Based on kernel version 2.6.26. Page generated on 2008-07-16 21:12 EST.
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 9 What: dev->power.power_state 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[AT]suse[DOT]cz> 19 20 --------------------------- 21 22 What: old NCR53C9x driver 23 When: October 2007 24 Why: Replaced by the much better esp_scsi driver. Actual low-level 25 driver can be ported over almost trivially. 26 Who: David Miller <davem[AT]davemloft[DOT]net> 27 Christoph Hellwig <hch[AT]lst[DOT]de> 28 29 --------------------------- 30 31 What: Video4Linux API 1 ioctls and video_decoder.h from Video devices. 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 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. 44 Compatibility ioctls will be provided, for a while, via 45 v4l1-compat module. 46 Who: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab[AT]infradead[DOT]org> 47 48 --------------------------- 49 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[AT]brodo[DOT]de> 64 65 --------------------------- 66 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[AT]xmission[DOT]com> 99 100 --------------------------- 101 102 What: remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(kernel_thread) 103 When: August 2006 104 Files: arch/*/kernel/*_ksyms.c 105 Check: kernel_thread 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[AT]lst[DOT]de> 111 112 --------------------------- 113 114 What: eepro100 network driver 115 When: January 2007 116 Why: replaced by the e100 driver 117 Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk[AT]stusta[DOT]de> 118 119 --------------------------- 120 121 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[AT]linux.intel[DOT]com> 128 129 --------------------------- 130 131 What: vm_ops.nopage 132 When: Soon, provided in-kernel callers have been converted 133 Why: This interface is replaced by vm_ops.fault, but it has been around 134 forever, is used by a lot of drivers, and doesn't cost much to 135 maintain. 136 Who: Nick Piggin <npiggin[AT]suse[DOT]de> 137 138 --------------------------- 139 140 What: PHYSDEVPATH, PHYSDEVBUS, PHYSDEVDRIVER in the uevent environment 141 When: October 2008 142 Why: The stacking of class devices makes these values misleading and 143 inconsistent. 144 Class devices should not carry any of these properties, and bus 145 devices have SUBSYTEM and DRIVER as a replacement. 146 Who: Kay Sievers <kay.sievers[AT]suse[DOT]de> 147 148 --------------------------- 149 150 What: ACPI procfs interface 151 When: July 2008 152 Why: ACPI sysfs conversion should be finished by January 2008. 153 ACPI procfs interface will be removed in July 2008 so that 154 there is enough time for the user space to catch up. 155 Who: Zhang Rui <rui.zhang[AT]intel[DOT]com> 156 157 --------------------------- 158 159 What: /proc/acpi/button 160 When: August 2007 161 Why: /proc/acpi/button has been replaced by events to the input layer 162 since 2.6.20. 163 Who: Len Brown <len.brown[AT]intel[DOT]com> 164 165 --------------------------- 166 167 What: /proc/acpi/event 168 When: February 2008 169 Why: /proc/acpi/event has been replaced by events via the input layer 170 and netlink since 2.6.23. 171 Who: Len Brown <len.brown[AT]intel[DOT]com> 172 173 --------------------------- 174 175 What: libata spindown skipping and warning 176 When: Dec 2008 177 Why: Some halt(8) implementations synchronize caches for and spin 178 down libata disks because libata didn't use to spin down disk on 179 system halt (only synchronized caches). 180 Spin down on system halt is now implemented. sysfs node 181 /sys/class/scsi_disk/h:c:i:l/manage_start_stop is present if 182 spin down support is available. 183 Because issuing spin down command to an already spun down disk 184 makes some disks spin up just to spin down again, libata tracks 185 device spindown status to skip the extra spindown command and 186 warn about it. 187 This is to give userspace tools the time to get updated and will 188 be removed after userspace is reasonably updated. 189 Who: Tejun Heo <htejun[AT]gmail[DOT]com> 190 191 --------------------------- 192 193 What: The arch/ppc and include/asm-ppc directories 194 When: Jun 2008 195 Why: The arch/powerpc tree is the merged architecture for ppc32 and ppc64 196 platforms. Currently there are efforts underway to port the remaining 197 arch/ppc platforms to the merged tree. New submissions to the arch/ppc 198 tree have been frozen with the 2.6.22 kernel release and that tree will 199 remain in bug-fix only mode until its scheduled removal. Platforms 200 that are not ported by June 2008 will be removed due to the lack of an 201 interested maintainer. 202 Who: linuxppc-dev[AT]ozlabs[DOT]org 203 204 --------------------------- 205 206 What: sk98lin network driver 207 When: Feburary 2008 208 Why: In kernel tree version of driver is unmaintained. Sk98lin driver 209 replaced by the skge driver. 210 Who: Stephen Hemminger <shemminger[AT]linux-foundation[DOT]org> 211 212 --------------------------- 213 214 What: i386/x86_64 bzImage symlinks 215 When: April 2008 216 217 Why: The i386/x86_64 merge provides a symlink to the old bzImage 218 location so not yet updated user space tools, e.g. package 219 scripts, do not break. 220 Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx[AT]linutronix[DOT]de> 221 222 --------------------------- 223 224 --------------------------- 225 226 What: i2c-i810, i2c-prosavage and i2c-savage4 227 When: May 2008 228 Why: These drivers are superseded by i810fb, intelfb and savagefb. 229 Who: Jean Delvare <khali[AT]linux-fr[DOT]org> 230 231 --------------------------- 232 233 What: bcm43xx wireless network driver 234 When: 2.6.26 235 Files: drivers/net/wireless/bcm43xx 236 Why: This driver's functionality has been replaced by the 237 mac80211-based b43 and b43legacy drivers. 238 Who: John W. Linville <linville[AT]tuxdriver[DOT]com> 239 240 --------------------------- 241 242 What: ieee80211 softmac wireless networking component 243 When: 2.6.26 (or after removal of bcm43xx and port of zd1211rw to mac80211) 244 Files: net/ieee80211/softmac 245 Why: No in-kernel drivers will depend on it any longer. 246 Who: John W. Linville <linville[AT]tuxdriver[DOT]com> 247 248 --------------------------- 249 250 What: rc80211-simple rate control algorithm for mac80211 251 When: 2.6.26 252 Files: net/mac80211/rc80211-simple.c 253 Why: This algorithm was provided for reference but always exhibited bad 254 responsiveness and performance and has some serious flaws. It has been 255 replaced by rc80211-pid. 256 Who: Stefano Brivio <stefano.brivio[AT]polimi[DOT]it> 257 258 --------------------------- 259 260 What (Why): 261 - include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ipt_TOS.h ipt_tos.h header files 262 (superseded by xt_TOS/xt_tos target & match) 263 264 - "forwarding" header files like ipt_mac.h in 265 include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ and include/linux/netfilter_ipv6/ 266 267 - xt_CONNMARK match revision 0 268 (superseded by xt_CONNMARK match revision 1) 269 270 - xt_MARK target revisions 0 and 1 271 (superseded by xt_MARK match revision 2) 272 273 - xt_connmark match revision 0 274 (superseded by xt_connmark match revision 1) 275 276 - xt_conntrack match revision 0 277 (superseded by xt_conntrack match revision 1) 278 279 - xt_iprange match revision 0, 280 include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ipt_iprange.h 281 (superseded by xt_iprange match revision 1) 282 283 - xt_mark match revision 0 284 (superseded by xt_mark match revision 1) 285 286 When: January 2009 or Linux 2.7.0, whichever comes first 287 Why: Superseded by newer revisions or modules 288 Who: Jan Engelhardt <jengelh[AT]computergmbh[DOT]de> 289 290 --------------------------- 291 292 What: b43 support for firmware revision < 410 293 When: July 2008 294 Why: The support code for the old firmware hurts code readability/maintainability 295 and slightly hurts runtime performance. Bugfixes for the old firmware 296 are not provided by Broadcom anymore. 297 Who: Michael Buesch <mb[AT]bu3sch[DOT]de> 298 299 --------------------------- 300 301 What: Solaris/SunOS syscall and binary support on Sparc 302 When: 2.6.26 303 Why: Largely unmaintained and almost entirely unused. File system 304 layering used to divert library and dynamic linker searches to 305 /usr/gnemul is extremely buggy and unfixable. Making it work 306 is largely pointless as without a lot of work only the most 307 trivial of Solaris binaries can work with the emulation code. 308 Who: David S. Miller <davem[AT]davemloft[DOT]net> 309 310 --------------------------- 311 312 What: init_mm export 313 When: 2.6.26 314 Why: Not used in-tree. The current out-of-tree users used it to 315 work around problems in the CPA code which should be resolved 316 by now. One usecase was described to provide verification code 317 of the CPA operation. That's a good idea in general, but such 318 code / infrastructure should be in the kernel and not in some 319 out-of-tree driver. 320 Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx[AT]linutronix[DOT]de>
