Linus Torvalds | 1da177e | 2005-04-16 15:20:36 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 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. |
| 6 | |
| 7 | --------------------------- |
| 8 | |
Alan Stern | 471d055 | 2007-07-12 16:55:07 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 9 | What: dev->power.power_state |
Pavel Machek | 1ebfd79 | 2006-08-30 13:50:27 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 10 | When: July 2007 |
| 11 | Why: Broken design for runtime control over driver power states, confusing |
| 12 | driver-internal runtime power management with: mechanisms to support |
| 13 | system-wide sleep state transitions; event codes that distinguish |
| 14 | different phases of swsusp "sleep" transitions; and userspace policy |
| 15 | inputs. This framework was never widely used, and most attempts to |
| 16 | use it were broken. Drivers should instead be exposing domain-specific |
| 17 | interfaces either to kernel or to userspace. |
| 18 | Who: Pavel Machek <pavel@suse.cz> |
| 19 | |
| 20 | --------------------------- |
| 21 | |
Christoph Hellwig | a6bcbc2 | 2007-04-30 00:05:48 +0200 | [diff] [blame] | 22 | What: old NCR53C9x driver |
| 23 | When: October 2007 |
| 24 | Why: Replaced by the much better esp_scsi driver. Actual low-level |
Christoph Hellwig | ed56047 | 2007-05-13 22:48:31 +0200 | [diff] [blame] | 25 | driver can be ported over almost trivially. |
Christoph Hellwig | a6bcbc2 | 2007-04-30 00:05:48 +0200 | [diff] [blame] | 26 | Who: David Miller <davem@davemloft.net> |
| 27 | Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de> |
| 28 | |
| 29 | --------------------------- |
| 30 | |
Mauro Carvalho Chehab | 875c296 | 2005-11-08 21:38:53 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 31 | What: Video4Linux API 1 ioctls and video_decoder.h from Video devices. |
Mauro Carvalho Chehab | 11a5a10 | 2007-10-17 15:32:36 -0200 | [diff] [blame] | 32 | When: December 2008 |
| 33 | Files: include/linux/video_decoder.h include/linux/videodev.h |
| 34 | Check: include/linux/video_decoder.h include/linux/videodev.h |
| 35 | Why: V4L1 AP1 was replaced by V4L2 API during migration from 2.4 to 2.6 |
Mauro Carvalho Chehab | 875c296 | 2005-11-08 21:38:53 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 36 | series. The old API have lots of drawbacks and don't provide enough |
| 37 | means to work with all video and audio standards. The newer API is |
| 38 | already available on the main drivers and should be used instead. |
| 39 | Newer drivers should use v4l_compat_translate_ioctl function to handle |
| 40 | old calls, replacing to newer ones. |
| 41 | Decoder iocts are using internally to allow video drivers to |
| 42 | communicate with video decoders. This should also be improved to allow |
| 43 | V4L2 calls being translated into compatible internal ioctls. |
Mauro Carvalho Chehab | 11a5a10 | 2007-10-17 15:32:36 -0200 | [diff] [blame] | 44 | Compatibility ioctls will be provided, for a while, via |
| 45 | v4l1-compat module. |
| 46 | Who: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@infradead.org> |
Mauro Carvalho Chehab | 875c296 | 2005-11-08 21:38:53 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 47 | |
| 48 | --------------------------- |
| 49 | |
Dominik Brodowski | bf45d9b0 | 2005-07-07 17:58:58 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 50 | What: PCMCIA control ioctl (needed for pcmcia-cs [cardmgr, cardctl]) |
| 51 | When: November 2005 |
| 52 | Files: drivers/pcmcia/: pcmcia_ioctl.c |
| 53 | Why: With the 16-bit PCMCIA subsystem now behaving (almost) like a |
| 54 | normal hotpluggable bus, and with it using the default kernel |
| 55 | infrastructure (hotplug, driver core, sysfs) keeping the PCMCIA |
| 56 | control ioctl needed by cardmgr and cardctl from pcmcia-cs is |
| 57 | unnecessary, and makes further cleanups and integration of the |
| 58 | PCMCIA subsystem into the Linux kernel device driver model more |
| 59 | difficult. The features provided by cardmgr and cardctl are either |
| 60 | handled by the kernel itself now or are available in the new |
| 61 | pcmciautils package available at |
| 62 | http://kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/pcmcia/ |
| 63 | Who: Dominik Brodowski <linux@brodo.de> |
Harald Welte | 7af4cc3 | 2005-08-09 19:44:15 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 64 | |
| 65 | --------------------------- |
| 66 | |
Eric W. Biederman | 7058cb0 | 2007-10-18 03:05:58 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 67 | What: sys_sysctl |
| 68 | When: September 2010 |
| 69 | Option: CONFIG_SYSCTL_SYSCALL |
| 70 | Why: The same information is available in a more convenient from |
| 71 | /proc/sys, and none of the sysctl variables appear to be |
| 72 | important performance wise. |
| 73 | |
| 74 | Binary sysctls are a long standing source of subtle kernel |
| 75 | bugs and security issues. |
| 76 | |
| 77 | When I looked several months ago all I could find after |
| 78 | searching several distributions were 5 user space programs and |
| 79 | glibc (which falls back to /proc/sys) using this syscall. |
| 80 | |
| 81 | The man page for sysctl(2) documents it as unusable for user |
| 82 | space programs. |
| 83 | |
| 84 | sysctl(2) is not generally ABI compatible to a 32bit user |
| 85 | space application on a 64bit and a 32bit kernel. |
| 86 | |
| 87 | For the last several months the policy has been no new binary |
| 88 | sysctls and no one has put forward an argument to use them. |
| 89 | |
| 90 | Binary sysctls issues seem to keep happening appearing so |
| 91 | properly deprecating them (with a warning to user space) and a |
| 92 | 2 year grace warning period will mean eventually we can kill |
| 93 | them and end the pain. |
| 94 | |
| 95 | In the mean time individual binary sysctls can be dealt with |
| 96 | in a piecewise fashion. |
| 97 | |
| 98 | Who: Eric Biederman <ebiederm@xmission.com> |
| 99 | |
| 100 | --------------------------- |
| 101 | |
Christoph Hellwig | ac51589 | 2006-03-24 03:18:22 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 102 | What: remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(kernel_thread) |
| 103 | When: August 2006 |
| 104 | Files: arch/*/kernel/*_ksyms.c |
Andy Whitcroft | f0a594c | 2007-07-19 01:48:34 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 105 | Check: kernel_thread |
Christoph Hellwig | ac51589 | 2006-03-24 03:18:22 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 106 | Why: kernel_thread is a low-level implementation detail. Drivers should |
| 107 | use the <linux/kthread.h> API instead which shields them from |
| 108 | implementation details and provides a higherlevel interface that |
| 109 | prevents bugs and code duplication |
| 110 | Who: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de> |
| 111 | |
| 112 | --------------------------- |
| 113 | |
Bunk | c0d3c0c | 2006-02-07 01:43:31 -0500 | [diff] [blame] | 114 | What: eepro100 network driver |
| 115 | When: January 2007 |
| 116 | Why: replaced by the e100 driver |
| 117 | Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de> |
Jeff Garzik | 3c9b3a8 | 2006-02-07 01:47:12 -0500 | [diff] [blame] | 118 | |
| 119 | --------------------------- |
| 120 | |
Arjan van de Ven | f71d20e | 2006-06-28 04:26:45 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 121 | What: Unused EXPORT_SYMBOL/EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL exports |
| 122 | (temporary transition config option provided until then) |
| 123 | The transition config option will also be removed at the same time. |
| 124 | When: before 2.6.19 |
| 125 | Why: Unused symbols are both increasing the size of the kernel binary |
| 126 | and are often a sign of "wrong API" |
| 127 | Who: Arjan van de Ven <arjan@linux.intel.com> |
| 128 | |
| 129 | --------------------------- |
| 130 | |
Kay Sievers | d81d9d6 | 2006-08-13 06:17:09 +0200 | [diff] [blame] | 131 | What: PHYSDEVPATH, PHYSDEVBUS, PHYSDEVDRIVER in the uevent environment |
Dominik Brodowski | acbd39f | 2006-09-30 22:41:43 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 132 | When: October 2008 |
Kay Sievers | d81d9d6 | 2006-08-13 06:17:09 +0200 | [diff] [blame] | 133 | Why: The stacking of class devices makes these values misleading and |
| 134 | inconsistent. |
| 135 | Class devices should not carry any of these properties, and bus |
| 136 | devices have SUBSYTEM and DRIVER as a replacement. |
| 137 | Who: Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@suse.de> |
| 138 | |
| 139 | --------------------------- |
Jean Delvare | 6c805d2 | 2006-08-13 23:45:52 +0200 | [diff] [blame] | 140 | |
Pavel Emelyanov | 5cd2045 | 2008-04-30 00:54:24 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 141 | What: find_task_by_pid |
| 142 | When: 2.6.26 |
| 143 | Why: With pid namespaces, calling this funciton will return the |
| 144 | wrong task when called from inside a namespace. |
| 145 | |
| 146 | The best way to save a task pid and find a task by this |
| 147 | pid later, is to find this task's struct pid pointer (or get |
| 148 | it directly from the task) and call pid_task() later. |
| 149 | |
| 150 | If someone really needs to get a task by its pid_t, then |
| 151 | he most likely needs the find_task_by_vpid() to get the |
| 152 | task from the same namespace as the current task is in, but |
| 153 | this may be not so in general. |
| 154 | |
| 155 | Who: Pavel Emelyanov <xemul@openvz.org> |
| 156 | |
| 157 | --------------------------- |
| 158 | |
Zhang Rui | b981c59 | 2007-01-29 11:02:30 +0800 | [diff] [blame] | 159 | What: ACPI procfs interface |
Zhang Rui | 8b8eb7d | 2007-07-18 17:23:24 +0800 | [diff] [blame] | 160 | When: July 2008 |
| 161 | Why: ACPI sysfs conversion should be finished by January 2008. |
| 162 | ACPI procfs interface will be removed in July 2008 so that |
| 163 | there is enough time for the user space to catch up. |
Zhang Rui | b981c59 | 2007-01-29 11:02:30 +0800 | [diff] [blame] | 164 | Who: Zhang Rui <rui.zhang@intel.com> |
| 165 | |
| 166 | --------------------------- |
| 167 | |
Len Brown | 1bb67c2 | 2007-01-11 01:49:44 -0500 | [diff] [blame] | 168 | What: /proc/acpi/button |
| 169 | When: August 2007 |
| 170 | Why: /proc/acpi/button has been replaced by events to the input layer |
| 171 | since 2.6.20. |
| 172 | Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com> |
| 173 | |
| 174 | --------------------------- |
Jeff Garzik | 54b290a | 2007-01-23 00:29:01 -0500 | [diff] [blame] | 175 | |
Len Brown | 14e04fb | 2007-08-23 15:20:26 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 176 | What: /proc/acpi/event |
| 177 | When: February 2008 |
| 178 | Why: /proc/acpi/event has been replaced by events via the input layer |
| 179 | and netlink since 2.6.23. |
| 180 | Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com> |
| 181 | |
| 182 | --------------------------- |
| 183 | |
Tejun Heo | d9aca22 | 2007-05-17 16:43:26 +0200 | [diff] [blame] | 184 | What: libata spindown skipping and warning |
Tejun Heo | 920a4b1 | 2007-05-04 21:28:48 +0200 | [diff] [blame] | 185 | When: Dec 2008 |
Tejun Heo | d9aca22 | 2007-05-17 16:43:26 +0200 | [diff] [blame] | 186 | Why: Some halt(8) implementations synchronize caches for and spin |
| 187 | down libata disks because libata didn't use to spin down disk on |
| 188 | system halt (only synchronized caches). |
| 189 | Spin down on system halt is now implemented. sysfs node |
| 190 | /sys/class/scsi_disk/h:c:i:l/manage_start_stop is present if |
| 191 | spin down support is available. |
Tejun Heo | 920a4b1 | 2007-05-04 21:28:48 +0200 | [diff] [blame] | 192 | Because issuing spin down command to an already spun down disk |
Tejun Heo | d9aca22 | 2007-05-17 16:43:26 +0200 | [diff] [blame] | 193 | makes some disks spin up just to spin down again, libata tracks |
| 194 | device spindown status to skip the extra spindown command and |
| 195 | warn about it. |
| 196 | This is to give userspace tools the time to get updated and will |
| 197 | be removed after userspace is reasonably updated. |
Tejun Heo | 920a4b1 | 2007-05-04 21:28:48 +0200 | [diff] [blame] | 198 | Who: Tejun Heo <htejun@gmail.com> |
| 199 | |
| 200 | --------------------------- |
| 201 | |
Josh Boyer | 0b7dbfb | 2007-07-03 23:25:46 +1000 | [diff] [blame] | 202 | What: The arch/ppc and include/asm-ppc directories |
| 203 | When: Jun 2008 |
| 204 | Why: The arch/powerpc tree is the merged architecture for ppc32 and ppc64 |
| 205 | platforms. Currently there are efforts underway to port the remaining |
| 206 | arch/ppc platforms to the merged tree. New submissions to the arch/ppc |
| 207 | tree have been frozen with the 2.6.22 kernel release and that tree will |
| 208 | remain in bug-fix only mode until its scheduled removal. Platforms |
| 209 | that are not ported by June 2008 will be removed due to the lack of an |
| 210 | interested maintainer. |
| 211 | Who: linuxppc-dev@ozlabs.org |
| 212 | |
| 213 | --------------------------- |
Roland Dreier | f6be6fb | 2007-07-17 18:37:41 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 214 | |
Thomas Gleixner | 914d97f | 2007-10-11 11:20:05 +0200 | [diff] [blame] | 215 | What: i386/x86_64 bzImage symlinks |
Ingo Molnar | 19b4e7f | 2008-04-10 10:12:27 +0200 | [diff] [blame] | 216 | When: April 2010 |
Thomas Gleixner | 914d97f | 2007-10-11 11:20:05 +0200 | [diff] [blame] | 217 | |
| 218 | Why: The i386/x86_64 merge provides a symlink to the old bzImage |
| 219 | location so not yet updated user space tools, e.g. package |
| 220 | scripts, do not break. |
| 221 | Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de> |
Linus Torvalds | 038a500 | 2007-10-11 19:40:14 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 222 | |
| 223 | --------------------------- |
| 224 | |
Jan Engelhardt | f9ef8a2 | 2008-01-14 23:43:34 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 225 | What (Why): |
| 226 | - include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ipt_TOS.h ipt_tos.h header files |
| 227 | (superseded by xt_TOS/xt_tos target & match) |
| 228 | |
| 229 | - "forwarding" header files like ipt_mac.h in |
| 230 | include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ and include/linux/netfilter_ipv6/ |
| 231 | |
| 232 | - xt_CONNMARK match revision 0 |
| 233 | (superseded by xt_CONNMARK match revision 1) |
| 234 | |
| 235 | - xt_MARK target revisions 0 and 1 |
| 236 | (superseded by xt_MARK match revision 2) |
| 237 | |
| 238 | - xt_connmark match revision 0 |
| 239 | (superseded by xt_connmark match revision 1) |
| 240 | |
| 241 | - xt_conntrack match revision 0 |
| 242 | (superseded by xt_conntrack match revision 1) |
| 243 | |
| 244 | - xt_iprange match revision 0, |
| 245 | include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ipt_iprange.h |
| 246 | (superseded by xt_iprange match revision 1) |
| 247 | |
| 248 | - xt_mark match revision 0 |
| 249 | (superseded by xt_mark match revision 1) |
| 250 | |
| 251 | When: January 2009 or Linux 2.7.0, whichever comes first |
| 252 | Why: Superseded by newer revisions or modules |
| 253 | Who: Jan Engelhardt <jengelh@computergmbh.de> |
Michael Buesch | eb189d8b | 2008-01-28 14:47:41 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 254 | |
| 255 | --------------------------- |
| 256 | |
| 257 | What: b43 support for firmware revision < 410 |
| 258 | When: July 2008 |
| 259 | Why: The support code for the old firmware hurts code readability/maintainability |
| 260 | and slightly hurts runtime performance. Bugfixes for the old firmware |
| 261 | are not provided by Broadcom anymore. |
| 262 | Who: Michael Buesch <mb@bu3sch.de> |
David S. Miller | e88bb41 | 2008-02-09 23:08:53 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 263 | |
| 264 | --------------------------- |
| 265 | |
Ingo Molnar | 757265b | 2008-02-28 20:19:06 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 266 | What: init_mm export |
| 267 | When: 2.6.26 |
| 268 | Why: Not used in-tree. The current out-of-tree users used it to |
| 269 | work around problems in the CPA code which should be resolved |
| 270 | by now. One usecase was described to provide verification code |
| 271 | of the CPA operation. That's a good idea in general, but such |
| 272 | code / infrastructure should be in the kernel and not in some |
| 273 | out-of-tree driver. |
| 274 | Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de> |
Mark Fasheh | 52f7c21 | 2008-01-29 17:08:26 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 275 | |
Glauber Costa | fae9a0d | 2008-04-08 13:20:56 -0300 | [diff] [blame] | 276 | ---------------------------- |
| 277 | |
| 278 | What: usedac i386 kernel parameter |
| 279 | When: 2.6.27 |
| 280 | Why: replaced by allowdac and no dac combination |
| 281 | Who: Glauber Costa <gcosta@redhat.com> |
| 282 | |
Mark Fasheh | 52f7c21 | 2008-01-29 17:08:26 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 283 | --------------------------- |
| 284 | |
Sebastian Siewior | f7c5a77 | 2008-05-14 16:05:30 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 285 | What: old style serial driver for ColdFire (CONFIG_SERIAL_COLDFIRE) |
| 286 | When: 2.6.28 |
| 287 | Why: This driver still uses the old interface and has been replaced |
| 288 | by CONFIG_SERIAL_MCF. |
| 289 | Who: Sebastian Siewior <sebastian@breakpoint.cc> |
| 290 | |
| 291 | --------------------------- |
| 292 | |
Mark Fasheh | 52f7c21 | 2008-01-29 17:08:26 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 293 | What: /sys/o2cb symlink |
| 294 | When: January 2010 |
| 295 | Why: /sys/fs/o2cb is the proper location for this information - /sys/o2cb |
| 296 | exists as a symlink for backwards compatibility for old versions of |
| 297 | ocfs2-tools. 2 years should be sufficient time to phase in new versions |
| 298 | which know to look in /sys/fs/o2cb. |
| 299 | Who: ocfs2-devel@oss.oracle.com |
Matthew Wilcox | d2f5e80 | 2008-04-19 13:49:34 -0400 | [diff] [blame] | 300 | |
| 301 | --------------------------- |
| 302 | |
| 303 | What: asm/semaphore.h |
| 304 | When: 2.6.26 |
| 305 | Why: Implementation became generic; users should now include |
| 306 | linux/semaphore.h instead. |
| 307 | Who: Matthew Wilcox <willy@linux.intel.com> |
Vlad Yasevich | ecbed6a | 2008-07-01 20:06:22 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 308 | |
| 309 | --------------------------- |
| 310 | |
| 311 | What: SCTP_GET_PEER_ADDRS_NUM_OLD, SCTP_GET_PEER_ADDRS_OLD, |
| 312 | SCTP_GET_LOCAL_ADDRS_NUM_OLD, SCTP_GET_LOCAL_ADDRS_OLD |
| 313 | When: June 2009 |
| 314 | Why: A newer version of the options have been introduced in 2005 that |
| 315 | removes the limitions of the old API. The sctp library has been |
| 316 | converted to use these new options at the same time. Any user |
| 317 | space app that directly uses the old options should convert to using |
| 318 | the new options. |
| 319 | Who: Vlad Yasevich <vladislav.yasevich@hp.com> |
David S. Miller | ea2aca0 | 2008-07-05 23:08:07 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 320 | |
| 321 | --------------------------- |
| 322 | |
Rene Herman | 16d7523 | 2008-06-24 19:38:56 +0200 | [diff] [blame] | 323 | What: CONFIG_THERMAL_HWMON |
| 324 | When: January 2009 |
| 325 | Why: This option was introduced just to allow older lm-sensors userspace |
| 326 | to keep working over the upgrade to 2.6.26. At the scheduled time of |
| 327 | removal fixed lm-sensors (2.x or 3.x) should be readily available. |
| 328 | Who: Rene Herman <rene.herman@gmail.com> |
Johannes Berg | 22bb1be | 2008-07-10 11:16:47 +0200 | [diff] [blame] | 329 | |
| 330 | --------------------------- |
| 331 | |
| 332 | What: Code that is now under CONFIG_WIRELESS_EXT_SYSFS |
| 333 | (in net/core/net-sysfs.c) |
| 334 | When: After the only user (hal) has seen a release with the patches |
| 335 | for enough time, probably some time in 2010. |
| 336 | Why: Over 1K .text/.data size reduction, data is available in other |
| 337 | ways (ioctls) |
| 338 | Who: Johannes Berg <johannes@sipsolutions.net> |
Krzysztof Piotr Oledzki | 5840157 | 2008-07-21 10:01:34 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 339 | |
| 340 | --------------------------- |
| 341 | |
| 342 | What: CONFIG_NF_CT_ACCT |
| 343 | When: 2.6.29 |
| 344 | Why: Accounting can now be enabled/disabled without kernel recompilation. |
| 345 | Currently used only to set a default value for a feature that is also |
| 346 | controlled by a kernel/module/sysfs/sysctl parameter. |
| 347 | Who: Krzysztof Piotr Oledzki <ole@ans.pl> |
| 348 | |