kernel-ark/Documentation/feature-removal-schedule.txt

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The following is a list of files and features that are going to be
removed in the kernel source tree. Every entry should contain what
exactly is going away, why it is happening, and who is going to be doing
the work. When the feature is removed from the kernel, it should also
be removed from this file.
---------------------------
What: MXSER
When: December 2007
Why: Old mxser driver is obsoleted by the mxser_new. Give it some time yet
and remove it.
Who: Jiri Slaby <jirislaby@gmail.com>
---------------------------
What: dev->power.power_state
When: July 2007
Why: Broken design for runtime control over driver power states, confusing
driver-internal runtime power management with: mechanisms to support
system-wide sleep state transitions; event codes that distinguish
different phases of swsusp "sleep" transitions; and userspace policy
inputs. This framework was never widely used, and most attempts to
use it were broken. Drivers should instead be exposing domain-specific
interfaces either to kernel or to userspace.
Who: Pavel Machek <pavel@suse.cz>
---------------------------
What: old NCR53C9x driver
When: October 2007
Why: Replaced by the much better esp_scsi driver. Actual low-level
driver can be ported over almost trivially.
Who: David Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
---------------------------
What: Video4Linux API 1 ioctls and video_decoder.h from Video devices.
When: December 2008
Files: include/linux/video_decoder.h include/linux/videodev.h
Check: include/linux/video_decoder.h include/linux/videodev.h
Why: V4L1 AP1 was replaced by V4L2 API during migration from 2.4 to 2.6
series. The old API have lots of drawbacks and don't provide enough
means to work with all video and audio standards. The newer API is
already available on the main drivers and should be used instead.
Newer drivers should use v4l_compat_translate_ioctl function to handle
old calls, replacing to newer ones.
Decoder iocts are using internally to allow video drivers to
communicate with video decoders. This should also be improved to allow
V4L2 calls being translated into compatible internal ioctls.
Compatibility ioctls will be provided, for a while, via
v4l1-compat module.
Who: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@infradead.org>
---------------------------
What: PCMCIA control ioctl (needed for pcmcia-cs [cardmgr, cardctl])
When: November 2005
Files: drivers/pcmcia/: pcmcia_ioctl.c
Why: With the 16-bit PCMCIA subsystem now behaving (almost) like a
normal hotpluggable bus, and with it using the default kernel
infrastructure (hotplug, driver core, sysfs) keeping the PCMCIA
control ioctl needed by cardmgr and cardctl from pcmcia-cs is
unnecessary, and makes further cleanups and integration of the
PCMCIA subsystem into the Linux kernel device driver model more
difficult. The features provided by cardmgr and cardctl are either
handled by the kernel itself now or are available in the new
pcmciautils package available at
http://kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/pcmcia/
Who: Dominik Brodowski <linux@brodo.de>
---------------------------
What: sys_sysctl
When: September 2010
Option: CONFIG_SYSCTL_SYSCALL
Why: The same information is available in a more convenient from
/proc/sys, and none of the sysctl variables appear to be
important performance wise.
Binary sysctls are a long standing source of subtle kernel
bugs and security issues.
When I looked several months ago all I could find after
searching several distributions were 5 user space programs and
glibc (which falls back to /proc/sys) using this syscall.
The man page for sysctl(2) documents it as unusable for user
space programs.
sysctl(2) is not generally ABI compatible to a 32bit user
space application on a 64bit and a 32bit kernel.
For the last several months the policy has been no new binary
sysctls and no one has put forward an argument to use them.
Binary sysctls issues seem to keep happening appearing so
properly deprecating them (with a warning to user space) and a
2 year grace warning period will mean eventually we can kill
them and end the pain.
In the mean time individual binary sysctls can be dealt with
in a piecewise fashion.
Who: Eric Biederman <ebiederm@xmission.com>
---------------------------
What: a.out interpreter support for ELF executables
When: 2.6.25
Files: fs/binfmt_elf.c
Why: Using a.out interpreters for ELF executables was a feature for
transition from a.out to ELF. But now it is unlikely to be still
needed anymore and removing it would simplify the hairy ELF
loader code.
Who: Andi Kleen <ak@suse.de>
---------------------------
What: remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(kernel_thread)
When: August 2006
Files: arch/*/kernel/*_ksyms.c
Check: kernel_thread
Why: kernel_thread is a low-level implementation detail. Drivers should
use the <linux/kthread.h> API instead which shields them from
implementation details and provides a higherlevel interface that
prevents bugs and code duplication
Who: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
---------------------------
What: CONFIG_FORCED_INLINING
When: June 2006
Why: Config option is there to see if gcc is good enough. (in january
2006). If it is, the behavior should just be the default. If it's not,
the option should just go away entirely.
Who: Arjan van de Ven
---------------------------
What: eepro100 network driver
When: January 2007
Why: replaced by the e100 driver
Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
2006-02-07 06:47:12 +00:00
---------------------------
What: Unused EXPORT_SYMBOL/EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL exports
(temporary transition config option provided until then)
The transition config option will also be removed at the same time.
When: before 2.6.19
Why: Unused symbols are both increasing the size of the kernel binary
and are often a sign of "wrong API"
Who: Arjan van de Ven <arjan@linux.intel.com>
---------------------------
What: USB driver API moves to EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL
When: February 2008
Files: include/linux/usb.h, drivers/usb/core/driver.c
Why: The USB subsystem has changed a lot over time, and it has been
possible to create userspace USB drivers using usbfs/libusb/gadgetfs
that operate as fast as the USB bus allows. Because of this, the USB
subsystem will not be allowing closed source kernel drivers to
register with it, after this grace period is over. If anyone needs
any help in converting their closed source drivers over to use the
userspace filesystems, please contact the
linux-usb-devel@lists.sourceforge.net mailing list, and the developers
there will be glad to help you out.
Who: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>
---------------------------
mm: merge populate and nopage into fault (fixes nonlinear) Nonlinear mappings are (AFAIKS) simply a virtual memory concept that encodes the virtual address -> file offset differently from linear mappings. ->populate is a layering violation because the filesystem/pagecache code should need to know anything about the virtual memory mapping. The hitch here is that the ->nopage handler didn't pass down enough information (ie. pgoff). But it is more logical to pass pgoff rather than have the ->nopage function calculate it itself anyway (because that's a similar layering violation). Having the populate handler install the pte itself is likewise a nasty thing to be doing. This patch introduces a new fault handler that replaces ->nopage and ->populate and (later) ->nopfn. Most of the old mechanism is still in place so there is a lot of duplication and nice cleanups that can be removed if everyone switches over. The rationale for doing this in the first place is that nonlinear mappings are subject to the pagefault vs invalidate/truncate race too, and it seemed stupid to duplicate the synchronisation logic rather than just consolidate the two. After this patch, MAP_NONBLOCK no longer sets up ptes for pages present in pagecache. Seems like a fringe functionality anyway. NOPAGE_REFAULT is removed. This should be implemented with ->fault, and no users have hit mainline yet. [akpm@linux-foundation.org: cleanup] [randy.dunlap@oracle.com: doc. fixes for readahead] [akpm@linux-foundation.org: build fix] Signed-off-by: Nick Piggin <npiggin@suse.de> Signed-off-by: Randy Dunlap <randy.dunlap@oracle.com> Cc: Mark Fasheh <mark.fasheh@oracle.com> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2007-07-19 08:46:59 +00:00
What: vm_ops.nopage
When: Soon, provided in-kernel callers have been converted
mm: merge populate and nopage into fault (fixes nonlinear) Nonlinear mappings are (AFAIKS) simply a virtual memory concept that encodes the virtual address -> file offset differently from linear mappings. ->populate is a layering violation because the filesystem/pagecache code should need to know anything about the virtual memory mapping. The hitch here is that the ->nopage handler didn't pass down enough information (ie. pgoff). But it is more logical to pass pgoff rather than have the ->nopage function calculate it itself anyway (because that's a similar layering violation). Having the populate handler install the pte itself is likewise a nasty thing to be doing. This patch introduces a new fault handler that replaces ->nopage and ->populate and (later) ->nopfn. Most of the old mechanism is still in place so there is a lot of duplication and nice cleanups that can be removed if everyone switches over. The rationale for doing this in the first place is that nonlinear mappings are subject to the pagefault vs invalidate/truncate race too, and it seemed stupid to duplicate the synchronisation logic rather than just consolidate the two. After this patch, MAP_NONBLOCK no longer sets up ptes for pages present in pagecache. Seems like a fringe functionality anyway. NOPAGE_REFAULT is removed. This should be implemented with ->fault, and no users have hit mainline yet. [akpm@linux-foundation.org: cleanup] [randy.dunlap@oracle.com: doc. fixes for readahead] [akpm@linux-foundation.org: build fix] Signed-off-by: Nick Piggin <npiggin@suse.de> Signed-off-by: Randy Dunlap <randy.dunlap@oracle.com> Cc: Mark Fasheh <mark.fasheh@oracle.com> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2007-07-19 08:46:59 +00:00
Why: This interface is replaced by vm_ops.fault, but it has been around
forever, is used by a lot of drivers, and doesn't cost much to
maintain.
Who: Nick Piggin <npiggin@suse.de>
---------------------------
What: PHYSDEVPATH, PHYSDEVBUS, PHYSDEVDRIVER in the uevent environment
When: October 2008
Why: The stacking of class devices makes these values misleading and
inconsistent.
Class devices should not carry any of these properties, and bus
devices have SUBSYTEM and DRIVER as a replacement.
Who: Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@suse.de>
---------------------------
What: i2c_adapter.list
When: July 2007
Why: Superfluous, this list duplicates the one maintained by the driver
core.
Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>,
David Brownell <dbrownell@users.sourceforge.net>
---------------------------
What: ACPI procfs interface
When: July 2008
Why: ACPI sysfs conversion should be finished by January 2008.
ACPI procfs interface will be removed in July 2008 so that
there is enough time for the user space to catch up.
Who: Zhang Rui <rui.zhang@intel.com>
---------------------------
What: /proc/acpi/button
When: August 2007
Why: /proc/acpi/button has been replaced by events to the input layer
since 2.6.20.
Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
---------------------------
What: /proc/acpi/event
When: February 2008
Why: /proc/acpi/event has been replaced by events via the input layer
and netlink since 2.6.23.
Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
---------------------------
What: i2c-ixp2000, i2c-ixp4xx and scx200_i2c drivers
When: September 2007
Why: Obsolete. The new i2c-gpio driver replaces all hardware-specific
I2C-over-GPIO drivers.
Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>
---------------------------
What: 'time' kernel boot parameter
When: January 2008
Why: replaced by 'printk.time=<value>' so that printk timestamps can be
enabled or disabled as needed
Who: Randy Dunlap <randy.dunlap@oracle.com>
---------------------------
What: drivers depending on OSS_OBSOLETE
When: options in 2.6.23, code in 2.6.25
Why: obsolete OSS drivers
Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
---------------------------
What: libata spindown skipping and warning
libata: implement libata.spindown_compat Now that libata uses sd->manage_start_stop, libata spins down disk on shutdown. In an attempt to compensate libata's previous shortcoming, some distros sync and spin down disks attached via libata in their shutdown(8). Some disks spin back up just to spin down again on STANDBYNOW1 if the command is issued when the disk is spun down, so this double spinning down causes problem. This patch implements module parameter libata.spindown_compat which, when set to one (default value), prevents libata from spinning down disks on shutdown thus avoiding double spinning down. Note that libata spins down disks for suspend to mem and disk, so with libata.spindown_compat set to one, disks should be properly spun down in all cases without modifying shutdown(8). shutdown(8) should be fixed eventually. Some drive do spin up on SYNCHRONZE_CACHE even when their cache is clean. Those disks currently spin up briefly when sd tries to shutdown the device and then the machine powers off immediately, which can't be good for the head. We can't skip SYNCHRONIZE_CACHE during shudown as it can be dangerous data integrity-wise. So, this spindown_compat parameter is already scheduled for removal by the end of the next year and here's what shutdown(8) should do. * Check whether /sys/modules/libata/parameters/spindown_compat exists. If it does, write 0 to it. * For each libata harddisk { * Check whether /sys/class/scsi_disk/h:c:i:l/manage_start_stop exists. Iff it doesn't, synchronize cache and spin the disk down as before. } The above procedure will make shutdown(8) work properly with kernels before this change, ones with this workaround and later ones without it. To accelerate shutdown(8) updates, if the compat mode is in use, this patch prints BIG FAT warning for five seconds during shutdown (the optimal interval to annoy the user just the right amount discovered by hours of tireless usability testing). Signed-off-by: Tejun Heo <htejun@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: Jeff Garzik <jeff@garzik.org>
2007-05-04 19:28:48 +00:00
When: Dec 2008
Why: Some halt(8) implementations synchronize caches for and spin
down libata disks because libata didn't use to spin down disk on
system halt (only synchronized caches).
Spin down on system halt is now implemented. sysfs node
/sys/class/scsi_disk/h:c:i:l/manage_start_stop is present if
spin down support is available.
libata: implement libata.spindown_compat Now that libata uses sd->manage_start_stop, libata spins down disk on shutdown. In an attempt to compensate libata's previous shortcoming, some distros sync and spin down disks attached via libata in their shutdown(8). Some disks spin back up just to spin down again on STANDBYNOW1 if the command is issued when the disk is spun down, so this double spinning down causes problem. This patch implements module parameter libata.spindown_compat which, when set to one (default value), prevents libata from spinning down disks on shutdown thus avoiding double spinning down. Note that libata spins down disks for suspend to mem and disk, so with libata.spindown_compat set to one, disks should be properly spun down in all cases without modifying shutdown(8). shutdown(8) should be fixed eventually. Some drive do spin up on SYNCHRONZE_CACHE even when their cache is clean. Those disks currently spin up briefly when sd tries to shutdown the device and then the machine powers off immediately, which can't be good for the head. We can't skip SYNCHRONIZE_CACHE during shudown as it can be dangerous data integrity-wise. So, this spindown_compat parameter is already scheduled for removal by the end of the next year and here's what shutdown(8) should do. * Check whether /sys/modules/libata/parameters/spindown_compat exists. If it does, write 0 to it. * For each libata harddisk { * Check whether /sys/class/scsi_disk/h:c:i:l/manage_start_stop exists. Iff it doesn't, synchronize cache and spin the disk down as before. } The above procedure will make shutdown(8) work properly with kernels before this change, ones with this workaround and later ones without it. To accelerate shutdown(8) updates, if the compat mode is in use, this patch prints BIG FAT warning for five seconds during shutdown (the optimal interval to annoy the user just the right amount discovered by hours of tireless usability testing). Signed-off-by: Tejun Heo <htejun@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: Jeff Garzik <jeff@garzik.org>
2007-05-04 19:28:48 +00:00
Because issuing spin down command to an already spun down disk
makes some disks spin up just to spin down again, libata tracks
device spindown status to skip the extra spindown command and
warn about it.
This is to give userspace tools the time to get updated and will
be removed after userspace is reasonably updated.
libata: implement libata.spindown_compat Now that libata uses sd->manage_start_stop, libata spins down disk on shutdown. In an attempt to compensate libata's previous shortcoming, some distros sync and spin down disks attached via libata in their shutdown(8). Some disks spin back up just to spin down again on STANDBYNOW1 if the command is issued when the disk is spun down, so this double spinning down causes problem. This patch implements module parameter libata.spindown_compat which, when set to one (default value), prevents libata from spinning down disks on shutdown thus avoiding double spinning down. Note that libata spins down disks for suspend to mem and disk, so with libata.spindown_compat set to one, disks should be properly spun down in all cases without modifying shutdown(8). shutdown(8) should be fixed eventually. Some drive do spin up on SYNCHRONZE_CACHE even when their cache is clean. Those disks currently spin up briefly when sd tries to shutdown the device and then the machine powers off immediately, which can't be good for the head. We can't skip SYNCHRONIZE_CACHE during shudown as it can be dangerous data integrity-wise. So, this spindown_compat parameter is already scheduled for removal by the end of the next year and here's what shutdown(8) should do. * Check whether /sys/modules/libata/parameters/spindown_compat exists. If it does, write 0 to it. * For each libata harddisk { * Check whether /sys/class/scsi_disk/h:c:i:l/manage_start_stop exists. Iff it doesn't, synchronize cache and spin the disk down as before. } The above procedure will make shutdown(8) work properly with kernels before this change, ones with this workaround and later ones without it. To accelerate shutdown(8) updates, if the compat mode is in use, this patch prints BIG FAT warning for five seconds during shutdown (the optimal interval to annoy the user just the right amount discovered by hours of tireless usability testing). Signed-off-by: Tejun Heo <htejun@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: Jeff Garzik <jeff@garzik.org>
2007-05-04 19:28:48 +00:00
Who: Tejun Heo <htejun@gmail.com>
---------------------------
What: Legacy RTC drivers (under drivers/i2c/chips)
When: November 2007
Why: Obsolete. We have a RTC subsystem with better drivers.
Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>
---------------------------
What: iptables SAME target
When: 1.1. 2008
Files: net/ipv4/netfilter/ipt_SAME.c, include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ipt_SAME.h
Why: Obsolete for multiple years now, NAT core provides the same behaviour.
Unfixable broken wrt. 32/64 bit cleanness.
Who: Patrick McHardy <kaber@trash.net>
---------------------------
What: The arch/ppc and include/asm-ppc directories
When: Jun 2008
Why: The arch/powerpc tree is the merged architecture for ppc32 and ppc64
platforms. Currently there are efforts underway to port the remaining
arch/ppc platforms to the merged tree. New submissions to the arch/ppc
tree have been frozen with the 2.6.22 kernel release and that tree will
remain in bug-fix only mode until its scheduled removal. Platforms
that are not ported by June 2008 will be removed due to the lack of an
interested maintainer.
Who: linuxppc-dev@ozlabs.org
---------------------------
What: sk98lin network driver
When: Feburary 2008
Why: In kernel tree version of driver is unmaintained. Sk98lin driver
replaced by the skge driver.
Who: Stephen Hemminger <shemminger@linux-foundation.org>
---------------------------
What: i386/x86_64 bzImage symlinks
When: April 2008
Why: The i386/x86_64 merge provides a symlink to the old bzImage
location so not yet updated user space tools, e.g. package
scripts, do not break.
Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Merge branch 'master' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/davem/net-2.6 * 'master' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/davem/net-2.6: (867 commits) [SKY2]: status polling loop (post merge) [NET]: Fix NAPI completion handling in some drivers. [TCP]: Limit processing lost_retrans loop to work-to-do cases [TCP]: Fix lost_retrans loop vs fastpath problems [TCP]: No need to re-count fackets_out/sacked_out at RTO [TCP]: Extract tcp_match_queue_to_sack from sacktag code [TCP]: Kill almost unused variable pcount from sacktag [TCP]: Fix mark_head_lost to ignore R-bit when trying to mark L [TCP]: Add bytes_acked (ABC) clearing to FRTO too [IPv6]: Update setsockopt(IPV6_MULTICAST_IF) to support RFC 3493, try2 [NETFILTER]: x_tables: add missing ip6t_modulename aliases [NETFILTER]: nf_conntrack_tcp: fix connection reopening [QETH]: fix qeth_main.c [NETLINK]: fib_frontend build fixes [IPv6]: Export userland ND options through netlink (RDNSS support) [9P]: build fix with !CONFIG_SYSCTL [NET]: Fix dev_put() and dev_hold() comments [NET]: make netlink user -> kernel interface synchronious [NET]: unify netlink kernel socket recognition [NET]: cleanup 3rd argument in netlink_sendskb ... Fix up conflicts manually in Documentation/feature-removal-schedule.txt and my new least favourite crap, the "mod_devicetable" support in the files include/linux/mod_devicetable.h and scripts/mod/file2alias.c. (The latter files seem to be explicitly _designed_ to get conflicts when different subsystems work with them - that have an absolutely horrid lack of subsystem separation!) Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2007-10-12 02:40:14 +00:00
---------------------------
What: shaper network driver
When: January 2008
Files: drivers/net/shaper.c, include/linux/if_shaper.h
Why: This driver has been marked obsolete for many years.
It was only designed to work on lower speed links and has design
flaws that lead to machine crashes. The qdisc infrastructure in
2.4 or later kernels, provides richer features and is more robust.
Who: Stephen Hemminger <shemminger@linux-foundation.org>
Merge branch 'master' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/davem/net-2.6 * 'master' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/davem/net-2.6: (867 commits) [SKY2]: status polling loop (post merge) [NET]: Fix NAPI completion handling in some drivers. [TCP]: Limit processing lost_retrans loop to work-to-do cases [TCP]: Fix lost_retrans loop vs fastpath problems [TCP]: No need to re-count fackets_out/sacked_out at RTO [TCP]: Extract tcp_match_queue_to_sack from sacktag code [TCP]: Kill almost unused variable pcount from sacktag [TCP]: Fix mark_head_lost to ignore R-bit when trying to mark L [TCP]: Add bytes_acked (ABC) clearing to FRTO too [IPv6]: Update setsockopt(IPV6_MULTICAST_IF) to support RFC 3493, try2 [NETFILTER]: x_tables: add missing ip6t_modulename aliases [NETFILTER]: nf_conntrack_tcp: fix connection reopening [QETH]: fix qeth_main.c [NETLINK]: fib_frontend build fixes [IPv6]: Export userland ND options through netlink (RDNSS support) [9P]: build fix with !CONFIG_SYSCTL [NET]: Fix dev_put() and dev_hold() comments [NET]: make netlink user -> kernel interface synchronious [NET]: unify netlink kernel socket recognition [NET]: cleanup 3rd argument in netlink_sendskb ... Fix up conflicts manually in Documentation/feature-removal-schedule.txt and my new least favourite crap, the "mod_devicetable" support in the files include/linux/mod_devicetable.h and scripts/mod/file2alias.c. (The latter files seem to be explicitly _designed_ to get conflicts when different subsystems work with them - that have an absolutely horrid lack of subsystem separation!) Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2007-10-12 02:40:14 +00:00
---------------------------