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. The suggested deprecation period is 3 releases.
7 ---------------------------
9 What: ddebug_query="query" boot cmdline param
11 Why: obsoleted by dyndbg="query" and module.dyndbg="query"
12 Who: Jim Cromie <jim.cromie@gmail.com>, Jason Baron <jbaron@redhat.com>
14 ---------------------------
16 What: CONFIG_APM_CPU_IDLE, and its ability to call APM BIOS in idle
18 Why: This optional sub-feature of APM is of dubious reliability,
19 and ancient APM laptops are likely better served by calling HLT.
20 Deleting CONFIG_APM_CPU_IDLE allows x86 to stop exporting
21 the pm_idle function pointer to modules.
22 Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
24 ----------------------------
26 What: x86_32 "no-hlt" cmdline param
28 Why: remove a branch from idle path, simplify code used by everybody.
29 This option disabled the use of HLT in idle and machine_halt()
30 for hardware that was flakey 15-years ago. Today we have
31 "idle=poll" that removed HLT from idle, and so if such a machine
32 is still running the upstream kernel, "idle=poll" is likely sufficient.
33 Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
35 ----------------------------
37 What: x86 "idle=mwait" cmdline param
39 Why: simplify x86 idle code
40 Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
42 ----------------------------
47 Why: prism54 FullMAC PCI / Cardbus devices used to be supported only by the
48 prism54 wireless driver. After Intersil stopped selling these
49 devices in preference for the newer more flexible SoftMAC devices
50 a SoftMAC device driver was required and prism54 did not support
51 them. The p54pci driver now exists and has been present in the kernel for
52 a while. This driver supports both SoftMAC devices and FullMAC devices.
53 The main difference between these devices was the amount of memory which
54 could be used for the firmware. The SoftMAC devices support a smaller
55 amount of memory. Because of this the SoftMAC firmware fits into FullMAC
56 devices's memory. p54pci supports not only PCI / Cardbus but also USB
57 and SPI. Since p54pci supports all devices prism54 supports
58 you will have a conflict. I'm not quite sure how distributions are
59 handling this conflict right now. prism54 was kept around due to
60 claims users may experience issues when using the SoftMAC driver.
61 Time has passed users have not reported issues. If you use prism54
62 and for whatever reason you cannot use p54pci please let us know!
63 E-mail us at: linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org
65 For more information see the p54 wiki page:
67 http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/p54
69 Who: Luis R. Rodriguez <lrodriguez@atheros.com>
71 ---------------------------
73 What: IRQF_SAMPLE_RANDOM
74 Check: IRQF_SAMPLE_RANDOM
77 Why: Many of IRQF_SAMPLE_RANDOM users are technically bogus as entropy
78 sources in the kernel's current entropy model. To resolve this, every
79 input point to the kernel's entropy pool needs to better document the
80 type of entropy source it actually is. This will be replaced with
81 additional add_*_randomness functions in drivers/char/random.c
83 Who: Robin Getz <rgetz@blackfin.uclinux.org> & Matt Mackall <mpm@selenic.com>
85 ---------------------------
87 What: The ieee80211_regdom module parameter
88 When: March 2010 / desktop catchup
90 Why: This was inherited by the CONFIG_WIRELESS_OLD_REGULATORY code,
91 and currently serves as an option for users to define an
92 ISO / IEC 3166 alpha2 code for the country they are currently
93 present in. Although there are userspace API replacements for this
94 through nl80211 distributions haven't yet caught up with implementing
95 decent alternatives through standard GUIs. Although available as an
96 option through iw or wpa_supplicant its just a matter of time before
97 distributions pick up good GUI options for this. The ideal solution
98 would actually consist of intelligent designs which would do this for
99 the user automatically even when travelling through different countries.
100 Until then we leave this module parameter as a compromise.
102 When userspace improves with reasonable widely-available alternatives for
103 this we will no longer need this module parameter. This entry hopes that
104 by the super-futuristically looking date of "March 2010" we will have
105 such replacements widely available.
107 Who: Luis R. Rodriguez <lrodriguez@atheros.com>
109 ---------------------------
111 What: dev->power.power_state
113 Why: Broken design for runtime control over driver power states, confusing
114 driver-internal runtime power management with: mechanisms to support
115 system-wide sleep state transitions; event codes that distinguish
116 different phases of swsusp "sleep" transitions; and userspace policy
117 inputs. This framework was never widely used, and most attempts to
118 use it were broken. Drivers should instead be exposing domain-specific
119 interfaces either to kernel or to userspace.
120 Who: Pavel Machek <pavel@ucw.cz>
122 ---------------------------
124 What: /proc/<pid>/oom_adj
126 Why: /proc/<pid>/oom_adj allows userspace to influence the oom killer's
127 badness heuristic used to determine which task to kill when the kernel
130 The badness heuristic has since been rewritten since the introduction of
131 this tunable such that its meaning is deprecated. The value was
132 implemented as a bitshift on a score generated by the badness()
133 function that did not have any precise units of measure. With the
134 rewrite, the score is given as a proportion of available memory to the
135 task allocating pages, so using a bitshift which grows the score
136 exponentially is, thus, impossible to tune with fine granularity.
138 A much more powerful interface, /proc/<pid>/oom_score_adj, was
139 introduced with the oom killer rewrite that allows users to increase or
140 decrease the badness score linearly. This interface will replace
143 A warning will be emitted to the kernel log if an application uses this
144 deprecated interface. After it is printed once, future warnings will be
145 suppressed until the kernel is rebooted.
147 ---------------------------
149 What: remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(kernel_thread)
151 Files: arch/*/kernel/*_ksyms.c
153 Why: kernel_thread is a low-level implementation detail. Drivers should
154 use the <linux/kthread.h> API instead which shields them from
155 implementation details and provides a higherlevel interface that
156 prevents bugs and code duplication
157 Who: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
159 ---------------------------
161 What: Unused EXPORT_SYMBOL/EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL exports
162 (temporary transition config option provided until then)
163 The transition config option will also be removed at the same time.
165 Why: Unused symbols are both increasing the size of the kernel binary
166 and are often a sign of "wrong API"
167 Who: Arjan van de Ven <arjan@linux.intel.com>
169 ---------------------------
171 What: PHYSDEVPATH, PHYSDEVBUS, PHYSDEVDRIVER in the uevent environment
173 Why: The stacking of class devices makes these values misleading and
175 Class devices should not carry any of these properties, and bus
176 devices have SUBSYTEM and DRIVER as a replacement.
177 Who: Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@suse.de>
179 ---------------------------
181 What: ACPI procfs interface
183 Why: ACPI sysfs conversion should be finished by January 2008.
184 ACPI procfs interface will be removed in July 2008 so that
185 there is enough time for the user space to catch up.
186 Who: Zhang Rui <rui.zhang@intel.com>
188 ---------------------------
190 What: CONFIG_ACPI_PROCFS_POWER
192 Why: sysfs I/F for ACPI power devices, including AC and Battery,
193 has been working in upstream kernel since 2.6.24, Sep 2007.
194 In 2.6.37, we make the sysfs I/F always built in and this option
196 Remove this option and the ACPI power procfs interface in 2.6.39.
197 Who: Zhang Rui <rui.zhang@intel.com>
199 ---------------------------
201 What: /proc/acpi/event
203 Why: /proc/acpi/event has been replaced by events via the input layer
204 and netlink since 2.6.23.
205 Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
207 ---------------------------
209 What: i386/x86_64 bzImage symlinks
212 Why: The i386/x86_64 merge provides a symlink to the old bzImage
213 location so not yet updated user space tools, e.g. package
214 scripts, do not break.
215 Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
217 ---------------------------
219 What: GPIO autorequest on gpio_direction_{input,output}() in gpiolib
221 Why: All callers should use explicit gpio_request()/gpio_free().
222 The autorequest mechanism in gpiolib was provided mostly as a
223 migration aid for legacy GPIO interfaces (for SOC based GPIOs).
224 Those users have now largely migrated. Platforms implementing
225 the GPIO interfaces without using gpiolib will see no changes.
226 Who: David Brownell <dbrownell@users.sourceforge.net>
227 ---------------------------
229 What: b43 support for firmware revision < 410
230 When: The schedule was July 2008, but it was decided that we are going to keep the
231 code as long as there are no major maintanance headaches.
232 So it _could_ be removed _any_ time now, if it conflicts with something new.
233 Why: The support code for the old firmware hurts code readability/maintainability
234 and slightly hurts runtime performance. Bugfixes for the old firmware
235 are not provided by Broadcom anymore.
236 Who: Michael Buesch <m@bues.ch>
238 ---------------------------
240 What: Ability for non root users to shm_get hugetlb pages based on mlock
243 Why: Non root users need to be part of /proc/sys/vm/hugetlb_shm_group or
244 have CAP_IPC_LOCK to be able to allocate shm segments backed by
245 huge pages. The mlock based rlimit check to allow shm hugetlb is
246 inconsistent with mmap based allocations. Hence it is being
248 Who: Ravikiran Thirumalai <kiran@scalex86.org>
250 ---------------------------
252 What: Code that is now under CONFIG_WIRELESS_EXT_SYSFS
253 (in net/core/net-sysfs.c)
255 Why: Over 1K .text/.data size reduction, data is available in other
257 Who: Johannes Berg <johannes@sipsolutions.net>
259 ---------------------------
261 What: sysfs ui for changing p4-clockmod parameters
263 Why: See commits 129f8ae9b1b5be94517da76009ea956e89104ce8 and
264 e088e4c9cdb618675874becb91b2fd581ee707e6.
265 Removal is subject to fixing any remaining bugs in ACPI which may
266 cause the thermal throttling not to happen at the right time.
267 Who: Dave Jones <davej@redhat.com>, Matthew Garrett <mjg@redhat.com>
269 -----------------------------
271 What: fakephp and associated sysfs files in /sys/bus/pci/slots/
273 Why: In 2.6.27, the semantics of /sys/bus/pci/slots was redefined to
274 represent a machine's physical PCI slots. The change in semantics
275 had userspace implications, as the hotplug core no longer allowed
276 drivers to create multiple sysfs files per physical slot (required
277 for multi-function devices, e.g.). fakephp was seen as a developer's
278 tool only, and its interface changed. Too late, we learned that
279 there were some users of the fakephp interface.
281 In 2.6.30, the original fakephp interface was restored. At the same
282 time, the PCI core gained the ability that fakephp provided, namely
283 function-level hot-remove and hot-add.
285 Since the PCI core now provides the same functionality, exposed in:
288 /sys/bus/pci/devices/.../remove
289 /sys/bus/pci/devices/.../rescan
291 there is no functional reason to maintain fakephp as well.
293 We will keep the existing module so that 'modprobe fakephp' will
294 present the old /sys/bus/pci/slots/... interface for compatibility,
295 but users are urged to migrate their applications to the API above.
297 After a reasonable transition period, we will remove the legacy
299 Who: Alex Chiang <achiang@hp.com>
301 ---------------------------
303 What: CONFIG_RFKILL_INPUT
305 Why: Should be implemented in userspace, policy daemon.
306 Who: Johannes Berg <johannes@sipsolutions.net>
308 ----------------------------
310 What: sound-slot/service-* module aliases and related clutters in
313 Why: OSS sound_core grabs all legacy minors (0-255) of SOUND_MAJOR
314 (14) and requests modules using custom sound-slot/service-*
315 module aliases. The only benefit of doing this is allowing
316 use of custom module aliases which might as well be considered
317 a bug at this point. This preemptive claiming prevents
318 alternative OSS implementations.
320 Till the feature is removed, the kernel will be requesting
321 both sound-slot/service-* and the standard char-major-* module
322 aliases and allow turning off the pre-claiming selectively via
323 CONFIG_SOUND_OSS_CORE_PRECLAIM and soundcore.preclaim_oss
326 After the transition phase is complete, both the custom module
327 aliases and switches to disable it will go away. This removal
328 will also allow making ALSA OSS emulation independent of
329 sound_core. The dependency will be broken then too.
330 Who: Tejun Heo <tj@kernel.org>
332 ----------------------------
334 What: sysfs-class-rfkill state file
336 Files: net/rfkill/core.c
337 Why: Documented as obsolete since Feb 2010. This file is limited to 3
338 states while the rfkill drivers can have 4 states.
339 Who: anybody or Florian Mickler <florian@mickler.org>
341 ----------------------------
343 What: sysfs-class-rfkill claim file
345 Files: net/rfkill/core.c
346 Why: It is not possible to claim an rfkill driver since 2007. This is
347 Documented as obsolete since Feb 2010.
348 Who: anybody or Florian Mickler <florian@mickler.org>
350 ----------------------------
352 What: iwlwifi 50XX module parameters
354 Why: The "..50" modules parameters were used to configure 5000 series and
355 up devices; different set of module parameters also available for 4965
356 with same functionalities. Consolidate both set into single place
357 in drivers/net/wireless/iwlwifi/iwl-agn.c
359 Who: Wey-Yi Guy <wey-yi.w.guy@intel.com>
361 ----------------------------
363 What: iwl4965 alias support
365 Why: Internal alias support has been present in module-init-tools for some
366 time, the MODULE_ALIAS("iwl4965") boilerplate aliases can be removed
369 Who: Wey-Yi Guy <wey-yi.w.guy@intel.com>
371 ---------------------------
374 Files: net/netfilter/xt_NOTRACK.c
376 Why: Superseded by xt_CT
377 Who: Netfilter developer team <netfilter-devel@vger.kernel.org>
379 ----------------------------
383 Why: The flag is a NOOP as we run interrupt handlers with interrupts disabled
384 Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
386 ----------------------------
388 What: PCI DMA unmap state API
390 Why: PCI DMA unmap state API (include/linux/pci-dma.h) was replaced
391 with DMA unmap state API (DMA unmap state API can be used for
393 Who: FUJITA Tomonori <fujita.tomonori@lab.ntt.co.jp>
395 ----------------------------
397 What: iwlwifi disable_hw_scan module parameters
399 Why: Hareware scan is the prefer method for iwlwifi devices for
400 scanning operation. Remove software scan support for all the
403 Who: Wey-Yi Guy <wey-yi.w.guy@intel.com>
405 ----------------------------
407 What: Legacy, non-standard chassis intrusion detection interface.
409 Why: The adm9240, w83792d and w83793 hardware monitoring drivers have
410 legacy interfaces for chassis intrusion detection. A standard
411 interface has been added to each driver, so the legacy interface
413 Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>
415 ----------------------------
417 What: xt_connlimit rev 0
419 Who: Jan Engelhardt <jengelh@medozas.de>
420 Files: net/netfilter/xt_connlimit.c
422 ----------------------------
424 What: ipt_addrtype match include file
426 Why: superseded by xt_addrtype
427 Who: Florian Westphal <fw@strlen.de>
428 Files: include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ipt_addrtype.h
430 ----------------------------
432 What: i2c_driver.attach_adapter
433 i2c_driver.detach_adapter
435 Why: These legacy callbacks should no longer be used as i2c-core offers
436 a variety of preferable alternative ways to instantiate I2C devices.
437 Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>
439 ----------------------------
441 What: Opening a radio device node will no longer automatically switch the
442 tuner mode from tv to radio.
444 Why: Just opening a V4L device should not change the state of the hardware
445 like that. It's very unexpected and against the V4L spec. Instead, you
446 switch to radio mode by calling VIDIOC_S_FREQUENCY. This is the second
447 and last step of the move to consistent handling of tv and radio tuners.
448 Who: Hans Verkuil <hans.verkuil@cisco.com>
450 ----------------------------
452 What: g_file_storage driver
454 Why: This driver has been superseded by g_mass_storage.
455 Who: Alan Stern <stern@rowland.harvard.edu>
457 ----------------------------
459 What: threeg and interface sysfs files in /sys/devices/platform/acer-wmi
461 Why: In 3.0, we can now autodetect internal 3G device and already have
462 the threeg rfkill device. So, we plan to remove threeg sysfs support
463 for it's no longer necessary.
465 We also plan to remove interface sysfs file that exposed which ACPI-WMI
466 interface that was used by acer-wmi driver. It will replaced by
467 information log when acer-wmi initial.
468 Who: Lee, Chun-Yi <jlee@novell.com>
470 ---------------------------
472 What: /sys/devices/platform/_UDC_/udc/_UDC_/is_dualspeed file and
473 is_dualspeed line in /sys/devices/platform/ci13xxx_*/udc/device file.
475 Why: The is_dualspeed file is superseded by maximum_speed in the same
476 directory and is_dualspeed line in device file is superseded by
477 max_speed line in the same file.
479 The maximum_speed/max_speed specifies maximum speed supported by UDC.
480 To check if dualspeeed is supported, check if the value is >= 3.
481 Various possible speeds are defined in <linux/usb/ch9.h>.
482 Who: Michal Nazarewicz <mina86@mina86.com>
484 ----------------------------
486 What: The XFS nodelaylog mount option
488 Why: The delaylog mode that has been the default since 2.6.39 has proven
489 stable, and the old code is in the way of additional improvements in
491 Who: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
493 ----------------------------
495 What: iwlagn alias support
497 Why: The iwlagn module has been renamed iwlwifi. The alias will be around
498 for backward compatibility for several cycles and then dropped.
499 Who: Don Fry <donald.h.fry@intel.com>
501 ----------------------------
503 What: pci_scan_bus_parented()
505 Why: The pci_scan_bus_parented() interface creates a new root bus. The
506 bus is created with default resources (ioport_resource and
507 iomem_resource) that are always wrong, so we rely on arch code to
508 correct them later. Callers of pci_scan_bus_parented() should
509 convert to using pci_scan_root_bus() so they can supply a list of
510 bus resources when the bus is created.
511 Who: Bjorn Helgaas <bhelgaas@google.com>
513 ----------------------------
515 What: Low Performance USB Block driver ("CONFIG_BLK_DEV_UB")
517 Why: This driver provides support for USB storage devices like "USB
518 sticks". As of now, it is deactivated in Debian, Fedora and
519 Ubuntu. All current users can switch over to usb-storage
520 (CONFIG_USB_STORAGE) which only drawback is the additional SCSI
522 Who: Sebastian Andrzej Siewior <sebastian@breakpoint.cc>
524 ----------------------------
526 What: kmap_atomic(page, km_type)
528 Why: The old kmap_atomic() with two arguments is deprecated, we only
529 keep it for backward compatibility for few cycles and then drop it.
530 Who: Cong Wang <amwang@redhat.com>
532 ----------------------------
534 What: get_robust_list syscall
536 Why: There appear to be no production users of the get_robust_list syscall,
537 and it runs the risk of leaking address locations, allowing the bypass
538 of ASLR. It was only ever intended for debugging, so it should be
540 Who: Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>
542 ----------------------------
544 What: Removing the pn544 raw driver.
546 Why: With the introduction of the NFC HCI and SHDL kernel layers, pn544.c
547 is being replaced by pn544_hci.c which is accessible through the netlink
548 and socket NFC APIs. Moreover, pn544.c is outdated and does not seem to
549 work properly with the latest Android stacks.
550 Having 2 drivers for the same hardware is confusing and as such we
551 should only keep the one following the kernel NFC APIs.
552 Who: Samuel Ortiz <sameo@linux.intel.com>
554 ----------------------------
556 What: setitimer accepts user NULL pointer (value)
558 Why: setitimer is not returning -EFAULT if user pointer is NULL. This
560 Who: Sasikantha Babu <sasikanth.v19@gmail.com>
562 ----------------------------
564 What: remove bogus DV presets V4L2_DV_1080I29_97, V4L2_DV_1080I30 and
567 Why: These HDTV formats do not exist and were added by a confused mind
568 (that was me, to be precise...)
569 Who: Hans Verkuil <hans.verkuil@cisco.com>
571 ----------------------------
573 What: V4L2_CID_HCENTER, V4L2_CID_VCENTER V4L2 controls
575 Why: The V4L2_CID_VCENTER, V4L2_CID_HCENTER controls have been deprecated
576 for about 4 years and they are not used by any mainline driver.
577 There are newer controls (V4L2_CID_PAN*, V4L2_CID_TILT*) that provide
578 similar functionality.
579 Who: Sylwester Nawrocki <sylvester.nawrocki@gmail.com>
581 ----------------------------
583 What: cgroup option updates via remount
585 Why: Remount currently allows changing bound subsystems and
586 release_agent. Rebinding is hardly useful as it only works
587 when the hierarchy is empty and release_agent itself should be
588 replaced with conventional fsnotify.
590 ----------------------------
592 What: KVM debugfs statistics
594 Why: KVM tracepoints provide mostly equivalent information in a much more
597 ----------------------------
599 What: at91-mci driver ("CONFIG_MMC_AT91")
601 Why: There are two mci drivers: at91-mci and atmel-mci. The PDC support
602 was added to atmel-mci as a first step to support more chips.
603 Then at91-mci was kept only for old IP versions (on at91rm9200 and
604 at91sam9261). The support of these IP versions has just been added
605 to atmel-mci, so atmel-mci can be used for all chips.
606 Who: Ludovic Desroches <ludovic.desroches@atmel.com>
608 ----------------------------
612 Why: Unsupported/unmaintained/unused since 2.6
614 ----------------------------