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 ---------------------------
9 What: /sys/devices/.../power/state
10 dev->power.power_state
11 dpm_runtime_{suspend,resume)()
13 Why: Broken design for runtime control over driver power states, confusing
14 driver-internal runtime power management with: mechanisms to support
15 system-wide sleep state transitions; event codes that distinguish
16 different phases of swsusp "sleep" transitions; and userspace policy
17 inputs. This framework was never widely used, and most attempts to
18 use it were broken. Drivers should instead be exposing domain-specific
19 interfaces either to kernel or to userspace.
20 Who: Pavel Machek <pavel@suse.cz>
22 ---------------------------
24 What: RAW driver (CONFIG_RAW_DRIVER)
26 Why: declared obsolete since kernel 2.6.3
27 O_DIRECT can be used instead
28 Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
30 ---------------------------
32 What: raw1394: requests of type RAW1394_REQ_ISO_SEND, RAW1394_REQ_ISO_LISTEN
34 Why: Deprecated in favour of the more efficient and robust rawiso interface.
35 Affected are applications which use the deprecated part of libraw1394
36 (raw1394_iso_write, raw1394_start_iso_write, raw1394_start_iso_rcv,
37 raw1394_stop_iso_rcv) or bypass libraw1394.
38 Who: Dan Dennedy <dan@dennedy.org>, Stefan Richter <stefanr@s5r6.in-berlin.de>
40 ---------------------------
42 What: Video4Linux API 1 ioctls and video_decoder.h from Video devices.
44 Why: V4L1 AP1 was replaced by V4L2 API. during migration from 2.4 to 2.6
45 series. The old API have lots of drawbacks and don't provide enough
46 means to work with all video and audio standards. The newer API is
47 already available on the main drivers and should be used instead.
48 Newer drivers should use v4l_compat_translate_ioctl function to handle
49 old calls, replacing to newer ones.
50 Decoder iocts are using internally to allow video drivers to
51 communicate with video decoders. This should also be improved to allow
52 V4L2 calls being translated into compatible internal ioctls.
53 Who: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@brturbo.com.br>
55 ---------------------------
57 What: PCMCIA control ioctl (needed for pcmcia-cs [cardmgr, cardctl])
59 Files: drivers/pcmcia/: pcmcia_ioctl.c
60 Why: With the 16-bit PCMCIA subsystem now behaving (almost) like a
61 normal hotpluggable bus, and with it using the default kernel
62 infrastructure (hotplug, driver core, sysfs) keeping the PCMCIA
63 control ioctl needed by cardmgr and cardctl from pcmcia-cs is
64 unnecessary, and makes further cleanups and integration of the
65 PCMCIA subsystem into the Linux kernel device driver model more
66 difficult. The features provided by cardmgr and cardctl are either
67 handled by the kernel itself now or are available in the new
68 pcmciautils package available at
69 http://kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/pcmcia/
70 Who: Dominik Brodowski <linux@brodo.de>
72 ---------------------------
74 What: remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(kernel_thread)
76 Files: arch/*/kernel/*_ksyms.c
77 Why: kernel_thread is a low-level implementation detail. Drivers should
78 use the <linux/kthread.h> API instead which shields them from
79 implementation details and provides a higherlevel interface that
80 prevents bugs and code duplication
81 Who: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
83 ---------------------------
85 What: CONFIG_FORCED_INLINING
87 Why: Config option is there to see if gcc is good enough. (in january
88 2006). If it is, the behavior should just be the default. If it's not,
89 the option should just go away entirely.
92 ---------------------------
94 What: eepro100 network driver
96 Why: replaced by the e100 driver
97 Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
99 ---------------------------
101 What: drivers depending on OSS_OBSOLETE_DRIVER
102 When: options in 2.6.20, code in 2.6.22
103 Why: OSS drivers with ALSA replacements
104 Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
106 ---------------------------
108 What: pci_module_init(driver)
110 Why: Is replaced by pci_register_driver(pci_driver).
111 Who: Richard Knutsson <ricknu-0@student.ltu.se> and Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>
113 ---------------------------
115 What: Usage of invalid timevals in setitimer
117 Why: POSIX requires to validate timevals in the setitimer call. This
118 was never done by Linux. The invalid (e.g. negative timevals) were
119 silently converted to more or less random timeouts and intervals.
120 Until the removal a per boot limited number of warnings is printed
121 and the timevals are sanitized.
123 Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
125 ---------------------------
127 What: I2C interface of the it87 driver
129 Why: The ISA interface is faster and should be always available. The I2C
130 probing is also known to cause trouble in at least one case (see
132 Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>
134 ---------------------------
136 What: Unused EXPORT_SYMBOL/EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL exports
137 (temporary transition config option provided until then)
138 The transition config option will also be removed at the same time.
140 Why: Unused symbols are both increasing the size of the kernel binary
141 and are often a sign of "wrong API"
142 Who: Arjan van de Ven <arjan@linux.intel.com>
144 ---------------------------
146 What: mount/umount uevents
148 Why: These events are not correct, and do not properly let userspace know
149 when a file system has been mounted or unmounted. Userspace should
150 poll the /proc/mounts file instead to detect this properly.
151 Who: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>
153 ---------------------------
155 What: USB driver API moves to EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL
157 Files: include/linux/usb.h, drivers/usb/core/driver.c
158 Why: The USB subsystem has changed a lot over time, and it has been
159 possible to create userspace USB drivers using usbfs/libusb/gadgetfs
160 that operate as fast as the USB bus allows. Because of this, the USB
161 subsystem will not be allowing closed source kernel drivers to
162 register with it, after this grace period is over. If anyone needs
163 any help in converting their closed source drivers over to use the
164 userspace filesystems, please contact the
165 linux-usb-devel@lists.sourceforge.net mailing list, and the developers
166 there will be glad to help you out.
167 Who: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>
169 ---------------------------
171 What: find_trylock_page
173 Why: The interface no longer has any callers left in the kernel. It
174 is an odd interface (compared with other find_*_page functions), in
175 that it does not take a refcount to the page, only the page lock.
176 It should be replaced with find_get_page or find_lock_page if possible.
177 This feature removal can be reevaluated if users of the interface
178 cannot cleanly use something else.
179 Who: Nick Piggin <npiggin@suse.de>
181 ---------------------------
183 What: Interrupt only SA_* flags
185 Why: The interrupt related SA_* flags are replaced by IRQF_* to move them
186 out of the signal namespace.
188 Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
190 ---------------------------
192 What: i2c-ite and i2c-algo-ite drivers
194 Why: These drivers never compiled since they were added to the kernel
195 tree 5 years ago. This feature removal can be reevaluated if
196 someone shows interest in the drivers, fixes them and takes over
198 http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-mips&m=115040510817448
199 Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>
201 ---------------------------
203 What: Bridge netfilter deferred IPv4/IPv6 output hook calling
205 Why: The deferred output hooks are a layering violation causing unusual
206 and broken behaviour on bridge devices. Examples of things they
207 break include QoS classifation using the MARK or CLASSIFY targets,
208 the IPsec policy match and connection tracking with VLANs on a
209 bridge. Their only use is to enable bridge output port filtering
210 within iptables with the physdev match, which can also be done by
211 combining iptables and ebtables using netfilter marks. Until it
212 will get removed the hook deferral is disabled by default and is
213 only enabled when needed.
215 Who: Patrick McHardy <kaber@trash.net>
217 ---------------------------
219 What: PHYSDEVPATH, PHYSDEVBUS, PHYSDEVDRIVER in the uevent environment
221 Why: The stacking of class devices makes these values misleading and
223 Class devices should not carry any of these properties, and bus
224 devices have SUBSYTEM and DRIVER as a replacement.
225 Who: Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@suse.de>
227 ---------------------------
231 Why: i2c-isa is a non-sense and doesn't fit in the device driver
232 model. Drivers relying on it are better implemented as platform
234 Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>
236 ---------------------------
238 What: IPv4 only connection tracking/NAT/helpers
240 Why: The new layer 3 independant connection tracking replaces the old
241 IPv4 only version. After some stabilization of the new code the
242 old one will be removed.
243 Who: Patrick McHardy <kaber@trash.net>
245 ---------------------------