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: /sys/devices/.../power/state
30 dev->power.power_state
31 dpm_runtime_{suspend,resume)()
33 Why: Broken design for runtime control over driver power states, confusing
34 driver-internal runtime power management with: mechanisms to support
35 system-wide sleep state transitions; event codes that distinguish
36 different phases of swsusp "sleep" transitions; and userspace policy
37 inputs. This framework was never widely used, and most attempts to
38 use it were broken. Drivers should instead be exposing domain-specific
39 interfaces either to kernel or to userspace.
40 Who: Pavel Machek <pavel@suse.cz>
42 ---------------------------
44 What: RAW driver (CONFIG_RAW_DRIVER)
46 Why: declared obsolete since kernel 2.6.3
47 O_DIRECT can be used instead
48 Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
50 ---------------------------
52 What: old NCR53C9x driver
54 Why: Replaced by the much better esp_scsi driver. Actual low-level
55 driver can be ported over almost trivially.
56 Who: David Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
57 Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
59 ---------------------------
61 What: Video4Linux API 1 ioctls and video_decoder.h from Video devices.
63 Files: include/linux/video_decoder.h
64 Why: V4L1 AP1 was replaced by V4L2 API. during migration from 2.4 to 2.6
65 series. The old API have lots of drawbacks and don't provide enough
66 means to work with all video and audio standards. The newer API is
67 already available on the main drivers and should be used instead.
68 Newer drivers should use v4l_compat_translate_ioctl function to handle
69 old calls, replacing to newer ones.
70 Decoder iocts are using internally to allow video drivers to
71 communicate with video decoders. This should also be improved to allow
72 V4L2 calls being translated into compatible internal ioctls.
73 Who: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@brturbo.com.br>
75 ---------------------------
77 What: PCMCIA control ioctl (needed for pcmcia-cs [cardmgr, cardctl])
79 Files: drivers/pcmcia/: pcmcia_ioctl.c
80 Why: With the 16-bit PCMCIA subsystem now behaving (almost) like a
81 normal hotpluggable bus, and with it using the default kernel
82 infrastructure (hotplug, driver core, sysfs) keeping the PCMCIA
83 control ioctl needed by cardmgr and cardctl from pcmcia-cs is
84 unnecessary, and makes further cleanups and integration of the
85 PCMCIA subsystem into the Linux kernel device driver model more
86 difficult. The features provided by cardmgr and cardctl are either
87 handled by the kernel itself now or are available in the new
88 pcmciautils package available at
89 http://kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/pcmcia/
90 Who: Dominik Brodowski <linux@brodo.de>
92 ---------------------------
94 What: remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(kernel_thread)
96 Files: arch/*/kernel/*_ksyms.c
98 Why: kernel_thread is a low-level implementation detail. Drivers should
99 use the <linux/kthread.h> API instead which shields them from
100 implementation details and provides a higherlevel interface that
101 prevents bugs and code duplication
102 Who: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
104 ---------------------------
106 What: CONFIG_FORCED_INLINING
108 Why: Config option is there to see if gcc is good enough. (in january
109 2006). If it is, the behavior should just be the default. If it's not,
110 the option should just go away entirely.
111 Who: Arjan van de Ven
113 ---------------------------
115 What: eepro100 network driver
117 Why: replaced by the e100 driver
118 Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
120 ---------------------------
122 What: Unused EXPORT_SYMBOL/EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL exports
123 (temporary transition config option provided until then)
124 The transition config option will also be removed at the same time.
126 Why: Unused symbols are both increasing the size of the kernel binary
127 and are often a sign of "wrong API"
128 Who: Arjan van de Ven <arjan@linux.intel.com>
130 ---------------------------
132 What: USB driver API moves to EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL
134 Files: include/linux/usb.h, drivers/usb/core/driver.c
135 Why: The USB subsystem has changed a lot over time, and it has been
136 possible to create userspace USB drivers using usbfs/libusb/gadgetfs
137 that operate as fast as the USB bus allows. Because of this, the USB
138 subsystem will not be allowing closed source kernel drivers to
139 register with it, after this grace period is over. If anyone needs
140 any help in converting their closed source drivers over to use the
141 userspace filesystems, please contact the
142 linux-usb-devel@lists.sourceforge.net mailing list, and the developers
143 there will be glad to help you out.
144 Who: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>
146 ---------------------------
148 What: Interrupt only SA_* flags
150 Why: The interrupt related SA_* flags are replaced by IRQF_* to move them
151 out of the signal namespace.
153 Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
155 ---------------------------
157 What: PHYSDEVPATH, PHYSDEVBUS, PHYSDEVDRIVER in the uevent environment
159 Why: The stacking of class devices makes these values misleading and
161 Class devices should not carry any of these properties, and bus
162 devices have SUBSYTEM and DRIVER as a replacement.
163 Who: Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@suse.de>
165 ---------------------------
169 Why: i2c-isa is a non-sense and doesn't fit in the device driver
170 model. Drivers relying on it are better implemented as platform
172 Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>
174 ---------------------------
176 What: i2c_adapter.list
178 Why: Superfluous, this list duplicates the one maintained by the driver
180 Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>,
181 David Brownell <dbrownell@users.sourceforge.net>
183 ---------------------------
185 What: drivers depending on OBSOLETE_OSS
186 When: options in 2.6.22, code in 2.6.24
187 Why: OSS drivers with ALSA replacements
188 Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
190 ---------------------------
192 What: /sys/firmware/acpi/namespace
194 Why: The ACPI namespace is effectively the symbol list for
195 the BIOS. The device names are completely arbitrary
196 and have no place being exposed to user-space.
198 For those interested in the BIOS ACPI namespace,
199 the BIOS can be extracted and disassembled with acpidump
200 and iasl as documented in the pmtools package here:
201 http://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/lenb/acpi/utils
202 Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
204 ---------------------------
206 What: ACPI procfs interface
208 Why: After ACPI sysfs conversion, ACPI attributes will be duplicated
209 in sysfs and the ACPI procfs interface should be removed.
210 Who: Zhang Rui <rui.zhang@intel.com>
212 ---------------------------
214 What: /proc/acpi/button
216 Why: /proc/acpi/button has been replaced by events to the input layer
218 Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
220 ---------------------------
222 What: Compaq touchscreen device emulation
224 Files: drivers/input/tsdev.c
225 Why: The code says it was obsolete when it was written in 2001.
226 tslib is a userspace library which does anything tsdev can do and
227 much more besides in userspace where this code belongs. There is no
228 longer any need for tsdev and applications should have converted to
230 The name "tsdev" is also extremely confusing and lots of people have
231 it loaded when they don't need/use it.
232 Who: Richard Purdie <rpurdie@rpsys.net>
234 ---------------------------
236 What: read_dev_chars(), read_conf_data{,_lpm}() (s390 common I/O layer)
238 Why: These functions are a leftover from 2.4 times. They have several
240 - Duplication of checks that are done in the device driver's
242 - common I/O layer can't do device specific error recovery
243 - device driver can't be notified for conditions happening during
244 execution of the function
245 Device drivers should issue the read device characteristics and read
246 configuration data ccws and do the appropriate error handling
248 Who: Cornelia Huck <cornelia.huck@de.ibm.com>
250 ---------------------------
252 What: i2c-ixp2000, i2c-ixp4xx and scx200_i2c drivers
254 Why: Obsolete. The new i2c-gpio driver replaces all hardware-specific
255 I2C-over-GPIO drivers.
256 Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>
258 ---------------------------
260 What: 'time' kernel boot parameter
262 Why: replaced by 'printk.time=<value>' so that printk timestamps can be
263 enabled or disabled as needed
264 Who: Randy Dunlap <randy.dunlap@oracle.com>
266 ---------------------------
268 What: drivers depending on OSS_OBSOLETE
269 When: options in 2.6.23, code in 2.6.25
270 Why: obsolete OSS drivers
271 Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
273 ---------------------------
275 What: libata spindown skipping and warning
277 Why: Some halt(8) implementations synchronize caches for and spin
278 down libata disks because libata didn't use to spin down disk on
279 system halt (only synchronized caches).
280 Spin down on system halt is now implemented. sysfs node
281 /sys/class/scsi_disk/h:c:i:l/manage_start_stop is present if
282 spin down support is available.
283 Because issuing spin down command to an already spun down disk
284 makes some disks spin up just to spin down again, libata tracks
285 device spindown status to skip the extra spindown command and
287 This is to give userspace tools the time to get updated and will
288 be removed after userspace is reasonably updated.
289 Who: Tejun Heo <htejun@gmail.com>
291 ---------------------------
293 What: Legacy RTC drivers (under drivers/i2c/chips)
295 Why: Obsolete. We have a RTC subsystem with better drivers.
296 Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>
298 ---------------------------
300 What: iptables SAME target
302 Files: net/ipv4/netfilter/ipt_SAME.c, include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ipt_SAME.h
303 Why: Obsolete for multiple years now, NAT core provides the same behaviour.
304 Unfixable broken wrt. 32/64 bit cleanness.
305 Who: Patrick McHardy <kaber@trash.net>
307 ---------------------------