| The following is a list of files and features that are going to be |
| removed in the kernel source tree. Every entry should contain what |
| exactly is going away, why it is happening, and who is going to be doing |
| the work. When the feature is removed from the kernel, it should also |
| be removed from this file. |
| |
| --------------------------- |
| |
| What: /sys/devices/.../power/state |
| dev->power.power_state |
| dpm_runtime_{suspend,resume)() |
| When: July 2007 |
| Why: Broken design for runtime control over driver power states, confusing |
| driver-internal runtime power management with: mechanisms to support |
| system-wide sleep state transitions; event codes that distinguish |
| different phases of swsusp "sleep" transitions; and userspace policy |
| inputs. This framework was never widely used, and most attempts to |
| use it were broken. Drivers should instead be exposing domain-specific |
| interfaces either to kernel or to userspace. |
| Who: Pavel Machek <pavel@suse.cz> |
| |
| --------------------------- |
| |
| What: RAW driver (CONFIG_RAW_DRIVER) |
| When: December 2005 |
| Why: declared obsolete since kernel 2.6.3 |
| O_DIRECT can be used instead |
| Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de> |
| |
| --------------------------- |
| |
| What: drivers that were depending on OBSOLETE_OSS_DRIVER |
| (config options already removed) |
| When: before 2.6.19 |
| Why: OSS drivers with ALSA replacements |
| Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de> |
| |
| --------------------------- |
| |
| What: raw1394: requests of type RAW1394_REQ_ISO_SEND, RAW1394_REQ_ISO_LISTEN |
| When: November 2006 |
| Why: Deprecated in favour of the new ioctl-based rawiso interface, which is |
| more efficient. You should really be using libraw1394 for raw1394 |
| access anyway. |
| Who: Jody McIntyre <scjody@modernduck.com> |
| |
| --------------------------- |
| |
| What: Video4Linux API 1 ioctls and video_decoder.h from Video devices. |
| When: December 2006 |
| Why: V4L1 AP1 was replaced by V4L2 API. during migration from 2.4 to 2.6 |
| series. The old API have lots of drawbacks and don't provide enough |
| means to work with all video and audio standards. The newer API is |
| already available on the main drivers and should be used instead. |
| Newer drivers should use v4l_compat_translate_ioctl function to handle |
| old calls, replacing to newer ones. |
| Decoder iocts are using internally to allow video drivers to |
| communicate with video decoders. This should also be improved to allow |
| V4L2 calls being translated into compatible internal ioctls. |
| Who: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@brturbo.com.br> |
| |
| --------------------------- |
| |
| What: sys_sysctl |
| When: January 2007 |
| Why: The same information is available through /proc/sys and that is the |
| interface user space prefers to use. And there do not appear to be |
| any existing user in user space of sys_sysctl. The additional |
| maintenance overhead of keeping a set of binary names gets |
| in the way of doing a good job of maintaining this interface. |
| |
| Who: Eric Biederman <ebiederm@xmission.com> |
| |
| --------------------------- |
| |
| What: PCMCIA control ioctl (needed for pcmcia-cs [cardmgr, cardctl]) |
| When: November 2005 |
| Files: drivers/pcmcia/: pcmcia_ioctl.c |
| Why: With the 16-bit PCMCIA subsystem now behaving (almost) like a |
| normal hotpluggable bus, and with it using the default kernel |
| infrastructure (hotplug, driver core, sysfs) keeping the PCMCIA |
| control ioctl needed by cardmgr and cardctl from pcmcia-cs is |
| unnecessary, and makes further cleanups and integration of the |
| PCMCIA subsystem into the Linux kernel device driver model more |
| difficult. The features provided by cardmgr and cardctl are either |
| handled by the kernel itself now or are available in the new |
| pcmciautils package available at |
| http://kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/pcmcia/ |
| Who: Dominik Brodowski <linux@brodo.de> |
| |
| --------------------------- |
| |
| What: ip_queue and ip6_queue (old ipv4-only and ipv6-only netfilter queue) |
| When: December 2005 |
| Why: This interface has been obsoleted by the new layer3-independent |
| "nfnetlink_queue". The Kernel interface is compatible, so the old |
| ip[6]tables "QUEUE" targets still work and will transparently handle |
| all packets into nfnetlink queue number 0. Userspace users will have |
| to link against API-compatible library on top of libnfnetlink_queue |
| instead of the current 'libipq'. |
| Who: Harald Welte <laforge@netfilter.org> |
| |
| --------------------------- |
| |
| What: remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(kernel_thread) |
| When: August 2006 |
| Files: arch/*/kernel/*_ksyms.c |
| Why: kernel_thread is a low-level implementation detail. Drivers should |
| use the <linux/kthread.h> API instead which shields them from |
| implementation details and provides a higherlevel interface that |
| prevents bugs and code duplication |
| Who: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de> |
| |
| --------------------------- |
| |
| What: CONFIG_FORCED_INLINING |
| When: June 2006 |
| Why: Config option is there to see if gcc is good enough. (in january |
| 2006). If it is, the behavior should just be the default. If it's not, |
| the option should just go away entirely. |
| Who: Arjan van de Ven |
| |
| --------------------------- |
| |
| What: START_ARRAY ioctl for md |
| When: July 2006 |
| Files: drivers/md/md.c |
| Why: Not reliable by design - can fail when most needed. |
| Alternatives exist |
| Who: NeilBrown <neilb@suse.de> |
| |
| --------------------------- |
| |
| What: eepro100 network driver |
| When: January 2007 |
| Why: replaced by the e100 driver |
| Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de> |
| |
| --------------------------- |
| |
| What: drivers depending on OSS_OBSOLETE_DRIVER |
| When: options in 2.6.20, code in 2.6.22 |
| Why: OSS drivers with ALSA replacements |
| Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de> |
| |
| --------------------------- |
| |
| What: pci_module_init(driver) |
| When: January 2007 |
| Why: Is replaced by pci_register_driver(pci_driver). |
| Who: Richard Knutsson <ricknu-0@student.ltu.se> and Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de> |
| |
| --------------------------- |
| |
| What: Usage of invalid timevals in setitimer |
| When: March 2007 |
| Why: POSIX requires to validate timevals in the setitimer call. This |
| was never done by Linux. The invalid (e.g. negative timevals) were |
| silently converted to more or less random timeouts and intervals. |
| Until the removal a per boot limited number of warnings is printed |
| and the timevals are sanitized. |
| |
| Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de> |
| |
| --------------------------- |
| |
| What: I2C interface of the it87 driver |
| When: January 2007 |
| Why: The ISA interface is faster and should be always available. The I2C |
| probing is also known to cause trouble in at least one case (see |
| bug #5889.) |
| Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org> |
| |
| --------------------------- |
| |
| What: Unused EXPORT_SYMBOL/EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL exports |
| (temporary transition config option provided until then) |
| The transition config option will also be removed at the same time. |
| When: before 2.6.19 |
| Why: Unused symbols are both increasing the size of the kernel binary |
| and are often a sign of "wrong API" |
| Who: Arjan van de Ven <arjan@linux.intel.com> |
| |
| --------------------------- |
| |
| What: mount/umount uevents |
| When: February 2007 |
| Why: These events are not correct, and do not properly let userspace know |
| when a file system has been mounted or unmounted. Userspace should |
| poll the /proc/mounts file instead to detect this properly. |
| Who: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de> |
| |
| --------------------------- |
| |
| What: USB driver API moves to EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL |
| When: Febuary 2008 |
| Files: include/linux/usb.h, drivers/usb/core/driver.c |
| Why: The USB subsystem has changed a lot over time, and it has been |
| possible to create userspace USB drivers using usbfs/libusb/gadgetfs |
| that operate as fast as the USB bus allows. Because of this, the USB |
| subsystem will not be allowing closed source kernel drivers to |
| register with it, after this grace period is over. If anyone needs |
| any help in converting their closed source drivers over to use the |
| userspace filesystems, please contact the |
| linux-usb-devel@lists.sourceforge.net mailing list, and the developers |
| there will be glad to help you out. |
| Who: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de> |
| |
| --------------------------- |
| |
| What: find_trylock_page |
| When: January 2007 |
| Why: The interface no longer has any callers left in the kernel. It |
| is an odd interface (compared with other find_*_page functions), in |
| that it does not take a refcount to the page, only the page lock. |
| It should be replaced with find_get_page or find_lock_page if possible. |
| This feature removal can be reevaluated if users of the interface |
| cannot cleanly use something else. |
| Who: Nick Piggin <npiggin@suse.de> |
| |
| --------------------------- |
| |
| What: Support for the Momentum / PMC-Sierra Jaguar ATX evaluation board |
| When: September 2006 |
| Why: Does no longer build since quite some time, and was never popular, |
| due to the platform being replaced by successor models. Apparently |
| no user base left. It also is one of the last users of |
| WANT_PAGE_VIRTUAL. |
| Who: Ralf Baechle <ralf@linux-mips.org> |
| |
| --------------------------- |
| |
| What: Support for the Momentum Ocelot, Ocelot 3, Ocelot C and Ocelot G |
| When: September 2006 |
| Why: Some do no longer build and apparently there is no user base left |
| for these platforms. |
| Who: Ralf Baechle <ralf@linux-mips.org> |
| |
| --------------------------- |
| |
| What: Support for MIPS Technologies' Altas and SEAD evaluation board |
| When: September 2006 |
| Why: Some do no longer build and apparently there is no user base left |
| for these platforms. Hardware out of production since several years. |
| Who: Ralf Baechle <ralf@linux-mips.org> |
| |
| --------------------------- |
| |
| What: Support for the IT8172-based platforms, ITE 8172G and Globespan IVR |
| When: September 2006 |
| Why: Code does no longer build since at least 2.6.0, apparently there is |
| no user base left for these platforms. Hardware out of production |
| since several years and hardly a trace of the manufacturer left on |
| the net. |
| Who: Ralf Baechle <ralf@linux-mips.org> |
| |
| --------------------------- |
| |
| What: Interrupt only SA_* flags |
| When: Januar 2007 |
| Why: The interrupt related SA_* flags are replaced by IRQF_* to move them |
| out of the signal namespace. |
| |
| Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de> |
| |
| --------------------------- |
| |
| What: i2c-ite and i2c-algo-ite drivers |
| When: September 2006 |
| Why: These drivers never compiled since they were added to the kernel |
| tree 5 years ago. This feature removal can be reevaluated if |
| someone shows interest in the drivers, fixes them and takes over |
| maintenance. |
| http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-mips&m=115040510817448 |
| Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org> |
| |
| --------------------------- |
| |
| What: Bridge netfilter deferred IPv4/IPv6 output hook calling |
| When: January 2007 |
| Why: The deferred output hooks are a layering violation causing unusual |
| and broken behaviour on bridge devices. Examples of things they |
| break include QoS classifation using the MARK or CLASSIFY targets, |
| the IPsec policy match and connection tracking with VLANs on a |
| bridge. Their only use is to enable bridge output port filtering |
| within iptables with the physdev match, which can also be done by |
| combining iptables and ebtables using netfilter marks. Until it |
| will get removed the hook deferral is disabled by default and is |
| only enabled when needed. |
| |
| Who: Patrick McHardy <kaber@trash.net> |
| |
| --------------------------- |
| |
| What: frame diverter |
| When: November 2006 |
| Why: The frame diverter is included in most distribution kernels, but is |
| broken. It does not correctly handle many things: |
| - IPV6 |
| - non-linear skb's |
| - network device RCU on removal |
| - input frames not correctly checked for protocol errors |
| It also adds allocation overhead even if not enabled. |
| It is not clear if anyone is still using it. |
| Who: Stephen Hemminger <shemminger@osdl.org> |
| |
| --------------------------- |
| |
| |
| What: PHYSDEVPATH, PHYSDEVBUS, PHYSDEVDRIVER in the uevent environment |
| When: Oktober 2008 |
| Why: The stacking of class devices makes these values misleading and |
| inconsistent. |
| Class devices should not carry any of these properties, and bus |
| devices have SUBSYTEM and DRIVER as a replacement. |
| Who: Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@suse.de> |
| |
| --------------------------- |
| |
| What: i2c-isa |
| When: December 2006 |
| Why: i2c-isa is a non-sense and doesn't fit in the device driver |
| model. Drivers relying on it are better implemented as platform |
| drivers. |
| Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org> |
| |
| --------------------------- |
| |
| What: ftape |
| When: 2.6.20 |
| Why: Orphaned for ages. SMP bugs long unfixed. Few users left |
| in the world. |
| Who: Jeff Garzik <jeff@garzik.org> |
| |
| --------------------------- |