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1The following is a list of files and features that are going to be
2removed in the kernel source tree. Every entry should contain what
3exactly is going away, why it is happening, and who is going to be doing
4the work. When the feature is removed from the kernel, it should also
5be removed from this file.
6
7---------------------------
8
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9What: MXSER
10When: December 2007
11Why: Old mxser driver is obsoleted by the mxser_new. Give it some time yet
12 and remove it.
13Who: Jiri Slaby <jirislaby@gmail.com>
14
15---------------------------
16
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17What: V4L2 VIDIOC_G_MPEGCOMP and VIDIOC_S_MPEGCOMP
18When: October 2007
19Why: 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.
24Who: Hans Verkuil <hverkuil@xs4all.nl> and
25 Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@infradead.org>
26
27---------------------------
28
471d0558 29What: dev->power.power_state
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30When: July 2007
31Why: 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.
38Who: Pavel Machek <pavel@suse.cz>
39
40---------------------------
41
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42What: old NCR53C9x driver
43When: October 2007
44Why: Replaced by the much better esp_scsi driver. Actual low-level
ed56047a 45 driver can be ported over almost trivially.
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CH
46Who: David Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
47 Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
48
49---------------------------
50
875c296b 51What: Video4Linux API 1 ioctls and video_decoder.h from Video devices.
48c06d5e 52When: December 2006
0a920b5b 53Files: include/linux/video_decoder.h
f0a594c1 54Check: include/linux/video_decoder.h
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55Why: 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.
64Who: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@brturbo.com.br>
65
66---------------------------
67
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68What: PCMCIA control ioctl (needed for pcmcia-cs [cardmgr, cardctl])
69When: November 2005
70Files: drivers/pcmcia/: pcmcia_ioctl.c
71Why: 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/
81Who: Dominik Brodowski <linux@brodo.de>
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82
83---------------------------
84
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85What: remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(kernel_thread)
86When: August 2006
87Files: arch/*/kernel/*_ksyms.c
f0a594c1 88Check: kernel_thread
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89Why: kernel_thread is a low-level implementation detail. Drivers should
90 use the <linux/kthread.h> API instead which shields them from
91 implementation details and provides a higherlevel interface that
92 prevents bugs and code duplication
93Who: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
94
95---------------------------
96
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97What: CONFIG_FORCED_INLINING
98When: June 2006
99Why: Config option is there to see if gcc is good enough. (in january
100 2006). If it is, the behavior should just be the default. If it's not,
101 the option should just go away entirely.
102Who: Arjan van de Ven
103
104---------------------------
105
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106What: eepro100 network driver
107When: January 2007
108Why: replaced by the e100 driver
109Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
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110
111---------------------------
112
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113What: Unused EXPORT_SYMBOL/EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL exports
114 (temporary transition config option provided until then)
115 The transition config option will also be removed at the same time.
116When: before 2.6.19
117Why: Unused symbols are both increasing the size of the kernel binary
118 and are often a sign of "wrong API"
119Who: Arjan van de Ven <arjan@linux.intel.com>
120
121---------------------------
122
b87ba0a3 123What: USB driver API moves to EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL
a2ffd275 124When: February 2008
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125Files: include/linux/usb.h, drivers/usb/core/driver.c
126Why: The USB subsystem has changed a lot over time, and it has been
127 possible to create userspace USB drivers using usbfs/libusb/gadgetfs
128 that operate as fast as the USB bus allows. Because of this, the USB
129 subsystem will not be allowing closed source kernel drivers to
130 register with it, after this grace period is over. If anyone needs
131 any help in converting their closed source drivers over to use the
132 userspace filesystems, please contact the
133 linux-usb-devel@lists.sourceforge.net mailing list, and the developers
134 there will be glad to help you out.
135Who: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>
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136
137---------------------------
127fe6af 138
54cb8821 139What: vm_ops.nopage
d0217ac0 140When: Soon, provided in-kernel callers have been converted
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141Why: This interface is replaced by vm_ops.fault, but it has been around
142 forever, is used by a lot of drivers, and doesn't cost much to
143 maintain.
144Who: Nick Piggin <npiggin@suse.de>
145
146---------------------------
147
6e213616 148What: Interrupt only SA_* flags
0e8638e2 149When: September 2007
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150Why: The interrupt related SA_* flags are replaced by IRQF_* to move them
151 out of the signal namespace.
152
153Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
154
155---------------------------
5a017483 156
d81d9d6b 157What: PHYSDEVPATH, PHYSDEVBUS, PHYSDEVDRIVER in the uevent environment
acbd39fb 158When: October 2008
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159Why: The stacking of class devices makes these values misleading and
160 inconsistent.
161 Class devices should not carry any of these properties, and bus
162 devices have SUBSYTEM and DRIVER as a replacement.
163Who: Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@suse.de>
164
165---------------------------
6c805d2c 166
fccb56e4 167What: i2c_adapter.list
b119dc3f 168When: July 2007
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169Why: Superfluous, this list duplicates the one maintained by the driver
170 core.
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171Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>,
172 David Brownell <dbrownell@users.sourceforge.net>
173
174---------------------------
175
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176What: drivers depending on OBSOLETE_OSS
177When: options in 2.6.22, code in 2.6.24
178Why: OSS drivers with ALSA replacements
179Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
180
181---------------------------
182
b981c591 183What: ACPI procfs interface
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184When: July 2008
185Why: ACPI sysfs conversion should be finished by January 2008.
186 ACPI procfs interface will be removed in July 2008 so that
187 there is enough time for the user space to catch up.
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188Who: Zhang Rui <rui.zhang@intel.com>
189
190---------------------------
191
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192What: /proc/acpi/button
193When: August 2007
194Why: /proc/acpi/button has been replaced by events to the input layer
195 since 2.6.20.
196Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
197
198---------------------------
54b290a2 199
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200What: /proc/acpi/event
201When: February 2008
202Why: /proc/acpi/event has been replaced by events via the input layer
203 and netlink since 2.6.23.
204Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
205
206---------------------------
207
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208What: i2c-ixp2000, i2c-ixp4xx and scx200_i2c drivers
209When: September 2007
210Why: Obsolete. The new i2c-gpio driver replaces all hardware-specific
211 I2C-over-GPIO drivers.
212Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>
213
214---------------------------
274ee1cd 215
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216What: 'time' kernel boot parameter
217When: January 2008
218Why: replaced by 'printk.time=<value>' so that printk timestamps can be
219 enabled or disabled as needed
220Who: Randy Dunlap <randy.dunlap@oracle.com>
221
222---------------------------
223
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224What: drivers depending on OSS_OBSOLETE
225When: options in 2.6.23, code in 2.6.25
226Why: obsolete OSS drivers
227Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
228
229---------------------------
230
d9aca22c 231What: libata spindown skipping and warning
920a4b10 232When: Dec 2008
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TH
233Why: Some halt(8) implementations synchronize caches for and spin
234 down libata disks because libata didn't use to spin down disk on
235 system halt (only synchronized caches).
236 Spin down on system halt is now implemented. sysfs node
237 /sys/class/scsi_disk/h:c:i:l/manage_start_stop is present if
238 spin down support is available.
920a4b10 239 Because issuing spin down command to an already spun down disk
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TH
240 makes some disks spin up just to spin down again, libata tracks
241 device spindown status to skip the extra spindown command and
242 warn about it.
243 This is to give userspace tools the time to get updated and will
244 be removed after userspace is reasonably updated.
920a4b10
TH
245Who: Tejun Heo <htejun@gmail.com>
246
247---------------------------
248
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249What: Legacy RTC drivers (under drivers/i2c/chips)
250When: November 2007
251Why: Obsolete. We have a RTC subsystem with better drivers.
252Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>
253
254---------------------------
255
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256What: iptables SAME target
257When: 1.1. 2008
258Files: net/ipv4/netfilter/ipt_SAME.c, include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ipt_SAME.h
259Why: Obsolete for multiple years now, NAT core provides the same behaviour.
260 Unfixable broken wrt. 32/64 bit cleanness.
261Who: Patrick McHardy <kaber@trash.net>
262
263---------------------------
489de302 264
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265What: The arch/ppc and include/asm-ppc directories
266When: Jun 2008
267Why: The arch/powerpc tree is the merged architecture for ppc32 and ppc64
268 platforms. Currently there are efforts underway to port the remaining
269 arch/ppc platforms to the merged tree. New submissions to the arch/ppc
270 tree have been frozen with the 2.6.22 kernel release and that tree will
271 remain in bug-fix only mode until its scheduled removal. Platforms
272 that are not ported by June 2008 will be removed due to the lack of an
273 interested maintainer.
274Who: linuxppc-dev@ozlabs.org
275
276---------------------------
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277
278What: mthca driver's MSI support
279When: January 2008
280Files: drivers/infiniband/hw/mthca/*.[ch]
281Why: All mthca hardware also supports MSI-X, which provides
282 strictly more functionality than MSI. So there is no point in
283 having both MSI-X and MSI support in the driver.
284Who: Roland Dreier <rolandd@cisco.com>
285
286---------------------------
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287
288What: sk98lin network driver
289When: Feburary 2008
290Why: In kernel tree version of driver is unmaintained. Sk98lin driver
291 replaced by the skge driver.
292Who: Stephen Hemminger <shemminger@linux-foundation.org>
293
294---------------------------
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295
296What: i386/x86_64 bzImage symlinks
297When: April 2008
298
299Why: The i386/x86_64 merge provides a symlink to the old bzImage
300 location so not yet updated user space tools, e.g. package
301 scripts, do not break.
302Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
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303
304---------------------------
305
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306What: shaper network driver
307When: January 2008
308Files: drivers/net/shaper.c, include/linux/if_shaper.h
309Why: This driver has been marked obsolete for many years.
310 It was only designed to work on lower speed links and has design
311 flaws that lead to machine crashes. The qdisc infrastructure in
312 2.4 or later kernels, provides richer features and is more robust.
313Who: Stephen Hemminger <shemminger@linux-foundation.org>
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314
315---------------------------