| 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: The ieee80211_regdom module parameter |
| 10 | When: March 2010 / desktop catchup |
| 11 | |
| 12 | Why: This was inherited by the CONFIG_WIRELESS_OLD_REGULATORY code, |
| 13 | and currently serves as an option for users to define an |
| 14 | ISO / IEC 3166 alpha2 code for the country they are currently |
| 15 | present in. Although there are userspace API replacements for this |
| 16 | through nl80211 distributions haven't yet caught up with implementing |
| 17 | decent alternatives through standard GUIs. Although available as an |
| 18 | option through iw or wpa_supplicant its just a matter of time before |
| 19 | distributions pick up good GUI options for this. The ideal solution |
| 20 | would actually consist of intelligent designs which would do this for |
| 21 | the user automatically even when travelling through different countries. |
| 22 | Until then we leave this module parameter as a compromise. |
| 23 | |
| 24 | When userspace improves with reasonable widely-available alternatives for |
| 25 | this we will no longer need this module parameter. This entry hopes that |
| 26 | by the super-futuristically looking date of "March 2010" we will have |
| 27 | such replacements widely available. |
| 28 | |
| 29 | Who: Luis R. Rodriguez <lrodriguez@atheros.com> |
| 30 | |
| 31 | --------------------------- |
| 32 | |
| 33 | What: CONFIG_WIRELESS_OLD_REGULATORY - old static regulatory information |
| 34 | When: March 2010 / desktop catchup |
| 35 | |
| 36 | Why: The old regulatory infrastructure has been replaced with a new one |
| 37 | which does not require statically defined regulatory domains. We do |
| 38 | not want to keep static regulatory domains in the kernel due to the |
| 39 | the dynamic nature of regulatory law and localization. We kept around |
| 40 | the old static definitions for the regulatory domains of: |
| 41 | |
| 42 | * US |
| 43 | * JP |
| 44 | * EU |
| 45 | |
| 46 | and used by default the US when CONFIG_WIRELESS_OLD_REGULATORY was |
| 47 | set. We will remove this option once the standard Linux desktop catches |
| 48 | up with the new userspace APIs we have implemented. |
| 49 | |
| 50 | Who: Luis R. Rodriguez <lrodriguez@atheros.com> |
| 51 | |
| 52 | --------------------------- |
| 53 | |
| 54 | What: dev->power.power_state |
| 55 | When: July 2007 |
| 56 | Why: Broken design for runtime control over driver power states, confusing |
| 57 | driver-internal runtime power management with: mechanisms to support |
| 58 | system-wide sleep state transitions; event codes that distinguish |
| 59 | different phases of swsusp "sleep" transitions; and userspace policy |
| 60 | inputs. This framework was never widely used, and most attempts to |
| 61 | use it were broken. Drivers should instead be exposing domain-specific |
| 62 | interfaces either to kernel or to userspace. |
| 63 | Who: Pavel Machek <pavel@suse.cz> |
| 64 | |
| 65 | --------------------------- |
| 66 | |
| 67 | What: Video4Linux API 1 ioctls and from Video devices. |
| 68 | When: July 2009 |
| 69 | Files: include/linux/videodev.h |
| 70 | Check: include/linux/videodev.h |
| 71 | Why: V4L1 AP1 was replaced by V4L2 API during migration from 2.4 to 2.6 |
| 72 | series. The old API have lots of drawbacks and don't provide enough |
| 73 | means to work with all video and audio standards. The newer API is |
| 74 | already available on the main drivers and should be used instead. |
| 75 | Newer drivers should use v4l_compat_translate_ioctl function to handle |
| 76 | old calls, replacing to newer ones. |
| 77 | Decoder iocts are using internally to allow video drivers to |
| 78 | communicate with video decoders. This should also be improved to allow |
| 79 | V4L2 calls being translated into compatible internal ioctls. |
| 80 | Compatibility ioctls will be provided, for a while, via |
| 81 | v4l1-compat module. |
| 82 | Who: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@infradead.org> |
| 83 | |
| 84 | --------------------------- |
| 85 | |
| 86 | What: PCMCIA control ioctl (needed for pcmcia-cs [cardmgr, cardctl]) |
| 87 | When: November 2005 |
| 88 | Files: drivers/pcmcia/: pcmcia_ioctl.c |
| 89 | Why: With the 16-bit PCMCIA subsystem now behaving (almost) like a |
| 90 | normal hotpluggable bus, and with it using the default kernel |
| 91 | infrastructure (hotplug, driver core, sysfs) keeping the PCMCIA |
| 92 | control ioctl needed by cardmgr and cardctl from pcmcia-cs is |
| 93 | unnecessary, and makes further cleanups and integration of the |
| 94 | PCMCIA subsystem into the Linux kernel device driver model more |
| 95 | difficult. The features provided by cardmgr and cardctl are either |
| 96 | handled by the kernel itself now or are available in the new |
| 97 | pcmciautils package available at |
| 98 | http://kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/pcmcia/ |
| 99 | Who: Dominik Brodowski <linux@brodo.de> |
| 100 | |
| 101 | --------------------------- |
| 102 | |
| 103 | What: sys_sysctl |
| 104 | When: September 2010 |
| 105 | Option: CONFIG_SYSCTL_SYSCALL |
| 106 | Why: The same information is available in a more convenient from |
| 107 | /proc/sys, and none of the sysctl variables appear to be |
| 108 | important performance wise. |
| 109 | |
| 110 | Binary sysctls are a long standing source of subtle kernel |
| 111 | bugs and security issues. |
| 112 | |
| 113 | When I looked several months ago all I could find after |
| 114 | searching several distributions were 5 user space programs and |
| 115 | glibc (which falls back to /proc/sys) using this syscall. |
| 116 | |
| 117 | The man page for sysctl(2) documents it as unusable for user |
| 118 | space programs. |
| 119 | |
| 120 | sysctl(2) is not generally ABI compatible to a 32bit user |
| 121 | space application on a 64bit and a 32bit kernel. |
| 122 | |
| 123 | For the last several months the policy has been no new binary |
| 124 | sysctls and no one has put forward an argument to use them. |
| 125 | |
| 126 | Binary sysctls issues seem to keep happening appearing so |
| 127 | properly deprecating them (with a warning to user space) and a |
| 128 | 2 year grace warning period will mean eventually we can kill |
| 129 | them and end the pain. |
| 130 | |
| 131 | In the mean time individual binary sysctls can be dealt with |
| 132 | in a piecewise fashion. |
| 133 | |
| 134 | Who: Eric Biederman <ebiederm@xmission.com> |
| 135 | |
| 136 | --------------------------- |
| 137 | |
| 138 | What: remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(kernel_thread) |
| 139 | When: August 2006 |
| 140 | Files: arch/*/kernel/*_ksyms.c |
| 141 | Check: kernel_thread |
| 142 | Why: kernel_thread is a low-level implementation detail. Drivers should |
| 143 | use the <linux/kthread.h> API instead which shields them from |
| 144 | implementation details and provides a higherlevel interface that |
| 145 | prevents bugs and code duplication |
| 146 | Who: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de> |
| 147 | |
| 148 | --------------------------- |
| 149 | |
| 150 | What: Unused EXPORT_SYMBOL/EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL exports |
| 151 | (temporary transition config option provided until then) |
| 152 | The transition config option will also be removed at the same time. |
| 153 | When: before 2.6.19 |
| 154 | Why: Unused symbols are both increasing the size of the kernel binary |
| 155 | and are often a sign of "wrong API" |
| 156 | Who: Arjan van de Ven <arjan@linux.intel.com> |
| 157 | |
| 158 | --------------------------- |
| 159 | |
| 160 | What: PHYSDEVPATH, PHYSDEVBUS, PHYSDEVDRIVER in the uevent environment |
| 161 | When: October 2008 |
| 162 | Why: The stacking of class devices makes these values misleading and |
| 163 | inconsistent. |
| 164 | Class devices should not carry any of these properties, and bus |
| 165 | devices have SUBSYTEM and DRIVER as a replacement. |
| 166 | Who: Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@suse.de> |
| 167 | |
| 168 | --------------------------- |
| 169 | |
| 170 | What: ACPI procfs interface |
| 171 | When: July 2008 |
| 172 | Why: ACPI sysfs conversion should be finished by January 2008. |
| 173 | ACPI procfs interface will be removed in July 2008 so that |
| 174 | there is enough time for the user space to catch up. |
| 175 | Who: Zhang Rui <rui.zhang@intel.com> |
| 176 | |
| 177 | --------------------------- |
| 178 | |
| 179 | What: /proc/acpi/button |
| 180 | When: August 2007 |
| 181 | Why: /proc/acpi/button has been replaced by events to the input layer |
| 182 | since 2.6.20. |
| 183 | Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com> |
| 184 | |
| 185 | --------------------------- |
| 186 | |
| 187 | What: /proc/acpi/event |
| 188 | When: February 2008 |
| 189 | Why: /proc/acpi/event has been replaced by events via the input layer |
| 190 | and netlink since 2.6.23. |
| 191 | Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com> |
| 192 | |
| 193 | --------------------------- |
| 194 | |
| 195 | What: libata spindown skipping and warning |
| 196 | When: Dec 2008 |
| 197 | Why: Some halt(8) implementations synchronize caches for and spin |
| 198 | down libata disks because libata didn't use to spin down disk on |
| 199 | system halt (only synchronized caches). |
| 200 | Spin down on system halt is now implemented. sysfs node |
| 201 | /sys/class/scsi_disk/h:c:i:l/manage_start_stop is present if |
| 202 | spin down support is available. |
| 203 | Because issuing spin down command to an already spun down disk |
| 204 | makes some disks spin up just to spin down again, libata tracks |
| 205 | device spindown status to skip the extra spindown command and |
| 206 | warn about it. |
| 207 | This is to give userspace tools the time to get updated and will |
| 208 | be removed after userspace is reasonably updated. |
| 209 | Who: Tejun Heo <htejun@gmail.com> |
| 210 | |
| 211 | --------------------------- |
| 212 | |
| 213 | What: i386/x86_64 bzImage symlinks |
| 214 | When: April 2010 |
| 215 | |
| 216 | Why: The i386/x86_64 merge provides a symlink to the old bzImage |
| 217 | location so not yet updated user space tools, e.g. package |
| 218 | scripts, do not break. |
| 219 | Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de> |
| 220 | |
| 221 | --------------------------- |
| 222 | |
| 223 | What (Why): |
| 224 | - include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ipt_TOS.h ipt_tos.h header files |
| 225 | (superseded by xt_TOS/xt_tos target & match) |
| 226 | |
| 227 | - "forwarding" header files like ipt_mac.h in |
| 228 | include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ and include/linux/netfilter_ipv6/ |
| 229 | |
| 230 | - xt_CONNMARK match revision 0 |
| 231 | (superseded by xt_CONNMARK match revision 1) |
| 232 | |
| 233 | - xt_MARK target revisions 0 and 1 |
| 234 | (superseded by xt_MARK match revision 2) |
| 235 | |
| 236 | - xt_connmark match revision 0 |
| 237 | (superseded by xt_connmark match revision 1) |
| 238 | |
| 239 | - xt_conntrack match revision 0 |
| 240 | (superseded by xt_conntrack match revision 1) |
| 241 | |
| 242 | - xt_iprange match revision 0, |
| 243 | include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ipt_iprange.h |
| 244 | (superseded by xt_iprange match revision 1) |
| 245 | |
| 246 | - xt_mark match revision 0 |
| 247 | (superseded by xt_mark match revision 1) |
| 248 | |
| 249 | - xt_recent: the old ipt_recent proc dir |
| 250 | (superseded by /proc/net/xt_recent) |
| 251 | |
| 252 | When: January 2009 or Linux 2.7.0, whichever comes first |
| 253 | Why: Superseded by newer revisions or modules |
| 254 | Who: Jan Engelhardt <jengelh@computergmbh.de> |
| 255 | |
| 256 | --------------------------- |
| 257 | |
| 258 | What: b43 support for firmware revision < 410 |
| 259 | When: The schedule was July 2008, but it was decided that we are going to keep the |
| 260 | code as long as there are no major maintanance headaches. |
| 261 | So it _could_ be removed _any_ time now, if it conflicts with something new. |
| 262 | Why: The support code for the old firmware hurts code readability/maintainability |
| 263 | and slightly hurts runtime performance. Bugfixes for the old firmware |
| 264 | are not provided by Broadcom anymore. |
| 265 | Who: Michael Buesch <mb@bu3sch.de> |
| 266 | |
| 267 | --------------------------- |
| 268 | |
| 269 | What: usedac i386 kernel parameter |
| 270 | When: 2.6.27 |
| 271 | Why: replaced by allowdac and no dac combination |
| 272 | Who: Glauber Costa <gcosta@redhat.com> |
| 273 | |
| 274 | --------------------------- |
| 275 | |
| 276 | What: remove HID compat support |
| 277 | When: 2.6.29 |
| 278 | Why: needed only as a temporary solution until distros fix themselves up |
| 279 | Who: Jiri Slaby <jirislaby@gmail.com> |
| 280 | |
| 281 | --------------------------- |
| 282 | |
| 283 | What: print_fn_descriptor_symbol() |
| 284 | When: October 2009 |
| 285 | Why: The %pF vsprintf format provides the same functionality in a |
| 286 | simpler way. print_fn_descriptor_symbol() is deprecated but |
| 287 | still present to give out-of-tree modules time to change. |
| 288 | Who: Bjorn Helgaas <bjorn.helgaas@hp.com> |
| 289 | |
| 290 | --------------------------- |
| 291 | |
| 292 | What: /sys/o2cb symlink |
| 293 | When: January 2010 |
| 294 | Why: /sys/fs/o2cb is the proper location for this information - /sys/o2cb |
| 295 | exists as a symlink for backwards compatibility for old versions of |
| 296 | ocfs2-tools. 2 years should be sufficient time to phase in new versions |
| 297 | which know to look in /sys/fs/o2cb. |
| 298 | Who: ocfs2-devel@oss.oracle.com |
| 299 | |
| 300 | --------------------------- |
| 301 | |
| 302 | What: SCTP_GET_PEER_ADDRS_NUM_OLD, SCTP_GET_PEER_ADDRS_OLD, |
| 303 | SCTP_GET_LOCAL_ADDRS_NUM_OLD, SCTP_GET_LOCAL_ADDRS_OLD |
| 304 | When: June 2009 |
| 305 | Why: A newer version of the options have been introduced in 2005 that |
| 306 | removes the limitions of the old API. The sctp library has been |
| 307 | converted to use these new options at the same time. Any user |
| 308 | space app that directly uses the old options should convert to using |
| 309 | the new options. |
| 310 | Who: Vlad Yasevich <vladislav.yasevich@hp.com> |
| 311 | |
| 312 | --------------------------- |
| 313 | |
| 314 | What: Ability for non root users to shm_get hugetlb pages based on mlock |
| 315 | resource limits |
| 316 | When: 2.6.31 |
| 317 | Why: Non root users need to be part of /proc/sys/vm/hugetlb_shm_group or |
| 318 | have CAP_IPC_LOCK to be able to allocate shm segments backed by |
| 319 | huge pages. The mlock based rlimit check to allow shm hugetlb is |
| 320 | inconsistent with mmap based allocations. Hence it is being |
| 321 | deprecated. |
| 322 | Who: Ravikiran Thirumalai <kiran@scalex86.org> |
| 323 | |
| 324 | --------------------------- |
| 325 | |
| 326 | What: CONFIG_THERMAL_HWMON |
| 327 | When: January 2009 |
| 328 | Why: This option was introduced just to allow older lm-sensors userspace |
| 329 | to keep working over the upgrade to 2.6.26. At the scheduled time of |
| 330 | removal fixed lm-sensors (2.x or 3.x) should be readily available. |
| 331 | Who: Rene Herman <rene.herman@gmail.com> |
| 332 | |
| 333 | --------------------------- |
| 334 | |
| 335 | What: Code that is now under CONFIG_WIRELESS_EXT_SYSFS |
| 336 | (in net/core/net-sysfs.c) |
| 337 | When: After the only user (hal) has seen a release with the patches |
| 338 | for enough time, probably some time in 2010. |
| 339 | Why: Over 1K .text/.data size reduction, data is available in other |
| 340 | ways (ioctls) |
| 341 | Who: Johannes Berg <johannes@sipsolutions.net> |
| 342 | |
| 343 | --------------------------- |
| 344 | |
| 345 | What: CONFIG_NF_CT_ACCT |
| 346 | When: 2.6.29 |
| 347 | Why: Accounting can now be enabled/disabled without kernel recompilation. |
| 348 | Currently used only to set a default value for a feature that is also |
| 349 | controlled by a kernel/module/sysfs/sysctl parameter. |
| 350 | Who: Krzysztof Piotr Oledzki <ole@ans.pl> |
| 351 | |
| 352 | --------------------------- |
| 353 | |
| 354 | What: i2c_attach_client(), i2c_detach_client(), i2c_driver->detach_client() |
| 355 | When: 2.6.30 |
| 356 | Check: i2c_attach_client i2c_detach_client |
| 357 | Why: Deprecated by the new (standard) device driver binding model. Use |
| 358 | i2c_driver->probe() and ->remove() instead. |
| 359 | Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org> |
| 360 | |
| 361 | --------------------------- |
| 362 | |
| 363 | What: fscher and fscpos drivers |
| 364 | When: June 2009 |
| 365 | Why: Deprecated by the new fschmd driver. |
| 366 | Who: Hans de Goede <hdegoede@redhat.com> |
| 367 | Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org> |
| 368 | |
| 369 | --------------------------- |
| 370 | |
| 371 | What: sysfs ui for changing p4-clockmod parameters |
| 372 | When: September 2009 |
| 373 | Why: See commits 129f8ae9b1b5be94517da76009ea956e89104ce8 and |
| 374 | e088e4c9cdb618675874becb91b2fd581ee707e6. |
| 375 | Removal is subject to fixing any remaining bugs in ACPI which may |
| 376 | cause the thermal throttling not to happen at the right time. |
| 377 | Who: Dave Jones <davej@redhat.com>, Matthew Garrett <mjg@redhat.com> |
| 378 | |
| 379 | ----------------------------- |
| 380 | |
| 381 | What: __do_IRQ all in one fits nothing interrupt handler |
| 382 | When: 2.6.32 |
| 383 | Why: __do_IRQ was kept for easy migration to the type flow handlers. |
| 384 | More than two years of migration time is enough. |
| 385 | Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de> |
| 386 | |
| 387 | ----------------------------- |
| 388 | |
| 389 | What: obsolete generic irq defines and typedefs |
| 390 | When: 2.6.30 |
| 391 | Why: The defines and typedefs (hw_interrupt_type, no_irq_type, irq_desc_t) |
| 392 | have been kept around for migration reasons. After more than two years |
| 393 | it's time to remove them finally |
| 394 | Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de> |