| blob | c28a2ac88f9d9ed1457ab0c04324e3cf20fe986f |
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: old static regulatory information and ieee80211_regdom module parameter
10 When: 2.6.29
11 Why: 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.
23 Who: Luis R. Rodriguez <lrodriguez@atheros.com>
25 ---------------------------
27 What: dev->power.power_state
28 When: July 2007
29 Why: 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.
36 Who: Pavel Machek <pavel@suse.cz>
38 ---------------------------
40 What: Video4Linux API 1 ioctls and video_decoder.h from Video devices.
41 When: December 2008
42 Files: include/linux/video_decoder.h include/linux/videodev.h
43 Check: include/linux/video_decoder.h include/linux/videodev.h
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 Compatibility ioctls will be provided, for a while, via
54 v4l1-compat module.
55 Who: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@infradead.org>
57 ---------------------------
59 What: PCMCIA control ioctl (needed for pcmcia-cs [cardmgr, cardctl])
60 When: November 2005
61 Files: drivers/pcmcia/: pcmcia_ioctl.c
62 Why: With the 16-bit PCMCIA subsystem now behaving (almost) like a
63 normal hotpluggable bus, and with it using the default kernel
64 infrastructure (hotplug, driver core, sysfs) keeping the PCMCIA
65 control ioctl needed by cardmgr and cardctl from pcmcia-cs is
66 unnecessary, and makes further cleanups and integration of the
67 PCMCIA subsystem into the Linux kernel device driver model more
68 difficult. The features provided by cardmgr and cardctl are either
69 handled by the kernel itself now or are available in the new
70 pcmciautils package available at
71 http://kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/pcmcia/
72 Who: Dominik Brodowski <linux@brodo.de>
74 ---------------------------
76 What: sys_sysctl
77 When: September 2010
78 Option: CONFIG_SYSCTL_SYSCALL
79 Why: The same information is available in a more convenient from
80 /proc/sys, and none of the sysctl variables appear to be
81 important performance wise.
83 Binary sysctls are a long standing source of subtle kernel
84 bugs and security issues.
86 When I looked several months ago all I could find after
87 searching several distributions were 5 user space programs and
88 glibc (which falls back to /proc/sys) using this syscall.
90 The man page for sysctl(2) documents it as unusable for user
91 space programs.
93 sysctl(2) is not generally ABI compatible to a 32bit user
94 space application on a 64bit and a 32bit kernel.
96 For the last several months the policy has been no new binary
97 sysctls and no one has put forward an argument to use them.
99 Binary sysctls issues seem to keep happening appearing so
100 properly deprecating them (with a warning to user space) and a
101 2 year grace warning period will mean eventually we can kill
102 them and end the pain.
104 In the mean time individual binary sysctls can be dealt with
105 in a piecewise fashion.
107 Who: Eric Biederman <ebiederm@xmission.com>
109 ---------------------------
111 What: remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(kernel_thread)
112 When: August 2006
113 Files: arch/*/kernel/*_ksyms.c
114 Check: kernel_thread
115 Why: kernel_thread is a low-level implementation detail. Drivers should
116 use the <linux/kthread.h> API instead which shields them from
117 implementation details and provides a higherlevel interface that
118 prevents bugs and code duplication
119 Who: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
121 ---------------------------
123 What: eepro100 network driver
124 When: January 2007
125 Why: replaced by the e100 driver
126 Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
128 ---------------------------
130 What: Unused EXPORT_SYMBOL/EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL exports
131 (temporary transition config option provided until then)
132 The transition config option will also be removed at the same time.
133 When: before 2.6.19
134 Why: Unused symbols are both increasing the size of the kernel binary
135 and are often a sign of "wrong API"
136 Who: Arjan van de Ven <arjan@linux.intel.com>
138 ---------------------------
140 What: PHYSDEVPATH, PHYSDEVBUS, PHYSDEVDRIVER in the uevent environment
141 When: October 2008
142 Why: The stacking of class devices makes these values misleading and
143 inconsistent.
144 Class devices should not carry any of these properties, and bus
145 devices have SUBSYTEM and DRIVER as a replacement.
146 Who: Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@suse.de>
148 ---------------------------
150 What: ACPI procfs interface
151 When: July 2008
152 Why: ACPI sysfs conversion should be finished by January 2008.
153 ACPI procfs interface will be removed in July 2008 so that
154 there is enough time for the user space to catch up.
155 Who: Zhang Rui <rui.zhang@intel.com>
157 ---------------------------
159 What: /proc/acpi/button
160 When: August 2007
161 Why: /proc/acpi/button has been replaced by events to the input layer
162 since 2.6.20.
163 Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
165 ---------------------------
167 What: /proc/acpi/event
168 When: February 2008
169 Why: /proc/acpi/event has been replaced by events via the input layer
170 and netlink since 2.6.23.
171 Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
173 ---------------------------
175 What: libata spindown skipping and warning
176 When: Dec 2008
177 Why: Some halt(8) implementations synchronize caches for and spin
178 down libata disks because libata didn't use to spin down disk on
179 system halt (only synchronized caches).
180 Spin down on system halt is now implemented. sysfs node
181 /sys/class/scsi_disk/h:c:i:l/manage_start_stop is present if
182 spin down support is available.
183 Because issuing spin down command to an already spun down disk
184 makes some disks spin up just to spin down again, libata tracks
185 device spindown status to skip the extra spindown command and
186 warn about it.
187 This is to give userspace tools the time to get updated and will
188 be removed after userspace is reasonably updated.
189 Who: Tejun Heo <htejun@gmail.com>
191 ---------------------------
193 What: i386/x86_64 bzImage symlinks
194 When: April 2010
196 Why: The i386/x86_64 merge provides a symlink to the old bzImage
197 location so not yet updated user space tools, e.g. package
198 scripts, do not break.
199 Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
201 ---------------------------
203 What (Why):
204 - include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ipt_TOS.h ipt_tos.h header files
205 (superseded by xt_TOS/xt_tos target & match)
207 - "forwarding" header files like ipt_mac.h in
208 include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ and include/linux/netfilter_ipv6/
210 - xt_CONNMARK match revision 0
211 (superseded by xt_CONNMARK match revision 1)
213 - xt_MARK target revisions 0 and 1
214 (superseded by xt_MARK match revision 2)
216 - xt_connmark match revision 0
217 (superseded by xt_connmark match revision 1)
219 - xt_conntrack match revision 0
220 (superseded by xt_conntrack match revision 1)
222 - xt_iprange match revision 0,
223 include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ipt_iprange.h
224 (superseded by xt_iprange match revision 1)
226 - xt_mark match revision 0
227 (superseded by xt_mark match revision 1)
229 - xt_recent: the old ipt_recent proc dir
230 (superseded by /proc/net/xt_recent)
232 When: January 2009 or Linux 2.7.0, whichever comes first
233 Why: Superseded by newer revisions or modules
234 Who: Jan Engelhardt <jengelh@computergmbh.de>
236 ---------------------------
238 What: b43 support for firmware revision < 410
239 When: July 2008
240 Why: The support code for the old firmware hurts code readability/maintainability
241 and slightly hurts runtime performance. Bugfixes for the old firmware
242 are not provided by Broadcom anymore.
243 Who: Michael Buesch <mb@bu3sch.de>
245 ---------------------------
247 What: init_mm export
248 When: 2.6.26
249 Why: Not used in-tree. The current out-of-tree users used it to
250 work around problems in the CPA code which should be resolved
251 by now. One usecase was described to provide verification code
252 of the CPA operation. That's a good idea in general, but such
253 code / infrastructure should be in the kernel and not in some
254 out-of-tree driver.
255 Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
257 ----------------------------
259 What: usedac i386 kernel parameter
260 When: 2.6.27
261 Why: replaced by allowdac and no dac combination
262 Who: Glauber Costa <gcosta@redhat.com>
264 ---------------------------
266 What: remove HID compat support
267 When: 2.6.29
268 Why: needed only as a temporary solution until distros fix themselves up
269 Who: Jiri Slaby <jirislaby@gmail.com>
271 ---------------------------
273 What: print_fn_descriptor_symbol()
274 When: October 2009
275 Why: The %pF vsprintf format provides the same functionality in a
276 simpler way. print_fn_descriptor_symbol() is deprecated but
277 still present to give out-of-tree modules time to change.
278 Who: Bjorn Helgaas <bjorn.helgaas@hp.com>
280 ---------------------------
282 What: /sys/o2cb symlink
283 When: January 2010
284 Why: /sys/fs/o2cb is the proper location for this information - /sys/o2cb
285 exists as a symlink for backwards compatibility for old versions of
286 ocfs2-tools. 2 years should be sufficient time to phase in new versions
287 which know to look in /sys/fs/o2cb.
288 Who: ocfs2-devel@oss.oracle.com
290 ---------------------------
292 What: SCTP_GET_PEER_ADDRS_NUM_OLD, SCTP_GET_PEER_ADDRS_OLD,
293 SCTP_GET_LOCAL_ADDRS_NUM_OLD, SCTP_GET_LOCAL_ADDRS_OLD
294 When: June 2009
295 Why: A newer version of the options have been introduced in 2005 that
296 removes the limitions of the old API. The sctp library has been
297 converted to use these new options at the same time. Any user
298 space app that directly uses the old options should convert to using
299 the new options.
300 Who: Vlad Yasevich <vladislav.yasevich@hp.com>
302 ---------------------------
304 What: CONFIG_THERMAL_HWMON
305 When: January 2009
306 Why: This option was introduced just to allow older lm-sensors userspace
307 to keep working over the upgrade to 2.6.26. At the scheduled time of
308 removal fixed lm-sensors (2.x or 3.x) should be readily available.
309 Who: Rene Herman <rene.herman@gmail.com>
311 ---------------------------
313 What: Code that is now under CONFIG_WIRELESS_EXT_SYSFS
314 (in net/core/net-sysfs.c)
315 When: After the only user (hal) has seen a release with the patches
316 for enough time, probably some time in 2010.
317 Why: Over 1K .text/.data size reduction, data is available in other
318 ways (ioctls)
319 Who: Johannes Berg <johannes@sipsolutions.net>
321 ---------------------------
323 What: CONFIG_NF_CT_ACCT
324 When: 2.6.29
325 Why: Accounting can now be enabled/disabled without kernel recompilation.
326 Currently used only to set a default value for a feature that is also
327 controlled by a kernel/module/sysfs/sysctl parameter.
328 Who: Krzysztof Piotr Oledzki <ole@ans.pl>
330 ---------------------------
332 What: ide-scsi (BLK_DEV_IDESCSI)
333 When: 2.6.29
334 Why: The 2.6 kernel supports direct writing to ide CD drives, which
335 eliminates the need for ide-scsi. The new method is more
336 efficient in every way.
337 Who: FUJITA Tomonori <fujita.tomonori@lab.ntt.co.jp>
339 ---------------------------
341 What: i2c_attach_client(), i2c_detach_client(), i2c_driver->detach_client()
342 When: 2.6.29 (ideally) or 2.6.30 (more likely)
343 Why: Deprecated by the new (standard) device driver binding model. Use
344 i2c_driver->probe() and ->remove() instead.
345 Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>