blob: 9f73587219e87a601f361b0942530888e56c3303 [file] [log] [blame]
Linus Torvalds1da177e2005-04-16 15:20:36 -07001The following is a list of files and features that are going to be
2removed in the kernel source tree. Every entry should contain what
3exactly is going away, why it is happening, and who is going to be doing
4the work. When the feature is removed from the kernel, it should also
5be removed from this file.
6
7---------------------------
8
Alan Stern471d0552007-07-12 16:55:07 -04009What: dev->power.power_state
Pavel Machek1ebfd792006-08-30 13:50:27 -070010When: July 2007
11Why: 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.
18Who: Pavel Machek <pavel@suse.cz>
19
20---------------------------
21
Christoph Hellwiga6bcbc22007-04-30 00:05:48 +020022What: old NCR53C9x driver
23When: October 2007
24Why: Replaced by the much better esp_scsi driver. Actual low-level
Christoph Hellwiged560472007-05-13 22:48:31 +020025 driver can be ported over almost trivially.
Christoph Hellwiga6bcbc22007-04-30 00:05:48 +020026Who: David Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
27 Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
28
29---------------------------
30
Mauro Carvalho Chehab875c2962005-11-08 21:38:53 -080031What: Video4Linux API 1 ioctls and video_decoder.h from Video devices.
Mauro Carvalho Chehab11a5a102007-10-17 15:32:36 -020032When: December 2008
33Files: include/linux/video_decoder.h include/linux/videodev.h
34Check: include/linux/video_decoder.h include/linux/videodev.h
35Why: V4L1 AP1 was replaced by V4L2 API during migration from 2.4 to 2.6
Mauro Carvalho Chehab875c2962005-11-08 21:38:53 -080036 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 Chehab11a5a102007-10-17 15:32:36 -020044 Compatibility ioctls will be provided, for a while, via
45 v4l1-compat module.
46Who: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@infradead.org>
Mauro Carvalho Chehab875c2962005-11-08 21:38:53 -080047
48---------------------------
49
Dominik Brodowskibf45d9b02005-07-07 17:58:58 -070050What: PCMCIA control ioctl (needed for pcmcia-cs [cardmgr, cardctl])
51When: November 2005
52Files: drivers/pcmcia/: pcmcia_ioctl.c
53Why: 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/
63Who: Dominik Brodowski <linux@brodo.de>
Harald Welte7af4cc32005-08-09 19:44:15 -070064
65---------------------------
66
Eric W. Biederman7058cb02007-10-18 03:05:58 -070067What: sys_sysctl
68When: September 2010
69Option: CONFIG_SYSCTL_SYSCALL
70Why: 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
98Who: Eric Biederman <ebiederm@xmission.com>
99
100---------------------------
101
Christoph Hellwigac515892006-03-24 03:18:22 -0800102What: remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(kernel_thread)
103When: August 2006
104Files: arch/*/kernel/*_ksyms.c
Andy Whitcroftf0a594c2007-07-19 01:48:34 -0700105Check: kernel_thread
Christoph Hellwigac515892006-03-24 03:18:22 -0800106Why: 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
110Who: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
111
112---------------------------
113
Bunkc0d3c0c2006-02-07 01:43:31 -0500114What: eepro100 network driver
115When: January 2007
116Why: replaced by the e100 driver
117Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
Jeff Garzik3c9b3a82006-02-07 01:47:12 -0500118
119---------------------------
120
Arjan van de Venf71d20e2006-06-28 04:26:45 -0700121What: 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.
124When: before 2.6.19
125Why: Unused symbols are both increasing the size of the kernel binary
126 and are often a sign of "wrong API"
127Who: Arjan van de Ven <arjan@linux.intel.com>
128
129---------------------------
130
Kay Sieversd81d9d62006-08-13 06:17:09 +0200131What: PHYSDEVPATH, PHYSDEVBUS, PHYSDEVDRIVER in the uevent environment
Dominik Brodowskiacbd39f2006-09-30 22:41:43 -0400132When: October 2008
Kay Sieversd81d9d62006-08-13 06:17:09 +0200133Why: 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.
137Who: Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@suse.de>
138
139---------------------------
Jean Delvare6c805d22006-08-13 23:45:52 +0200140
Pavel Emelyanov5cd20452008-04-30 00:54:24 -0700141What: find_task_by_pid
142When: 2.6.26
143Why: 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
155Who: Pavel Emelyanov <xemul@openvz.org>
156
157---------------------------
158
Zhang Ruib981c592007-01-29 11:02:30 +0800159What: ACPI procfs interface
Zhang Rui8b8eb7d2007-07-18 17:23:24 +0800160When: July 2008
161Why: 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 Ruib981c592007-01-29 11:02:30 +0800164Who: Zhang Rui <rui.zhang@intel.com>
165
166---------------------------
167
Len Brown1bb67c22007-01-11 01:49:44 -0500168What: /proc/acpi/button
169When: August 2007
170Why: /proc/acpi/button has been replaced by events to the input layer
171 since 2.6.20.
172Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
173
174---------------------------
Jeff Garzik54b290a2007-01-23 00:29:01 -0500175
Len Brown14e04fb2007-08-23 15:20:26 -0400176What: /proc/acpi/event
177When: February 2008
178Why: /proc/acpi/event has been replaced by events via the input layer
179 and netlink since 2.6.23.
180Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
181
182---------------------------
183
Tejun Heod9aca222007-05-17 16:43:26 +0200184What: libata spindown skipping and warning
Tejun Heo920a4b12007-05-04 21:28:48 +0200185When: Dec 2008
Tejun Heod9aca222007-05-17 16:43:26 +0200186Why: 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 Heo920a4b12007-05-04 21:28:48 +0200192 Because issuing spin down command to an already spun down disk
Tejun Heod9aca222007-05-17 16:43:26 +0200193 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 Heo920a4b12007-05-04 21:28:48 +0200198Who: Tejun Heo <htejun@gmail.com>
199
200---------------------------
201
Josh Boyer0b7dbfb2007-07-03 23:25:46 +1000202What: The arch/ppc and include/asm-ppc directories
203When: Jun 2008
204Why: 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.
211Who: linuxppc-dev@ozlabs.org
212
213---------------------------
Roland Dreierf6be6fb2007-07-17 18:37:41 -0700214
Thomas Gleixner914d97f2007-10-11 11:20:05 +0200215What: i386/x86_64 bzImage symlinks
Ingo Molnar19b4e7f2008-04-10 10:12:27 +0200216When: April 2010
Thomas Gleixner914d97f2007-10-11 11:20:05 +0200217
218Why: 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.
221Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Linus Torvalds038a5002007-10-11 19:40:14 -0700222
223---------------------------
224
Jan Engelhardtf9ef8a22008-01-14 23:43:34 -0800225What (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
251When: January 2009 or Linux 2.7.0, whichever comes first
252Why: Superseded by newer revisions or modules
253Who: Jan Engelhardt <jengelh@computergmbh.de>
Michael Buescheb189d8b2008-01-28 14:47:41 -0800254
255---------------------------
256
257What: b43 support for firmware revision < 410
258When: July 2008
259Why: 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.
262Who: Michael Buesch <mb@bu3sch.de>
David S. Millere88bb412008-02-09 23:08:53 -0800263
264---------------------------
265
Ingo Molnar757265b2008-02-28 20:19:06 +0100266What: init_mm export
267When: 2.6.26
268Why: 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.
274Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Mark Fasheh52f7c212008-01-29 17:08:26 -0800275
Glauber Costafae9a0d2008-04-08 13:20:56 -0300276----------------------------
277
278What: usedac i386 kernel parameter
279When: 2.6.27
280Why: replaced by allowdac and no dac combination
281Who: Glauber Costa <gcosta@redhat.com>
282
Mark Fasheh52f7c212008-01-29 17:08:26 -0800283---------------------------
284
Sebastian Siewiorf7c5a772008-05-14 16:05:30 -0700285What: old style serial driver for ColdFire (CONFIG_SERIAL_COLDFIRE)
286When: 2.6.28
287Why: This driver still uses the old interface and has been replaced
288 by CONFIG_SERIAL_MCF.
289Who: Sebastian Siewior <sebastian@breakpoint.cc>
290
291---------------------------
292
Mark Fasheh52f7c212008-01-29 17:08:26 -0800293What: /sys/o2cb symlink
294When: January 2010
295Why: /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.
299Who: ocfs2-devel@oss.oracle.com
Matthew Wilcoxd2f5e802008-04-19 13:49:34 -0400300
301---------------------------
302
303What: asm/semaphore.h
304When: 2.6.26
305Why: Implementation became generic; users should now include
306 linux/semaphore.h instead.
307Who: Matthew Wilcox <willy@linux.intel.com>
Vlad Yasevichecbed6a2008-07-01 20:06:22 -0700308
309---------------------------
310
311What: SCTP_GET_PEER_ADDRS_NUM_OLD, SCTP_GET_PEER_ADDRS_OLD,
312 SCTP_GET_LOCAL_ADDRS_NUM_OLD, SCTP_GET_LOCAL_ADDRS_OLD
313When: June 2009
314Why: 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.
319Who: Vlad Yasevich <vladislav.yasevich@hp.com>
David S. Millerea2aca02008-07-05 23:08:07 -0700320
321---------------------------
322
Rene Herman16d75232008-06-24 19:38:56 +0200323What: CONFIG_THERMAL_HWMON
324When: January 2009
325Why: 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.
328Who: Rene Herman <rene.herman@gmail.com>
Johannes Berg22bb1be2008-07-10 11:16:47 +0200329
330---------------------------
331
332What: Code that is now under CONFIG_WIRELESS_EXT_SYSFS
333 (in net/core/net-sysfs.c)
334When: After the only user (hal) has seen a release with the patches
335 for enough time, probably some time in 2010.
336Why: Over 1K .text/.data size reduction, data is available in other
337 ways (ioctls)
338Who: Johannes Berg <johannes@sipsolutions.net>
Krzysztof Piotr Oledzki58401572008-07-21 10:01:34 -0700339
340---------------------------
341
342What: CONFIG_NF_CT_ACCT
343When: 2.6.29
344Why: 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.
347Who: Krzysztof Piotr Oledzki <ole@ans.pl>
348