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 ---------------------------
11 Why: Old mxser driver is obsoleted by the mxser_new. Give it some time yet
13 Who: Jiri Slaby <jirislaby@gmail.com>
15 ---------------------------
17 What: dev->power.power_state
19 Why: Broken design for runtime control over driver power states, confusing
20 driver-internal runtime power management with: mechanisms to support
21 system-wide sleep state transitions; event codes that distinguish
22 different phases of swsusp "sleep" transitions; and userspace policy
23 inputs. This framework was never widely used, and most attempts to
24 use it were broken. Drivers should instead be exposing domain-specific
25 interfaces either to kernel or to userspace.
26 Who: Pavel Machek <pavel@suse.cz>
28 ---------------------------
30 What: old NCR53C9x driver
32 Why: Replaced by the much better esp_scsi driver. Actual low-level
33 driver can be ported over almost trivially.
34 Who: David Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
35 Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
37 ---------------------------
39 What: Video4Linux API 1 ioctls and video_decoder.h from Video devices.
41 Files: include/linux/video_decoder.h
42 Check: include/linux/video_decoder.h
43 Why: V4L1 AP1 was replaced by V4L2 API. during migration from 2.4 to 2.6
44 series. The old API have lots of drawbacks and don't provide enough
45 means to work with all video and audio standards. The newer API is
46 already available on the main drivers and should be used instead.
47 Newer drivers should use v4l_compat_translate_ioctl function to handle
48 old calls, replacing to newer ones.
49 Decoder iocts are using internally to allow video drivers to
50 communicate with video decoders. This should also be improved to allow
51 V4L2 calls being translated into compatible internal ioctls.
52 Who: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@brturbo.com.br>
54 ---------------------------
56 What: PCMCIA control ioctl (needed for pcmcia-cs [cardmgr, cardctl])
58 Files: drivers/pcmcia/: pcmcia_ioctl.c
59 Why: With the 16-bit PCMCIA subsystem now behaving (almost) like a
60 normal hotpluggable bus, and with it using the default kernel
61 infrastructure (hotplug, driver core, sysfs) keeping the PCMCIA
62 control ioctl needed by cardmgr and cardctl from pcmcia-cs is
63 unnecessary, and makes further cleanups and integration of the
64 PCMCIA subsystem into the Linux kernel device driver model more
65 difficult. The features provided by cardmgr and cardctl are either
66 handled by the kernel itself now or are available in the new
67 pcmciautils package available at
68 http://kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/pcmcia/
69 Who: Dominik Brodowski <linux@brodo.de>
71 ---------------------------
75 Option: CONFIG_SYSCTL_SYSCALL
76 Why: The same information is available in a more convenient from
77 /proc/sys, and none of the sysctl variables appear to be
78 important performance wise.
80 Binary sysctls are a long standing source of subtle kernel
81 bugs and security issues.
83 When I looked several months ago all I could find after
84 searching several distributions were 5 user space programs and
85 glibc (which falls back to /proc/sys) using this syscall.
87 The man page for sysctl(2) documents it as unusable for user
90 sysctl(2) is not generally ABI compatible to a 32bit user
91 space application on a 64bit and a 32bit kernel.
93 For the last several months the policy has been no new binary
94 sysctls and no one has put forward an argument to use them.
96 Binary sysctls issues seem to keep happening appearing so
97 properly deprecating them (with a warning to user space) and a
98 2 year grace warning period will mean eventually we can kill
99 them and end the pain.
101 In the mean time individual binary sysctls can be dealt with
102 in a piecewise fashion.
104 Who: Eric Biederman <ebiederm@xmission.com>
106 ---------------------------
108 What: a.out interpreter support for ELF executables
110 Files: fs/binfmt_elf.c
111 Why: Using a.out interpreters for ELF executables was a feature for
112 transition from a.out to ELF. But now it is unlikely to be still
113 needed anymore and removing it would simplify the hairy ELF
115 Who: Andi Kleen <ak@suse.de>
117 ---------------------------
119 What: remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(kernel_thread)
121 Files: arch/*/kernel/*_ksyms.c
123 Why: kernel_thread is a low-level implementation detail. Drivers should
124 use the <linux/kthread.h> API instead which shields them from
125 implementation details and provides a higherlevel interface that
126 prevents bugs and code duplication
127 Who: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
129 ---------------------------
131 What: CONFIG_FORCED_INLINING
133 Why: Config option is there to see if gcc is good enough. (in january
134 2006). If it is, the behavior should just be the default. If it's not,
135 the option should just go away entirely.
136 Who: Arjan van de Ven
138 ---------------------------
140 What: eepro100 network driver
142 Why: replaced by the e100 driver
143 Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
145 ---------------------------
147 What: Unused EXPORT_SYMBOL/EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL exports
148 (temporary transition config option provided until then)
149 The transition config option will also be removed at the same time.
151 Why: Unused symbols are both increasing the size of the kernel binary
152 and are often a sign of "wrong API"
153 Who: Arjan van de Ven <arjan@linux.intel.com>
155 ---------------------------
157 What: USB driver API moves to EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL
159 Files: include/linux/usb.h, drivers/usb/core/driver.c
160 Why: The USB subsystem has changed a lot over time, and it has been
161 possible to create userspace USB drivers using usbfs/libusb/gadgetfs
162 that operate as fast as the USB bus allows. Because of this, the USB
163 subsystem will not be allowing closed source kernel drivers to
164 register with it, after this grace period is over. If anyone needs
165 any help in converting their closed source drivers over to use the
166 userspace filesystems, please contact the
167 linux-usb-devel@lists.sourceforge.net mailing list, and the developers
168 there will be glad to help you out.
169 Who: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>
171 ---------------------------
174 When: Soon, provided in-kernel callers have been converted
175 Why: This interface is replaced by vm_ops.fault, but it has been around
176 forever, is used by a lot of drivers, and doesn't cost much to
178 Who: Nick Piggin <npiggin@suse.de>
180 ---------------------------
182 What: Interrupt only SA_* flags
184 Why: The interrupt related SA_* flags are replaced by IRQF_* to move them
185 out of the signal namespace.
187 Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
189 ---------------------------
191 What: PHYSDEVPATH, PHYSDEVBUS, PHYSDEVDRIVER in the uevent environment
193 Why: The stacking of class devices makes these values misleading and
195 Class devices should not carry any of these properties, and bus
196 devices have SUBSYTEM and DRIVER as a replacement.
197 Who: Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@suse.de>
199 ---------------------------
201 What: i2c_adapter.list
203 Why: Superfluous, this list duplicates the one maintained by the driver
205 Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>,
206 David Brownell <dbrownell@users.sourceforge.net>
208 ---------------------------
210 What: ACPI procfs interface
212 Why: ACPI sysfs conversion should be finished by January 2008.
213 ACPI procfs interface will be removed in July 2008 so that
214 there is enough time for the user space to catch up.
215 Who: Zhang Rui <rui.zhang@intel.com>
217 ---------------------------
219 What: /proc/acpi/button
221 Why: /proc/acpi/button has been replaced by events to the input layer
223 Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
225 ---------------------------
227 What: /proc/acpi/event
229 Why: /proc/acpi/event has been replaced by events via the input layer
230 and netlink since 2.6.23.
231 Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
233 ---------------------------
235 What: i2c-ixp2000, i2c-ixp4xx and scx200_i2c drivers
237 Why: Obsolete. The new i2c-gpio driver replaces all hardware-specific
238 I2C-over-GPIO drivers.
239 Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>
241 ---------------------------
243 What: 'time' kernel boot parameter
245 Why: replaced by 'printk.time=<value>' so that printk timestamps can be
246 enabled or disabled as needed
247 Who: Randy Dunlap <randy.dunlap@oracle.com>
249 ---------------------------
251 What: drivers depending on OSS_OBSOLETE
252 When: options in 2.6.23, code in 2.6.25
253 Why: obsolete OSS drivers
254 Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
256 ---------------------------
258 What: libata spindown skipping and warning
260 Why: Some halt(8) implementations synchronize caches for and spin
261 down libata disks because libata didn't use to spin down disk on
262 system halt (only synchronized caches).
263 Spin down on system halt is now implemented. sysfs node
264 /sys/class/scsi_disk/h:c:i:l/manage_start_stop is present if
265 spin down support is available.
266 Because issuing spin down command to an already spun down disk
267 makes some disks spin up just to spin down again, libata tracks
268 device spindown status to skip the extra spindown command and
270 This is to give userspace tools the time to get updated and will
271 be removed after userspace is reasonably updated.
272 Who: Tejun Heo <htejun@gmail.com>
274 ---------------------------
276 What: Legacy RTC drivers (under drivers/i2c/chips)
278 Why: Obsolete. We have a RTC subsystem with better drivers.
279 Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>
281 ---------------------------
283 What: iptables SAME target
285 Files: net/ipv4/netfilter/ipt_SAME.c, include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ipt_SAME.h
286 Why: Obsolete for multiple years now, NAT core provides the same behaviour.
287 Unfixable broken wrt. 32/64 bit cleanness.
288 Who: Patrick McHardy <kaber@trash.net>
290 ---------------------------
292 What: The arch/ppc and include/asm-ppc directories
294 Why: The arch/powerpc tree is the merged architecture for ppc32 and ppc64
295 platforms. Currently there are efforts underway to port the remaining
296 arch/ppc platforms to the merged tree. New submissions to the arch/ppc
297 tree have been frozen with the 2.6.22 kernel release and that tree will
298 remain in bug-fix only mode until its scheduled removal. Platforms
299 that are not ported by June 2008 will be removed due to the lack of an
300 interested maintainer.
301 Who: linuxppc-dev@ozlabs.org
303 ---------------------------
305 What: mthca driver's MSI support
307 Files: drivers/infiniband/hw/mthca/*.[ch]
308 Why: All mthca hardware also supports MSI-X, which provides
309 strictly more functionality than MSI. So there is no point in
310 having both MSI-X and MSI support in the driver.
311 Who: Roland Dreier <rolandd@cisco.com>
313 ---------------------------
315 What: sk98lin network driver
317 Why: In kernel tree version of driver is unmaintained. Sk98lin driver
318 replaced by the skge driver.
319 Who: Stephen Hemminger <shemminger@linux-foundation.org>
321 ---------------------------
323 What: i386/x86_64 bzImage symlinks
326 Why: The i386/x86_64 merge provides a symlink to the old bzImage
327 location so not yet updated user space tools, e.g. package
328 scripts, do not break.
329 Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
331 ---------------------------
333 What: shaper network driver
335 Files: drivers/net/shaper.c, include/linux/if_shaper.h
336 Why: This driver has been marked obsolete for many years.
337 It was only designed to work on lower speed links and has design
338 flaws that lead to machine crashes. The qdisc infrastructure in
339 2.4 or later kernels, provides richer features and is more robust.
340 Who: Stephen Hemminger <shemminger@linux-foundation.org>
342 ---------------------------