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: old static regulatory information and ieee80211_regdom module parameter When: 2.6.29 Why: The old regulatory infrastructure has been replaced with a new one which does not require statically defined regulatory domains. We do not want to keep static regulatory domains in the kernel due to the the dynamic nature of regulatory law and localization. We kept around the old static definitions for the regulatory domains of: * US * JP * EU and used by default the US when CONFIG_WIRELESS_OLD_REGULATORY was set. We also kept around the ieee80211_regdom module parameter in case some applications were relying on it. Changing regulatory domains can now be done instead by using nl80211, as is done with iw. Who: Luis R. Rodriguez <lrodriguez@atheros.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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: libata spindown skipping and warning 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. 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. Who: Tejun Heo <htejun@gmail.com> --------------------------- What: i386/x86_64 bzImage symlinks When: April 2010 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> --------------------------- What (Why): - include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ipt_TOS.h ipt_tos.h header files (superseded by xt_TOS/xt_tos target & match) - "forwarding" header files like ipt_mac.h in include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ and include/linux/netfilter_ipv6/ - xt_CONNMARK match revision 0 (superseded by xt_CONNMARK match revision 1) - xt_MARK target revisions 0 and 1 (superseded by xt_MARK match revision 2) - xt_connmark match revision 0 (superseded by xt_connmark match revision 1) - xt_conntrack match revision 0 (superseded by xt_conntrack match revision 1) - xt_iprange match revision 0, include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ipt_iprange.h (superseded by xt_iprange match revision 1) - xt_mark match revision 0 (superseded by xt_mark match revision 1) - xt_recent: the old ipt_recent proc dir (superseded by /proc/net/xt_recent) When: January 2009 or Linux 2.7.0, whichever comes first Why: Superseded by newer revisions or modules Who: Jan Engelhardt <jengelh@computergmbh.de> --------------------------- What: b43 support for firmware revision < 410 When: July 2008 Why: The support code for the old firmware hurts code readability/maintainability and slightly hurts runtime performance. Bugfixes for the old firmware are not provided by Broadcom anymore. Who: Michael Buesch <mb@bu3sch.de> --------------------------- What: usedac i386 kernel parameter When: 2.6.27 Why: replaced by allowdac and no dac combination Who: Glauber Costa <gcosta@redhat.com> --------------------------- What: remove HID compat support When: 2.6.29 Why: needed only as a temporary solution until distros fix themselves up Who: Jiri Slaby <jirislaby@gmail.com> --------------------------- What: print_fn_descriptor_symbol() When: October 2009 Why: The %pF vsprintf format provides the same functionality in a simpler way. print_fn_descriptor_symbol() is deprecated but still present to give out-of-tree modules time to change. Who: Bjorn Helgaas <bjorn.helgaas@hp.com> --------------------------- What: /sys/o2cb symlink When: January 2010 Why: /sys/fs/o2cb is the proper location for this information - /sys/o2cb exists as a symlink for backwards compatibility for old versions of ocfs2-tools. 2 years should be sufficient time to phase in new versions which know to look in /sys/fs/o2cb. Who: ocfs2-devel@oss.oracle.com --------------------------- What: SCTP_GET_PEER_ADDRS_NUM_OLD, SCTP_GET_PEER_ADDRS_OLD, SCTP_GET_LOCAL_ADDRS_NUM_OLD, SCTP_GET_LOCAL_ADDRS_OLD When: June 2009 Why: A newer version of the options have been introduced in 2005 that removes the limitions of the old API. The sctp library has been converted to use these new options at the same time. Any user space app that directly uses the old options should convert to using the new options. Who: Vlad Yasevich <vladislav.yasevich@hp.com> --------------------------- What: CONFIG_THERMAL_HWMON When: January 2009 Why: This option was introduced just to allow older lm-sensors userspace to keep working over the upgrade to 2.6.26. At the scheduled time of removal fixed lm-sensors (2.x or 3.x) should be readily available. Who: Rene Herman <rene.herman@gmail.com> --------------------------- What: Code that is now under CONFIG_WIRELESS_EXT_SYSFS (in net/core/net-sysfs.c) When: After the only user (hal) has seen a release with the patches for enough time, probably some time in 2010. Why: Over 1K .text/.data size reduction, data is available in other ways (ioctls) Who: Johannes Berg <johannes@sipsolutions.net> --------------------------- What: CONFIG_NF_CT_ACCT When: 2.6.29 Why: Accounting can now be enabled/disabled without kernel recompilation. Currently used only to set a default value for a feature that is also controlled by a kernel/module/sysfs/sysctl parameter. Who: Krzysztof Piotr Oledzki <ole@ans.pl> --------------------------- What: i2c_attach_client(), i2c_detach_client(), i2c_driver->detach_client() When: 2.6.29 (ideally) or 2.6.30 (more likely) Why: Deprecated by the new (standard) device driver binding model. Use i2c_driver->probe() and ->remove() instead. Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org> --------------------------- What: fscher and fscpos drivers When: June 2009 Why: Deprecated by the new fschmd driver. Who: Hans de Goede <hdegoede@redhat.com> Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org> --------------------------- What: SELinux "compat_net" functionality When: 2.6.30 at the earliest Why: In 2.6.18 the Secmark concept was introduced to replace the "compat_net" network access control functionality of SELinux. Secmark offers both better performance and greater flexibility than the "compat_net" mechanism. Now that the major Linux distributions have moved to Secmark, it is time to deprecate the older mechanism and start the process of removing the old code. Who: Paul Moore <paul.moore@hp.com>