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 ---------------------------
9 What: RAW driver (CONFIG_RAW_DRIVER)
11 Why: declared obsolete since kernel 2.6.3
12 O_DIRECT can be used instead
13 Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
15 ---------------------------
17 What: drivers that were depending on OBSOLETE_OSS_DRIVER
18 (config options already removed)
20 Why: OSS drivers with ALSA replacements
21 Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
23 ---------------------------
25 What: raw1394: requests of type RAW1394_REQ_ISO_SEND, RAW1394_REQ_ISO_LISTEN
27 Why: Deprecated in favour of the new ioctl-based rawiso interface, which is
28 more efficient. You should really be using libraw1394 for raw1394
30 Who: Jody McIntyre <scjody@modernduck.com>
32 ---------------------------
34 What: sbp2: module parameter "force_inquiry_hack"
36 Why: Superceded by parameter "workarounds". Both parameters are meant to be
37 used ad-hoc and for single devices only, i.e. not in modprobe.conf,
38 therefore the impact of this feature replacement should be low.
39 Who: Stefan Richter <stefanr@s5r6.in-berlin.de>
41 ---------------------------
43 What: Video4Linux API 1 ioctls and video_decoder.h from Video devices.
45 Why: V4L1 AP1 was replaced by V4L2 API. during migration from 2.4 to 2.6
46 series. The old API have lots of drawbacks and don't provide enough
47 means to work with all video and audio standards. The newer API is
48 already available on the main drivers and should be used instead.
49 Newer drivers should use v4l_compat_translate_ioctl function to handle
50 old calls, replacing to newer ones.
51 Decoder iocts are using internally to allow video drivers to
52 communicate with video decoders. This should also be improved to allow
53 V4L2 calls being translated into compatible internal ioctls.
54 Who: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@brturbo.com.br>
56 ---------------------------
58 What: remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(insert_resource)
60 Files: kernel/resource.c
61 Why: No modular usage in the kernel.
62 Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
64 ---------------------------
66 What: PCMCIA control ioctl (needed for pcmcia-cs [cardmgr, cardctl])
68 Files: drivers/pcmcia/: pcmcia_ioctl.c
69 Why: With the 16-bit PCMCIA subsystem now behaving (almost) like a
70 normal hotpluggable bus, and with it using the default kernel
71 infrastructure (hotplug, driver core, sysfs) keeping the PCMCIA
72 control ioctl needed by cardmgr and cardctl from pcmcia-cs is
73 unnecessary, and makes further cleanups and integration of the
74 PCMCIA subsystem into the Linux kernel device driver model more
75 difficult. The features provided by cardmgr and cardctl are either
76 handled by the kernel itself now or are available in the new
77 pcmciautils package available at
78 http://kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/pcmcia/
79 Who: Dominik Brodowski <linux@brodo.de>
81 ---------------------------
83 What: ip_queue and ip6_queue (old ipv4-only and ipv6-only netfilter queue)
85 Why: This interface has been obsoleted by the new layer3-independent
86 "nfnetlink_queue". The Kernel interface is compatible, so the old
87 ip[6]tables "QUEUE" targets still work and will transparently handle
88 all packets into nfnetlink queue number 0. Userspace users will have
89 to link against API-compatible library on top of libnfnetlink_queue
90 instead of the current 'libipq'.
91 Who: Harald Welte <laforge@netfilter.org>
93 ---------------------------
95 What: remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(kernel_thread)
97 Files: arch/*/kernel/*_ksyms.c
98 Why: kernel_thread is a low-level implementation detail. Drivers should
99 use the <linux/kthread.h> API instead which shields them from
100 implementation details and provides a higherlevel interface that
101 prevents bugs and code duplication
102 Who: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
104 ---------------------------
106 What: CONFIG_FORCED_INLINING
108 Why: Config option is there to see if gcc is good enough. (in january
109 2006). If it is, the behavior should just be the default. If it's not,
110 the option should just go away entirely.
111 Who: Arjan van de Ven
113 ---------------------------
115 What: START_ARRAY ioctl for md
117 Files: drivers/md/md.c
118 Why: Not reliable by design - can fail when most needed.
120 Who: NeilBrown <neilb@suse.de>
122 ---------------------------
124 What: au1x00_uart driver
126 Why: The 8250 serial driver now has the ability to deal with the differences
127 between the standard 8250 family of UARTs and their slightly strange
128 brother on Alchemy SOCs. The loss of features is not considered an
130 Who: Ralf Baechle <ralf@linux-mips.org>
132 ---------------------------
134 What: eepro100 network driver
136 Why: replaced by the e100 driver
137 Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
139 ---------------------------
141 What: pci_module_init(driver)
143 Why: Is replaced by pci_register_driver(pci_driver).
144 Who: Richard Knutsson <ricknu-0@student.ltu.se> and Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>
146 ---------------------------
148 What: Usage of invalid timevals in setitimer
150 Why: POSIX requires to validate timevals in the setitimer call. This
151 was never done by Linux. The invalid (e.g. negative timevals) were
152 silently converted to more or less random timeouts and intervals.
153 Until the removal a per boot limited number of warnings is printed
154 and the timevals are sanitized.
156 Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
158 ---------------------------
160 What: I2C interface of the it87 driver
162 Why: The ISA interface is faster and should be always available. The I2C
163 probing is also known to cause trouble in at least one case (see
165 Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>
167 ---------------------------
169 What: remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(tasklist_lock)
172 Why: tasklist_lock protects the kernel internal task list. Modules have
173 no business looking at it, and all instances in drivers have been due
174 to use of too-lowlevel APIs. Having this symbol exported prevents
175 moving to more scalable locking schemes for the task list.
176 Who: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
178 ---------------------------
180 What: mount/umount uevents
182 Why: These events are not correct, and do not properly let userspace know
183 when a file system has been mounted or unmounted. Userspace should
184 poll the /proc/mounts file instead to detect this properly.
185 Who: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>
187 ---------------------------
189 What: USB driver API moves to EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL
191 Files: include/linux/usb.h, drivers/usb/core/driver.c
192 Why: The USB subsystem has changed a lot over time, and it has been
193 possible to create userspace USB drivers using usbfs/libusb/gadgetfs
194 that operate as fast as the USB bus allows. Because of this, the USB
195 subsystem will not be allowing closed source kernel drivers to
196 register with it, after this grace period is over. If anyone needs
197 any help in converting their closed source drivers over to use the
198 userspace filesystems, please contact the
199 linux-usb-devel@lists.sourceforge.net mailing list, and the developers
200 there will be glad to help you out.
201 Who: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>
203 ---------------------------
205 What: find_trylock_page
207 Why: The interface no longer has any callers left in the kernel. It
208 is an odd interface (compared with other find_*_page functions), in
209 that it does not take a refcount to the page, only the page lock.
210 It should be replaced with find_get_page or find_lock_page if possible.
211 This feature removal can be reevaluated if users of the interface
212 cannot cleanly use something else.
213 Who: Nick Piggin <npiggin@suse.de>
215 ---------------------------