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 ---------------------------
12 Why: prism54 FullMAC PCI / Cardbus devices used to be supported only by the
13 prism54 wireless driver. After Intersil stopped selling these
14 devices in preference for the newer more flexible SoftMAC devices
15 a SoftMAC device driver was required and prism54 did not support
16 them. The p54pci driver now exists and has been present in the kernel for
17 a while. This driver supports both SoftMAC devices and FullMAC devices.
18 The main difference between these devices was the amount of memory which
19 could be used for the firmware. The SoftMAC devices support a smaller
20 amount of memory. Because of this the SoftMAC firmware fits into FullMAC
21 devices's memory. p54pci supports not only PCI / Cardbus but also USB
22 and SPI. Since p54pci supports all devices prism54 supports
23 you will have a conflict. I'm not quite sure how distributions are
24 handling this conflict right now. prism54 was kept around due to
25 claims users may experience issues when using the SoftMAC driver.
26 Time has passed users have not reported issues. If you use prism54
27 and for whatever reason you cannot use p54pci please let us know!
28 E-mail us at: linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org
30 For more information see the p54 wiki page:
32 http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/p54
34 Who: Luis R. Rodriguez <lrodriguez@atheros.com>
36 ---------------------------
38 What: IRQF_SAMPLE_RANDOM
39 Check: IRQF_SAMPLE_RANDOM
42 Why: Many of IRQF_SAMPLE_RANDOM users are technically bogus as entropy
43 sources in the kernel's current entropy model. To resolve this, every
44 input point to the kernel's entropy pool needs to better document the
45 type of entropy source it actually is. This will be replaced with
46 additional add_*_randomness functions in drivers/char/random.c
48 Who: Robin Getz <rgetz@blackfin.uclinux.org> & Matt Mackall <mpm@selenic.com>
50 ---------------------------
52 What: Deprecated snapshot ioctls
55 Why: The ioctls in kernel/power/user.c were marked as deprecated long time
56 ago. Now they notify users about that so that they need to replace
57 their userspace. After some more time, remove them completely.
59 Who: Jiri Slaby <jirislaby@gmail.com>
61 ---------------------------
63 What: The ieee80211_regdom module parameter
64 When: March 2010 / desktop catchup
66 Why: This was inherited by the CONFIG_WIRELESS_OLD_REGULATORY code,
67 and currently serves as an option for users to define an
68 ISO / IEC 3166 alpha2 code for the country they are currently
69 present in. Although there are userspace API replacements for this
70 through nl80211 distributions haven't yet caught up with implementing
71 decent alternatives through standard GUIs. Although available as an
72 option through iw or wpa_supplicant its just a matter of time before
73 distributions pick up good GUI options for this. The ideal solution
74 would actually consist of intelligent designs which would do this for
75 the user automatically even when travelling through different countries.
76 Until then we leave this module parameter as a compromise.
78 When userspace improves with reasonable widely-available alternatives for
79 this we will no longer need this module parameter. This entry hopes that
80 by the super-futuristically looking date of "March 2010" we will have
81 such replacements widely available.
83 Who: Luis R. Rodriguez <lrodriguez@atheros.com>
85 ---------------------------
87 What: dev->power.power_state
89 Why: Broken design for runtime control over driver power states, confusing
90 driver-internal runtime power management with: mechanisms to support
91 system-wide sleep state transitions; event codes that distinguish
92 different phases of swsusp "sleep" transitions; and userspace policy
93 inputs. This framework was never widely used, and most attempts to
94 use it were broken. Drivers should instead be exposing domain-specific
95 interfaces either to kernel or to userspace.
96 Who: Pavel Machek <pavel@suse.cz>
98 ---------------------------
100 What: Video4Linux API 1 ioctls and from Video devices.
102 Files: include/linux/videodev.h
103 Check: include/linux/videodev.h
104 Why: V4L1 AP1 was replaced by V4L2 API during migration from 2.4 to 2.6
105 series. The old API have lots of drawbacks and don't provide enough
106 means to work with all video and audio standards. The newer API is
107 already available on the main drivers and should be used instead.
108 Newer drivers should use v4l_compat_translate_ioctl function to handle
109 old calls, replacing to newer ones.
110 Decoder iocts are using internally to allow video drivers to
111 communicate with video decoders. This should also be improved to allow
112 V4L2 calls being translated into compatible internal ioctls.
113 Compatibility ioctls will be provided, for a while, via
115 Who: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@infradead.org>
117 ---------------------------
119 What: PCMCIA control ioctl (needed for pcmcia-cs [cardmgr, cardctl])
121 Files: drivers/pcmcia/: pcmcia_ioctl.c
122 Why: With the 16-bit PCMCIA subsystem now behaving (almost) like a
123 normal hotpluggable bus, and with it using the default kernel
124 infrastructure (hotplug, driver core, sysfs) keeping the PCMCIA
125 control ioctl needed by cardmgr and cardctl from pcmcia-cs is
126 unnecessary and potentially harmful (it does not provide for
127 proper locking), and makes further cleanups and integration of the
128 PCMCIA subsystem into the Linux kernel device driver model more
129 difficult. The features provided by cardmgr and cardctl are either
130 handled by the kernel itself now or are available in the new
131 pcmciautils package available at
132 http://kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/pcmcia/
134 For all architectures except ARM, the associated config symbol
135 has been removed from kernel 2.6.34; for ARM, it will be likely
136 be removed from kernel 2.6.35. The actual code will then likely
137 be removed from kernel 2.6.36.
138 Who: Dominik Brodowski <linux@dominikbrodowski.net>
140 ---------------------------
144 Option: CONFIG_SYSCTL_SYSCALL
145 Why: The same information is available in a more convenient from
146 /proc/sys, and none of the sysctl variables appear to be
147 important performance wise.
149 Binary sysctls are a long standing source of subtle kernel
150 bugs and security issues.
152 When I looked several months ago all I could find after
153 searching several distributions were 5 user space programs and
154 glibc (which falls back to /proc/sys) using this syscall.
156 The man page for sysctl(2) documents it as unusable for user
159 sysctl(2) is not generally ABI compatible to a 32bit user
160 space application on a 64bit and a 32bit kernel.
162 For the last several months the policy has been no new binary
163 sysctls and no one has put forward an argument to use them.
165 Binary sysctls issues seem to keep happening appearing so
166 properly deprecating them (with a warning to user space) and a
167 2 year grace warning period will mean eventually we can kill
168 them and end the pain.
170 In the mean time individual binary sysctls can be dealt with
171 in a piecewise fashion.
173 Who: Eric Biederman <ebiederm@xmission.com>
175 ---------------------------
177 What: remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(kernel_thread)
179 Files: arch/*/kernel/*_ksyms.c
181 Why: kernel_thread is a low-level implementation detail. Drivers should
182 use the <linux/kthread.h> API instead which shields them from
183 implementation details and provides a higherlevel interface that
184 prevents bugs and code duplication
185 Who: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
187 ---------------------------
189 What: Unused EXPORT_SYMBOL/EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL exports
190 (temporary transition config option provided until then)
191 The transition config option will also be removed at the same time.
193 Why: Unused symbols are both increasing the size of the kernel binary
194 and are often a sign of "wrong API"
195 Who: Arjan van de Ven <arjan@linux.intel.com>
197 ---------------------------
199 What: PHYSDEVPATH, PHYSDEVBUS, PHYSDEVDRIVER in the uevent environment
201 Why: The stacking of class devices makes these values misleading and
203 Class devices should not carry any of these properties, and bus
204 devices have SUBSYTEM and DRIVER as a replacement.
205 Who: Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@suse.de>
207 ---------------------------
209 What: ACPI procfs interface
211 Why: ACPI sysfs conversion should be finished by January 2008.
212 ACPI procfs interface will be removed in July 2008 so that
213 there is enough time for the user space to catch up.
214 Who: Zhang Rui <rui.zhang@intel.com>
216 ---------------------------
218 What: /proc/acpi/button
220 Why: /proc/acpi/button has been replaced by events to the input layer
222 Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
224 ---------------------------
226 What: /proc/acpi/event
228 Why: /proc/acpi/event has been replaced by events via the input layer
229 and netlink since 2.6.23.
230 Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
232 ---------------------------
234 What: i386/x86_64 bzImage symlinks
237 Why: The i386/x86_64 merge provides a symlink to the old bzImage
238 location so not yet updated user space tools, e.g. package
239 scripts, do not break.
240 Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
242 ---------------------------
244 What: GPIO autorequest on gpio_direction_{input,output}() in gpiolib
246 Why: All callers should use explicit gpio_request()/gpio_free().
247 The autorequest mechanism in gpiolib was provided mostly as a
248 migration aid for legacy GPIO interfaces (for SOC based GPIOs).
249 Those users have now largely migrated. Platforms implementing
250 the GPIO interfaces without using gpiolib will see no changes.
251 Who: David Brownell <dbrownell@users.sourceforge.net>
252 ---------------------------
254 What: b43 support for firmware revision < 410
255 When: The schedule was July 2008, but it was decided that we are going to keep the
256 code as long as there are no major maintanance headaches.
257 So it _could_ be removed _any_ time now, if it conflicts with something new.
258 Why: The support code for the old firmware hurts code readability/maintainability
259 and slightly hurts runtime performance. Bugfixes for the old firmware
260 are not provided by Broadcom anymore.
261 Who: Michael Buesch <mb@bu3sch.de>
263 ---------------------------
265 What: /sys/o2cb symlink
267 Why: /sys/fs/o2cb is the proper location for this information - /sys/o2cb
268 exists as a symlink for backwards compatibility for old versions of
269 ocfs2-tools. 2 years should be sufficient time to phase in new versions
270 which know to look in /sys/fs/o2cb.
271 Who: ocfs2-devel@oss.oracle.com
273 ---------------------------
275 What: Ability for non root users to shm_get hugetlb pages based on mlock
278 Why: Non root users need to be part of /proc/sys/vm/hugetlb_shm_group or
279 have CAP_IPC_LOCK to be able to allocate shm segments backed by
280 huge pages. The mlock based rlimit check to allow shm hugetlb is
281 inconsistent with mmap based allocations. Hence it is being
283 Who: Ravikiran Thirumalai <kiran@scalex86.org>
285 ---------------------------
287 What: CONFIG_THERMAL_HWMON
289 Why: This option was introduced just to allow older lm-sensors userspace
290 to keep working over the upgrade to 2.6.26. At the scheduled time of
291 removal fixed lm-sensors (2.x or 3.x) should be readily available.
292 Who: Rene Herman <rene.herman@gmail.com>
294 ---------------------------
296 What: Code that is now under CONFIG_WIRELESS_EXT_SYSFS
297 (in net/core/net-sysfs.c)
298 When: After the only user (hal) has seen a release with the patches
299 for enough time, probably some time in 2010.
300 Why: Over 1K .text/.data size reduction, data is available in other
302 Who: Johannes Berg <johannes@sipsolutions.net>
304 ---------------------------
306 What: CONFIG_NF_CT_ACCT
308 Why: Accounting can now be enabled/disabled without kernel recompilation.
309 Currently used only to set a default value for a feature that is also
310 controlled by a kernel/module/sysfs/sysctl parameter.
311 Who: Krzysztof Piotr Oledzki <ole@ans.pl>
313 ---------------------------
315 What: sysfs ui for changing p4-clockmod parameters
317 Why: See commits 129f8ae9b1b5be94517da76009ea956e89104ce8 and
318 e088e4c9cdb618675874becb91b2fd581ee707e6.
319 Removal is subject to fixing any remaining bugs in ACPI which may
320 cause the thermal throttling not to happen at the right time.
321 Who: Dave Jones <davej@redhat.com>, Matthew Garrett <mjg@redhat.com>
323 -----------------------------
325 What: __do_IRQ all in one fits nothing interrupt handler
327 Why: __do_IRQ was kept for easy migration to the type flow handlers.
328 More than two years of migration time is enough.
329 Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
331 -----------------------------
333 What: fakephp and associated sysfs files in /sys/bus/pci/slots/
335 Why: In 2.6.27, the semantics of /sys/bus/pci/slots was redefined to
336 represent a machine's physical PCI slots. The change in semantics
337 had userspace implications, as the hotplug core no longer allowed
338 drivers to create multiple sysfs files per physical slot (required
339 for multi-function devices, e.g.). fakephp was seen as a developer's
340 tool only, and its interface changed. Too late, we learned that
341 there were some users of the fakephp interface.
343 In 2.6.30, the original fakephp interface was restored. At the same
344 time, the PCI core gained the ability that fakephp provided, namely
345 function-level hot-remove and hot-add.
347 Since the PCI core now provides the same functionality, exposed in:
350 /sys/bus/pci/devices/.../remove
351 /sys/bus/pci/devices/.../rescan
353 there is no functional reason to maintain fakephp as well.
355 We will keep the existing module so that 'modprobe fakephp' will
356 present the old /sys/bus/pci/slots/... interface for compatibility,
357 but users are urged to migrate their applications to the API above.
359 After a reasonable transition period, we will remove the legacy
361 Who: Alex Chiang <achiang@hp.com>
363 ---------------------------
365 What: CONFIG_RFKILL_INPUT
367 Why: Should be implemented in userspace, policy daemon.
368 Who: Johannes Berg <johannes@sipsolutions.net>
370 ---------------------------
374 Why: last user (audit) will be converted to the newer more generic
375 and more easily maintained fsnotify subsystem
376 Who: Eric Paris <eparis@redhat.com>
378 ----------------------------
380 What: lock_policy_rwsem_* and unlock_policy_rwsem_* will not be
381 exported interface anymore.
383 Why: cpu_policy_rwsem has a new cleaner definition making it local to
384 cpufreq core and contained inside cpufreq.c. Other dependent
385 drivers should not use it in order to safely avoid lockdep issues.
386 Who: Venkatesh Pallipadi <venkatesh.pallipadi@intel.com>
388 ----------------------------
390 What: sound-slot/service-* module aliases and related clutters in
393 Why: OSS sound_core grabs all legacy minors (0-255) of SOUND_MAJOR
394 (14) and requests modules using custom sound-slot/service-*
395 module aliases. The only benefit of doing this is allowing
396 use of custom module aliases which might as well be considered
397 a bug at this point. This preemptive claiming prevents
398 alternative OSS implementations.
400 Till the feature is removed, the kernel will be requesting
401 both sound-slot/service-* and the standard char-major-* module
402 aliases and allow turning off the pre-claiming selectively via
403 CONFIG_SOUND_OSS_CORE_PRECLAIM and soundcore.preclaim_oss
406 After the transition phase is complete, both the custom module
407 aliases and switches to disable it will go away. This removal
408 will also allow making ALSA OSS emulation independent of
409 sound_core. The dependency will be broken then too.
410 Who: Tejun Heo <tj@kernel.org>
412 ----------------------------
414 What: Support for VMware's guest paravirtuliazation technique [VMI] will be
416 When: 2.6.37 or earlier.
417 Why: With the recent innovations in CPU hardware acceleration technologies
418 from Intel and AMD, VMware ran a few experiments to compare these
419 techniques to guest paravirtualization technique on VMware's platform.
420 These hardware assisted virtualization techniques have outperformed the
421 performance benefits provided by VMI in most of the workloads. VMware
422 expects that these hardware features will be ubiquitous in a couple of
423 years, as a result, VMware has started a phased retirement of this
424 feature from the hypervisor. We will be removing this feature from the
425 Kernel too. Right now we are targeting 2.6.37 but can retire earlier if
426 technical reasons (read opportunity to remove major chunk of pvops)
429 Please note that VMI has always been an optimization and non-VMI kernels
430 still work fine on VMware's platform.
431 Latest versions of VMware's product which support VMI are,
432 Workstation 7.0 and VSphere 4.0 on ESX side, future maintainence
433 releases for these products will continue supporting VMI.
435 For more details about VMI retirement take a look at this,
436 http://blogs.vmware.com/guestosguide/2009/09/vmi-retirement.html
438 Who: Alok N Kataria <akataria@vmware.com>
440 ----------------------------
442 What: Support for lcd_switch and display_get in asus-laptop driver
444 Why: These two features use non-standard interfaces. There are the
445 only features that really need multiple path to guess what's
446 the right method name on a specific laptop.
448 Removing them will allow to remove a lot of code an significantly
451 This will affect the backlight code which won't be able to know
452 if the backlight is on or off. The platform display file will also be
453 write only (like the one in eeepc-laptop).
455 This should'nt affect a lot of user because they usually know
456 when their display is on or off.
458 Who: Corentin Chary <corentin.chary@gmail.com>
460 ----------------------------
462 What: usbvideo quickcam_messenger driver
464 Files: drivers/media/video/usbvideo/quickcam_messenger.[ch]
465 Why: obsolete v4l1 driver replaced by gspca_stv06xx
466 Who: Hans de Goede <hdegoede@redhat.com>
468 ----------------------------
470 What: ov511 v4l1 driver
472 Files: drivers/media/video/ov511.[ch]
473 Why: obsolete v4l1 driver replaced by gspca_ov519
474 Who: Hans de Goede <hdegoede@redhat.com>
476 ----------------------------
478 What: w9968cf v4l1 driver
480 Files: drivers/media/video/w9968cf*.[ch]
481 Why: obsolete v4l1 driver replaced by gspca_ov519
482 Who: Hans de Goede <hdegoede@redhat.com>
484 ----------------------------
486 What: ovcamchip sensor framework
488 Files: drivers/media/video/ovcamchip/*
489 Why: Only used by obsoleted v4l1 drivers
490 Who: Hans de Goede <hdegoede@redhat.com>
492 ----------------------------
494 What: stv680 v4l1 driver
496 Files: drivers/media/video/stv680.[ch]
497 Why: obsolete v4l1 driver replaced by gspca_stv0680
498 Who: Hans de Goede <hdegoede@redhat.com>
500 ----------------------------
502 What: zc0301 v4l driver
504 Files: drivers/media/video/zc0301/*
505 Why: Duplicate functionality with the gspca_zc3xx driver, zc0301 only
506 supports 2 USB-ID's (because it only supports a limited set of
507 sensors) wich are also supported by the gspca_zc3xx driver
508 (which supports 53 USB-ID's in total)
509 Who: Hans de Goede <hdegoede@redhat.com>
511 ----------------------------
513 What: sysfs-class-rfkill state file
515 Files: net/rfkill/core.c
516 Why: Documented as obsolete since Feb 2010. This file is limited to 3
517 states while the rfkill drivers can have 4 states.
518 Who: anybody or Florian Mickler <florian@mickler.org>
520 ----------------------------
522 What: sysfs-class-rfkill claim file
524 Files: net/rfkill/core.c
525 Why: It is not possible to claim an rfkill driver since 2007. This is
526 Documented as obsolete since Feb 2010.
527 Who: anybody or Florian Mickler <florian@mickler.org>
529 ----------------------------
533 Files: drivers/isdn/capi/capifs.*
534 Why: udev fully replaces this special file system that only contains CAPI
535 NCCI TTY device nodes. User space (pppdcapiplugin) works without
536 noticing the difference.
537 Who: Jan Kiszka <jan.kiszka@web.de>
539 ----------------------------
541 What: KVM memory aliases support
543 Why: Memory aliasing support is used for speeding up guest vga access
544 through the vga windows.
546 Modern userspace no longer uses this feature, so it's just bitrotted
547 code and can be removed with no impact.
548 Who: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>
550 ----------------------------
552 What: xtime, wall_to_monotonic
554 Files: kernel/time/timekeeping.c include/linux/time.h
555 Why: Cleaning up timekeeping internal values. Please use
556 existing timekeeping accessor functions to access
557 the equivalent functionality.
558 Who: John Stultz <johnstul@us.ibm.com>
560 ----------------------------
562 What: KVM kernel-allocated memory slots
564 Why: Since 2.6.25, kvm supports user-allocated memory slots, which are
565 much more flexible than kernel-allocated slots. All current userspace
566 supports the newer interface and this code can be removed with no
568 Who: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>
570 ----------------------------
572 What: KVM paravirt mmu host support
574 Why: The paravirt mmu host support is slower than non-paravirt mmu, both
575 on newer and older hardware. It is already not exposed to the guest,
576 and kept only for live migration purposes.
577 Who: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>
579 ----------------------------
581 What: iwlwifi 50XX module parameters
583 Why: The "..50" modules parameters were used to configure 5000 series and
584 up devices; different set of module parameters also available for 4965
585 with same functionalities. Consolidate both set into single place
586 in drivers/net/wireless/iwlwifi/iwl-agn.c
588 Who: Wey-Yi Guy <wey-yi.w.guy@intel.com>
590 ----------------------------
592 What: iwl4965 alias support
594 Why: Internal alias support has been present in module-init-tools for some
595 time, the MODULE_ALIAS("iwl4965") boilerplate aliases can be removed
598 Who: Wey-Yi Guy <wey-yi.w.guy@intel.com>
600 ---------------------------
603 Files: net/netfilter/xt_NOTRACK.c
605 Why: Superseded by xt_CT
606 Who: Netfilter developer team <netfilter-devel@vger.kernel.org>
608 ---------------------------
610 What: video4linux /dev/vtx teletext API support
612 Files: drivers/media/video/saa5246a.c drivers/media/video/saa5249.c
613 include/linux/videotext.h
614 Why: The vtx device nodes have been superseded by vbi device nodes
615 for many years. No applications exist that use the vtx support.
616 Of the two i2c drivers that actually support this API the saa5249
617 has been impossible to use for a year now and no known hardware
618 that supports this device exists. The saa5246a is theoretically
619 supported by the old mxb boards, but it never actually worked.
621 In summary: there is no hardware that can use this API and there
622 are no applications actually implementing this API.
624 The vtx support still reserves minors 192-223 and we would really
625 like to reuse those for upcoming new functionality. In the unlikely
626 event that new hardware appears that wants to use the functionality
627 provided by the vtx API, then that functionality should be build
628 around the sliced VBI API instead.
629 Who: Hans Verkuil <hverkuil@xs4all.nl>
631 ----------------------------
635 Why: The flag is a NOOP as we run interrupt handlers with interrupts disabled
636 Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
638 ----------------------------
640 What: old ieee1394 subsystem (CONFIG_IEEE1394)
642 Files: drivers/ieee1394/ except init_ohci1394_dma.c
643 Why: superseded by drivers/firewire/ (CONFIG_FIREWIRE) which offers more
644 features, better performance, and better security, all with smaller
645 and more modern code base
646 Who: Stefan Richter <stefanr@s5r6.in-berlin.de>
648 ----------------------------
650 What: The acpi_sleep=s4_nonvs command line option
652 Files: arch/x86/kernel/acpi/sleep.c
653 Why: superseded by acpi_sleep=nonvs
654 Who: Rafael J. Wysocki <rjw@sisk.pl>
656 ----------------------------