give userspace tools the time to get updated and will
255 be removed after userspace is reasonably updated.
256 Who: Tejun Heo <htejun@gmail.com>
258 ---------------------------
260 What: Legacy RTC drivers (under drivers/i2c/chips)
261 When: November 2007
262 Why: Obsolete. We have a RTC subsystem with better drivers.
263 Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>
265 ---------------------------
267 What: iptables SAME target
268 When: 1.1. 2008
269 Files: net/ipv4/netfilter/ipt_SAME.c, include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ipt_SAME.h
270 Why: Obsolete for multiple years now, NAT core provides the same behaviour.
271 Unfixable broken wrt. 32/64 bit cleanness.
272 Who: Patrick McHardy <kaber@trash.net>
274 ---------------------------
276 What: The arch/ppc and include/asm-ppc directories
277 When: Jun 2008
278 Why: The arch/powerpc tree is the merged architecture for ppc32 and ppc64
279 platforms. Currently there are efforts underway to port the remaining
280 arch/ppc platforms to the merged tree. New submissions to the arch/ppc
281 tree have been frozen with the 2.6.22 kernel release and that tree will
282 remain in bug-fix only mode until its scheduled removal. Platforms
283 that are not ported by June 2008 will be removed due to the lack of an
284 interested maintainer.
285 Who: linuxppc-dev@ozlabs.org
287 ---------------------------
289 What: mthca driver's MSI support
290 When: January 2008
291 Files: drivers/infiniband/hw/mthca/*.[ch]
292 Why: All mthca hardware also supports MSI-X, which provides
293 strictly more functionality than MSI. So there is no point in
294 having both MSI-X and MSI support in the driver.
295 Who: Roland Dreier <rolandd@cisco.com>
297 ---------------------------
299 What: sk98lin network driver
300 When: Feburary 2008
301 Why: In kernel tree version of driver is unmaintained. Sk98lin driver
302 replaced by the skge driver.
303 Who: Stephen Hemminger <shemminger@linux-foundation.org>
305 ---------------------------
307 What: i386/x86_64 bzImage symlinks
308 When: April 2008
310 Why: The i386/x86_64 merge provides a symlink to the old bzImage
311 location so not yet updated user space tools, e.g. package
312 scripts, do not break.
313 Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
315 ---------------------------
317 What: shaper network driver
318 When: January 2008
319 Files: drivers/net/shaper.c, include/linux/if_shaper.h
320 Why: This driver has been marked obsolete for many years.
321 It was only designed to work on lower speed links and has design
322 flaws that lead to machine crashes. The qdisc infrastructure in
323 2.4 or later kernels, provides richer features and is more robust.
324 Who: Stephen Hemminger <shemminger@linux-foundation.org>
326 ---------------------------