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)()
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)
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: raw1394: requests of type RAW1394_REQ_ISO_SEND, RAW1394_REQ_ISO_LISTEN
34 Why: Deprecated in favour of the more efficient and robust rawiso interface.
35 Affected are applications which use the deprecated part of libraw1394
36 (raw1394_iso_write, raw1394_start_iso_write, raw1394_start_iso_rcv,
37 raw1394_stop_iso_rcv) or bypass libraw1394.
38 Who: Dan Dennedy <dan@dennedy.org>, Stefan Richter <stefanr@s5r6.in-berlin.de>
40 ---------------------------
42 What: Video4Linux API 1 ioctls and video_decoder.h from Video devices.
44 Why: V4L1 AP1 was replaced by V4L2 API. during migration from 2.4 to 2.6
45 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.
53 Who: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@brturbo.com.br>
55 ---------------------------
57 What: PCMCIA control ioctl (needed for pcmcia-cs [cardmgr, cardctl])
59 Files: drivers/pcmcia/: pcmcia_ioctl.c
60 Why: With the 16-bit PCMCIA subsystem now behaving (almost) like a
61 normal hotpluggable bus, and with it using the default kernel
62 infrastructure (hotplug, driver core, sysfs) keeping the PCMCIA
63 control ioctl needed by cardmgr and cardctl from pcmcia-cs is
64 unnecessary, and makes further cleanups and integration of the
65 PCMCIA subsystem into the Linux kernel device driver model more
66 difficult. The features provided by cardmgr and cardctl are either
67 handled by the kernel itself now or are available in the new
68 pcmciautils package available at
69 http://kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/pcmcia/
70 Who: Dominik Brodowski <linux@brodo.de>
72 ---------------------------
74 What: remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(kernel_thread)
76 Files: arch/*/kernel/*_ksyms.c
77 Why: kernel_thread is a low-level implementation detail. Drivers should
78 use the <linux/kthread.h> API instead which shields them from
79 implementation details and provides a higherlevel interface that
80 prevents bugs and code duplication
81 Who: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
83 ---------------------------
85 What: CONFIG_FORCED_INLINING
87 Why: Config option is there to see if gcc is good enough. (in january
88 2006). If it is, the behavior should just be the default. If it's not,
89 the option should just go away entirely.
92 ---------------------------
94 What: eepro100 network driver
96 Why: replaced by the e100 driver
97 Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
99 ---------------------------
101 What: drivers depending on OSS_OBSOLETE_DRIVER
102 When: options in 2.6.20, code in 2.6.22
103 Why: OSS drivers with ALSA replacements
104 Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
106 ---------------------------
108 What: pci_module_init(driver)
110 Why: Is replaced by pci_register_driver(pci_driver).
111 Who: Richard Knutsson <ricknu-0@student.ltu.se> and Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>
113 ---------------------------
115 What: Usage of invalid timevals in setitimer
117 Why: POSIX requires to validate timevals in the setitimer call. This
118 was never done by Linux. The invalid (e.g. negative timevals) were
119 silently converted to more or less random timeouts and intervals.
120 Until the removal a per boot limited number of warnings is printed
121 and the timevals are sanitized.
123 Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
125 ---------------------------
127 What: Unused EXPORT_SYMBOL/EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL exports
128 (temporary transition config option provided until then)
129 The transition config option will also be removed at the same time.
131 Why: Unused symbols are both increasing the size of the kernel binary
132 and are often a sign of "wrong API"
133 Who: Arjan van de Ven <arjan@linux.intel.com>
135 ---------------------------
137 What: mount/umount uevents
139 Why: These events are not correct, and do not properly let userspace know
140 when a file system has been mounted or unmounted. Userspace should
141 poll the /proc/mounts file instead to detect this properly.
142 Who: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>
144 ---------------------------
146 What: USB driver API moves to EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL
148 Files: include/linux/usb.h, drivers/usb/core/driver.c
149 Why: The USB subsystem has changed a lot over time, and it has been
150 possible to create userspace USB drivers using usbfs/libusb/gadgetfs
151 that operate as fast as the USB bus allows. Because of this, the USB
152 subsystem will not be allowing closed source kernel drivers to
153 register with it, after this grace period is over. If anyone needs
154 any help in converting their closed source drivers over to use the
155 userspace filesystems, please contact the
156 linux-usb-devel@lists.sourceforge.net mailing list, and the developers
157 there will be glad to help you out.
158 Who: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>
160 ---------------------------
162 What: Interrupt only SA_* flags
164 Why: The interrupt related SA_* flags are replaced by IRQF_* to move them
165 out of the signal namespace.
167 Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
169 ---------------------------
171 What: PHYSDEVPATH, PHYSDEVBUS, PHYSDEVDRIVER in the uevent environment
173 Why: The stacking of class devices makes these values misleading and
175 Class devices should not carry any of these properties, and bus
176 devices have SUBSYTEM and DRIVER as a replacement.
177 Who: Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@suse.de>
179 ---------------------------
183 Why: i2c-isa is a non-sense and doesn't fit in the device driver
184 model. Drivers relying on it are better implemented as platform
186 Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>
188 ---------------------------
190 What: i2c_adapter.dev
193 Why: Superfluous, given i2c_adapter.class_dev:
194 * The "dev" was a stand-in for the physical device node that legacy
195 drivers would not have; but now it's almost always present. Any
196 remaining legacy drivers must upgrade (they now trigger warnings).
197 * The "list" duplicates class device children.
198 The delay in removing this is so upgraded lm_sensors and libsensors
199 can get deployed. (Removal causes minor changes in the sysfs layout,
200 notably the location of the adapter type name and parenting the i2c
201 client hardware directly from their controller.)
202 Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>,
203 David Brownell <dbrownell@users.sourceforge.net>
205 ---------------------------
207 What: drivers depending on OBSOLETE_OSS
208 When: options in 2.6.22, code in 2.6.24
209 Why: OSS drivers with ALSA replacements
210 Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
212 ---------------------------
214 What: ACPI hooks (X86_SPEEDSTEP_CENTRINO_ACPI) in speedstep-centrino driver
216 Why: Speedstep-centrino driver with ACPI hooks and acpi-cpufreq driver are
217 functionally very much similar. They talk to ACPI in same way. Only
218 difference between them is the way they do frequency transitions.
219 One uses MSRs and the other one uses IO ports. Functionaliy of
220 speedstep_centrino with ACPI hooks is now merged into acpi-cpufreq.
221 That means one common driver will support all Intel Enhanced Speedstep
222 capable CPUs. That means less confusion over name of
223 speedstep-centrino driver (with that driver supposed to be used on
224 non-centrino platforms). That means less duplication of code and
225 less maintenance effort and no possibility of these two drivers
227 Current users of speedstep_centrino with ACPI hooks are requested to
228 switch over to acpi-cpufreq driver. speedstep-centrino will continue
229 to work using older non-ACPI static table based scheme even after this
232 Who: Venkatesh Pallipadi <venkatesh.pallipadi@intel.com>
234 ---------------------------
236 What: /sys/firmware/acpi/namespace
238 Why: The ACPI namespace is effectively the symbol list for
239 the BIOS. The device names are completely arbitrary
240 and have no place being exposed to user-space.
242 For those interested in the BIOS ACPI namespace,
243 the BIOS can be extracted and disassembled with acpidump
244 and iasl as documented in the pmtools package here:
245 http://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/lenb/acpi/utils
246 Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
248 ---------------------------
250 What: ACPI procfs interface
252 Why: After ACPI sysfs conversion, ACPI attributes will be duplicated
253 in sysfs and the ACPI procfs interface should be removed.
254 Who: Zhang Rui <rui.zhang@intel.com>
256 ---------------------------
258 What: /proc/acpi/button
260 Why: /proc/acpi/button has been replaced by events to the input layer
262 Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
264 ---------------------------
266 What: sk98lin network driver
268 Why: In kernel tree version of driver is unmaintained. Sk98lin driver
269 replaced by the skge driver.
270 Who: Stephen Hemminger <shemminger@osdl.org>
272 ---------------------------
274 What: Compaq touchscreen device emulation
276 Files: drivers/input/tsdev.c
277 Why: The code says it was obsolete when it was written in 2001.
278 tslib is a userspace library which does anything tsdev can do and
279 much more besides in userspace where this code belongs. There is no
280 longer any need for tsdev and applications should have converted to
282 The name "tsdev" is also extremely confusing and lots of people have
283 it loaded when they don't need/use it.
284 Who: Richard Purdie <rpurdie@rpsys.net>
286 ---------------------------
288 What: Wireless extensions over netlink (CONFIG_NET_WIRELESS_RTNETLINK)
289 When: with the merge of wireless-dev, 2.6.22 or later
290 Why: The option/code is
291 * not enabled on most kernels
292 * not required by any userspace tools (except an experimental one,
293 and even there only for some parts, others use ioctl)
294 * pointless since wext is no longer evolving and the ioctl
295 interface needs to be kept
296 Who: Johannes Berg <johannes@sipsolutions.net>
298 ---------------------------
300 What: i8xx_tco watchdog driver
302 Why: the i8xx_tco watchdog driver has been replaced by the iTCO_wdt
304 Who: Wim Van Sebroeck <wim@iguana.be>
306 ---------------------------