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: V4L2 VIDIOC_G_MPEGCOMP and VIDIOC_S_MPEGCOMP
19 Why: Broken attempt to set MPEG compression parameters. These ioctls are
20 not able to implement the wide variety of parameters that can be set
21 by hardware MPEG encoders. A new MPEG control mechanism was created
22 in kernel 2.6.18 that replaces these ioctls. See the V4L2 specification
23 (section 1.9: Extended controls) for more information on this topic.
24 Who: Hans Verkuil <hverkuil@xs4all.nl> and
25 Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@infradead.org>
27 ---------------------------
29 What: dev->power.power_state
31 Why: Broken design for runtime control over driver power states, confusing
32 driver-internal runtime power management with: mechanisms to support
33 system-wide sleep state transitions; event codes that distinguish
34 different phases of swsusp "sleep" transitions; and userspace policy
35 inputs. This framework was never widely used, and most attempts to
36 use it were broken. Drivers should instead be exposing domain-specific
37 interfaces either to kernel or to userspace.
38 Who: Pavel Machek <pavel@suse.cz>
40 ---------------------------
42 What: old NCR53C9x driver
44 Why: Replaced by the much better esp_scsi driver. Actual low-level
45 driver can be ported over almost trivially.
46 Who: David Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
47 Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
49 ---------------------------
51 What: Video4Linux API 1 ioctls and video_decoder.h from Video devices.
53 Files: include/linux/video_decoder.h
54 Check: include/linux/video_decoder.h
55 Why: V4L1 AP1 was replaced by V4L2 API. during migration from 2.4 to 2.6
56 series. The old API have lots of drawbacks and don't provide enough
57 means to work with all video and audio standards. The newer API is
58 already available on the main drivers and should be used instead.
59 Newer drivers should use v4l_compat_translate_ioctl function to handle
60 old calls, replacing to newer ones.
61 Decoder iocts are using internally to allow video drivers to
62 communicate with video decoders. This should also be improved to allow
63 V4L2 calls being translated into compatible internal ioctls.
64 Who: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@brturbo.com.br>
66 ---------------------------
68 What: PCMCIA control ioctl (needed for pcmcia-cs [cardmgr, cardctl])
70 Files: drivers/pcmcia/: pcmcia_ioctl.c
71 Why: With the 16-bit PCMCIA subsystem now behaving (almost) like a
72 normal hotpluggable bus, and with it using the default kernel
73 infrastructure (hotplug, driver core, sysfs) keeping the PCMCIA
74 control ioctl needed by cardmgr and cardctl from pcmcia-cs is
75 unnecessary, and makes further cleanups and integration of the
76 PCMCIA subsystem into the Linux kernel device driver model more
77 difficult. The features provided by cardmgr and cardctl are either
78 handled by the kernel itself now or are available in the new
79 pcmciautils package available at
80 http://kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/pcmcia/
81 Who: Dominik Brodowski <linux@brodo.de>
83 ---------------------------
87 Option: CONFIG_SYSCTL_SYSCALL
88 Why: The same information is available in a more convenient from
89 /proc/sys, and none of the sysctl variables appear to be
90 important performance wise.
92 Binary sysctls are a long standing source of subtle kernel
93 bugs and security issues.
95 When I looked several months ago all I could find after
96 searching several distributions were 5 user space programs and
97 glibc (which falls back to /proc/sys) using this syscall.
99 The man page for sysctl(2) documents it as unusable for user
102 sysctl(2) is not generally ABI compatible to a 32bit user
103 space application on a 64bit and a 32bit kernel.
105 For the last several months the policy has been no new binary
106 sysctls and no one has put forward an argument to use them.
108 Binary sysctls issues seem to keep happening appearing so
109 properly deprecating them (with a warning to user space) and a
110 2 year grace warning period will mean eventually we can kill
111 them and end the pain.
113 In the mean time individual binary sysctls can be dealt with
114 in a piecewise fashion.
116 Who: Eric Biederman <ebiederm@xmission.com>
118 ---------------------------
120 What: a.out interpreter support for ELF executables
122 Files: fs/binfmt_elf.c
123 Why: Using a.out interpreters for ELF executables was a feature for
124 transition from a.out to ELF. But now it is unlikely to be still
125 needed anymore and removing it would simplify the hairy ELF
127 Who: Andi Kleen <ak@suse.de>
129 ---------------------------
131 What: remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(kernel_thread)
133 Files: arch/*/kernel/*_ksyms.c
135 Why: kernel_thread is a low-level implementation detail. Drivers should
136 use the <linux/kthread.h> API instead which shields them from
137 implementation details and provides a higherlevel interface that
138 prevents bugs and code duplication
139 Who: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
141 ---------------------------
143 What: CONFIG_FORCED_INLINING
145 Why: Config option is there to see if gcc is good enough. (in january
146 2006). If it is, the behavior should just be the default. If it's not,
147 the option should just go away entirely.
148 Who: Arjan van de Ven
150 ---------------------------
152 What: eepro100 network driver
154 Why: replaced by the e100 driver
155 Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
157 ---------------------------
159 What: Unused EXPORT_SYMBOL/EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL exports
160 (temporary transition config option provided until then)
161 The transition config option will also be removed at the same time.
163 Why: Unused symbols are both increasing the size of the kernel binary
164 and are often a sign of "wrong API"
165 Who: Arjan van de Ven <arjan@linux.intel.com>
167 ---------------------------
169 What: USB driver API moves to EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL
171 Files: include/linux/usb.h, drivers/usb/core/driver.c
172 Why: The USB subsystem has changed a lot over time, and it has been
173 possible to create userspace USB drivers using usbfs/libusb/gadgetfs
174 that operate as fast as the USB bus allows. Because of this, the USB
175 subsystem will not be allowing closed source kernel drivers to
176 register with it, after this grace period is over. If anyone needs
177 any help in converting their closed source drivers over to use the
178 userspace filesystems, please contact the
179 linux-usb-devel@lists.sourceforge.net mailing list, and the developers
180 there will be glad to help you out.
181 Who: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>
183 ---------------------------
186 When: Soon, provided in-kernel callers have been converted
187 Why: This interface is replaced by vm_ops.fault, but it has been around
188 forever, is used by a lot of drivers, and doesn't cost much to
190 Who: Nick Piggin <npiggin@suse.de>
192 ---------------------------
194 What: Interrupt only SA_* flags
196 Why: The interrupt related SA_* flags are replaced by IRQF_* to move them
197 out of the signal namespace.
199 Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
201 ---------------------------
203 What: PHYSDEVPATH, PHYSDEVBUS, PHYSDEVDRIVER in the uevent environment
205 Why: The stacking of class devices makes these values misleading and
207 Class devices should not carry any of these properties, and bus
208 devices have SUBSYTEM and DRIVER as a replacement.
209 Who: Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@suse.de>
211 ---------------------------
213 What: i2c_adapter.list
215 Why: Superfluous, this list duplicates the one maintained by the driver
217 Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>,
218 David Brownell <dbrownell@users.sourceforge.net>
220 ---------------------------
222 What: ACPI procfs interface
224 Why: ACPI sysfs conversion should be finished by January 2008.
225 ACPI procfs interface will be removed in July 2008 so that
226 there is enough time for the user space to catch up.
227 Who: Zhang Rui <rui.zhang@intel.com>
229 ---------------------------
231 What: /proc/acpi/button
233 Why: /proc/acpi/button has been replaced by events to the input layer
235 Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
237 ---------------------------
239 What: /proc/acpi/event
241 Why: /proc/acpi/event has been replaced by events via the input layer
242 and netlink since 2.6.23.
243 Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
245 ---------------------------
247 What: i2c-ixp2000, i2c-ixp4xx and scx200_i2c drivers
249 Why: Obsolete. The new i2c-gpio driver replaces all hardware-specific
250 I2C-over-GPIO drivers.
251 Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>
253 ---------------------------
255 What: 'time' kernel boot parameter
257 Why: replaced by 'printk.time=<value>' so that printk timestamps can be
258 enabled or disabled as needed
259 Who: Randy Dunlap <randy.dunlap@oracle.com>
261 ---------------------------
263 What: drivers depending on OSS_OBSOLETE
264 When: options in 2.6.23, code in 2.6.25
265 Why: obsolete OSS drivers
266 Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
268 ---------------------------
270 What: libata spindown skipping and warning
272 Why: Some halt(8) implementations synchronize caches for and spin
273 down libata disks because libata didn't use to spin down disk on
274 system halt (only synchronized caches).
275 Spin down on system halt is now implemented. sysfs node
276 /sys/class/scsi_disk/h:c:i:l/manage_start_stop is present if
277 spin down support is available.
278 Because issuing spin down command to an already spun down disk
279 makes some disks spin up just to spin down again, libata tracks
280 device spindown status to skip the extra spindown command and
282 This is to give userspace tools the time to get updated and will
283 be removed after userspace is reasonably updated.
284 Who: Tejun Heo <htejun@gmail.com>
286 ---------------------------
288 What: Legacy RTC drivers (under drivers/i2c/chips)
290 Why: Obsolete. We have a RTC subsystem with better drivers.
291 Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>
293 ---------------------------
295 What: iptables SAME target
297 Files: net/ipv4/netfilter/ipt_SAME.c, include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ipt_SAME.h
298 Why: Obsolete for multiple years now, NAT core provides the same behaviour.
299 Unfixable broken wrt. 32/64 bit cleanness.
300 Who: Patrick McHardy <kaber@trash.net>
302 ---------------------------
304 What: The arch/ppc and include/asm-ppc directories
306 Why: The arch/powerpc tree is the merged architecture for ppc32 and ppc64
307 platforms. Currently there are efforts underway to port the remaining
308 arch/ppc platforms to the merged tree. New submissions to the arch/ppc
309 tree have been frozen with the 2.6.22 kernel release and that tree will
310 remain in bug-fix only mode until its scheduled removal. Platforms
311 that are not ported by June 2008 will be removed due to the lack of an
312 interested maintainer.
313 Who: linuxppc-dev@ozlabs.org
315 ---------------------------
317 What: mthca driver's MSI support
319 Files: drivers/infiniband/hw/mthca/*.[ch]
320 Why: All mthca hardware also supports MSI-X, which provides
321 strictly more functionality than MSI. So there is no point in
322 having both MSI-X and MSI support in the driver.
323 Who: Roland Dreier <rolandd@cisco.com>
325 ---------------------------
327 What: sk98lin network driver
329 Why: In kernel tree version of driver is unmaintained. Sk98lin driver
330 replaced by the skge driver.
331 Who: Stephen Hemminger <shemminger@linux-foundation.org>
333 ---------------------------
335 What: i386/x86_64 bzImage symlinks
338 Why: The i386/x86_64 merge provides a symlink to the old bzImage
339 location so not yet updated user space tools, e.g. package
340 scripts, do not break.
341 Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
343 ---------------------------
345 What: shaper network driver
347 Files: drivers/net/shaper.c, include/linux/if_shaper.h
348 Why: This driver has been marked obsolete for many years.
349 It was only designed to work on lower speed links and has design
350 flaws that lead to machine crashes. The qdisc infrastructure in
351 2.4 or later kernels, provides richer features and is more robust.
352 Who: Stephen Hemminger <shemminger@linux-foundation.org>
354 ---------------------------