1The following is a list of files and features that are going to be 2removed in the kernel source tree. Every entry should contain what 3exactly is going away, why it is happening, and who is going to be doing 4the work. When the feature is removed from the kernel, it should also 5be removed from this file. 6 7--------------------------- 8 9What: x86 floppy disable_hlt 10When: 2012 11Why: ancient workaround of dubious utility clutters the 12 code used by everybody else. 13Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com> 14 15--------------------------- 16 17What: CONFIG_APM_CPU_IDLE, and its ability to call APM BIOS in idle 18When: 2012 19Why: This optional sub-feature of APM is of dubious reliability, 20 and ancient APM laptops are likely better served by calling HLT. 21 Deleting CONFIG_APM_CPU_IDLE allows x86 to stop exporting 22 the pm_idle function pointer to modules. 23Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com> 24 25---------------------------- 26 27What: x86_32 "no-hlt" cmdline param 28When: 2012 29Why: remove a branch from idle path, simplify code used by everybody. 30 This option disabled the use of HLT in idle and machine_halt() 31 for hardware that was flakey 15-years ago. Today we have 32 "idle=poll" that removed HLT from idle, and so if such a machine 33 is still running the upstream kernel, "idle=poll" is likely sufficient. 34Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com> 35 36---------------------------- 37 38What: x86 "idle=mwait" cmdline param 39When: 2012 40Why: simplify x86 idle code 41Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com> 42 43---------------------------- 44 45What: PRISM54 46When: 2.6.34 47 48Why: prism54 FullMAC PCI / Cardbus devices used to be supported only by the 49 prism54 wireless driver. After Intersil stopped selling these 50 devices in preference for the newer more flexible SoftMAC devices 51 a SoftMAC device driver was required and prism54 did not support 52 them. The p54pci driver now exists and has been present in the kernel for 53 a while. This driver supports both SoftMAC devices and FullMAC devices. 54 The main difference between these devices was the amount of memory which 55 could be used for the firmware. The SoftMAC devices support a smaller 56 amount of memory. Because of this the SoftMAC firmware fits into FullMAC 57 devices's memory. p54pci supports not only PCI / Cardbus but also USB 58 and SPI. Since p54pci supports all devices prism54 supports 59 you will have a conflict. I'm not quite sure how distributions are 60 handling this conflict right now. prism54 was kept around due to 61 claims users may experience issues when using the SoftMAC driver. 62 Time has passed users have not reported issues. If you use prism54 63 and for whatever reason you cannot use p54pci please let us know! 64 E-mail us at: linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org 65 66 For more information see the p54 wiki page: 67 68 http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/p54 69 70Who: Luis R. Rodriguez <lrodriguez@atheros.com> 71 72--------------------------- 73 74What: IRQF_SAMPLE_RANDOM 75Check: IRQF_SAMPLE_RANDOM 76When: July 2009 77 78Why: Many of IRQF_SAMPLE_RANDOM users are technically bogus as entropy 79 sources in the kernel's current entropy model. To resolve this, every 80 input point to the kernel's entropy pool needs to better document the 81 type of entropy source it actually is. This will be replaced with 82 additional add_*_randomness functions in drivers/char/random.c 83 84Who: Robin Getz <rgetz@blackfin.uclinux.org> & Matt Mackall <mpm@selenic.com> 85 86--------------------------- 87 88What: Deprecated snapshot ioctls 89When: 2.6.36 90 91Why: The ioctls in kernel/power/user.c were marked as deprecated long time 92 ago. Now they notify users about that so that they need to replace 93 their userspace. After some more time, remove them completely. 94 95Who: Jiri Slaby <jirislaby@gmail.com> 96 97--------------------------- 98 99What: The ieee80211_regdom module parameter 100When: March 2010 / desktop catchup 101 102Why: This was inherited by the CONFIG_WIRELESS_OLD_REGULATORY code, 103 and currently serves as an option for users to define an 104 ISO / IEC 3166 alpha2 code for the country they are currently 105 present in. Although there are userspace API replacements for this 106 through nl80211 distributions haven't yet caught up with implementing 107 decent alternatives through standard GUIs. Although available as an 108 option through iw or wpa_supplicant its just a matter of time before 109 distributions pick up good GUI options for this. The ideal solution 110 would actually consist of intelligent designs which would do this for 111 the user automatically even when travelling through different countries. 112 Until then we leave this module parameter as a compromise. 113 114 When userspace improves with reasonable widely-available alternatives for 115 this we will no longer need this module parameter. This entry hopes that 116 by the super-futuristically looking date of "March 2010" we will have 117 such replacements widely available. 118 119Who: Luis R. Rodriguez <lrodriguez@atheros.com> 120 121--------------------------- 122 123What: dev->power.power_state 124When: July 2007 125Why: Broken design for runtime control over driver power states, confusing 126 driver-internal runtime power management with: mechanisms to support 127 system-wide sleep state transitions; event codes that distinguish 128 different phases of swsusp "sleep" transitions; and userspace policy 129 inputs. This framework was never widely used, and most attempts to 130 use it were broken. Drivers should instead be exposing domain-specific 131 interfaces either to kernel or to userspace. 132Who: Pavel Machek <pavel@ucw.cz> 133 134--------------------------- 135 136What: sys_sysctl 137When: September 2010 138Option: CONFIG_SYSCTL_SYSCALL 139Why: The same information is available in a more convenient from 140 /proc/sys, and none of the sysctl variables appear to be 141 important performance wise. 142 143 Binary sysctls are a long standing source of subtle kernel 144 bugs and security issues. 145 146 When I looked several months ago all I could find after 147 searching several distributions were 5 user space programs and 148 glibc (which falls back to /proc/sys) using this syscall. 149 150 The man page for sysctl(2) documents it as unusable for user 151 space programs. 152 153 sysctl(2) is not generally ABI compatible to a 32bit user 154 space application on a 64bit and a 32bit kernel. 155 156 For the last several months the policy has been no new binary 157 sysctls and no one has put forward an argument to use them. 158 159 Binary sysctls issues seem to keep happening appearing so 160 properly deprecating them (with a warning to user space) and a 161 2 year grace warning period will mean eventually we can kill 162 them and end the pain. 163 164 In the mean time individual binary sysctls can be dealt with 165 in a piecewise fashion. 166 167Who: Eric Biederman <ebiederm@xmission.com> 168 169--------------------------- 170 171What: /proc/<pid>/oom_adj 172When: August 2012 173Why: /proc/<pid>/oom_adj allows userspace to influence the oom killer's 174 badness heuristic used to determine which task to kill when the kernel 175 is out of memory. 176 177 The badness heuristic has since been rewritten since the introduction of 178 this tunable such that its meaning is deprecated. The value was 179 implemented as a bitshift on a score generated by the badness() 180 function that did not have any precise units of measure. With the 181 rewrite, the score is given as a proportion of available memory to the 182 task allocating pages, so using a bitshift which grows the score 183 exponentially is, thus, impossible to tune with fine granularity. 184 185 A much more powerful interface, /proc/<pid>/oom_score_adj, was 186 introduced with the oom killer rewrite that allows users to increase or 187 decrease the badness score linearly. This interface will replace 188 /proc/<pid>/oom_adj. 189 190 A warning will be emitted to the kernel log if an application uses this 191 deprecated interface. After it is printed once, future warnings will be 192 suppressed until the kernel is rebooted. 193 194--------------------------- 195 196What: remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(kernel_thread) 197When: August 2006 198Files: arch/*/kernel/*_ksyms.c 199Check: kernel_thread 200Why: kernel_thread is a low-level implementation detail. Drivers should 201 use the <linux/kthread.h> API instead which shields them from 202 implementation details and provides a higherlevel interface that 203 prevents bugs and code duplication 204Who: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de> 205 206--------------------------- 207 208What: Unused EXPORT_SYMBOL/EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL exports 209 (temporary transition config option provided until then) 210 The transition config option will also be removed at the same time. 211When: before 2.6.19 212Why: Unused symbols are both increasing the size of the kernel binary 213 and are often a sign of "wrong API" 214Who: Arjan van de Ven <arjan@linux.intel.com> 215 216--------------------------- 217 218What: PHYSDEVPATH, PHYSDEVBUS, PHYSDEVDRIVER in the uevent environment 219When: October 2008 220Why: The stacking of class devices makes these values misleading and 221 inconsistent. 222 Class devices should not carry any of these properties, and bus 223 devices have SUBSYTEM and DRIVER as a replacement. 224Who: Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@suse.de> 225 226--------------------------- 227 228What: ACPI procfs interface 229When: July 2008 230Why: ACPI sysfs conversion should be finished by January 2008. 231 ACPI procfs interface will be removed in July 2008 so that 232 there is enough time for the user space to catch up. 233Who: Zhang Rui <rui.zhang@intel.com> 234 235--------------------------- 236 237What: CONFIG_ACPI_PROCFS_POWER 238When: 2.6.39 239Why: sysfs I/F for ACPI power devices, including AC and Battery, 240 has been working in upstream kernel since 2.6.24, Sep 2007. 241 In 2.6.37, we make the sysfs I/F always built in and this option 242 disabled by default. 243 Remove this option and the ACPI power procfs interface in 2.6.39. 244Who: Zhang Rui <rui.zhang@intel.com> 245 246--------------------------- 247 248What: /proc/acpi/event 249When: February 2008 250Why: /proc/acpi/event has been replaced by events via the input layer 251 and netlink since 2.6.23. 252Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com> 253 254--------------------------- 255 256What: i386/x86_64 bzImage symlinks 257When: April 2010 258 259Why: The i386/x86_64 merge provides a symlink to the old bzImage 260 location so not yet updated user space tools, e.g. package 261 scripts, do not break. 262Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de> 263 264--------------------------- 265 266What: GPIO autorequest on gpio_direction_{input,output}() in gpiolib 267When: February 2010 268Why: All callers should use explicit gpio_request()/gpio_free(). 269 The autorequest mechanism in gpiolib was provided mostly as a 270 migration aid for legacy GPIO interfaces (for SOC based GPIOs). 271 Those users have now largely migrated. Platforms implementing 272 the GPIO interfaces without using gpiolib will see no changes. 273Who: David Brownell <dbrownell@users.sourceforge.net> 274--------------------------- 275 276What: b43 support for firmware revision < 410 277When: The schedule was July 2008, but it was decided that we are going to keep the 278 code as long as there are no major maintanance headaches. 279 So it _could_ be removed _any_ time now, if it conflicts with something new. 280Why: The support code for the old firmware hurts code readability/maintainability 281 and slightly hurts runtime performance. Bugfixes for the old firmware 282 are not provided by Broadcom anymore. 283Who: Michael Buesch <m@bues.ch> 284 285--------------------------- 286 287What: Ability for non root users to shm_get hugetlb pages based on mlock 288 resource limits 289When: 2.6.31 290Why: Non root users need to be part of /proc/sys/vm/hugetlb_shm_group or 291 have CAP_IPC_LOCK to be able to allocate shm segments backed by 292 huge pages. The mlock based rlimit check to allow shm hugetlb is 293 inconsistent with mmap based allocations. Hence it is being 294 deprecated. 295Who: Ravikiran Thirumalai <kiran@scalex86.org> 296 297--------------------------- 298 299What: Code that is now under CONFIG_WIRELESS_EXT_SYSFS 300 (in net/core/net-sysfs.c) 301When: After the only user (hal) has seen a release with the patches 302 for enough time, probably some time in 2010. 303Why: Over 1K .text/.data size reduction, data is available in other 304 ways (ioctls) 305Who: Johannes Berg <johannes@sipsolutions.net> 306 307--------------------------- 308 309What: sysfs ui for changing p4-clockmod parameters 310When: September 2009 311Why: See commits 129f8ae9b1b5be94517da76009ea956e89104ce8 and 312 e088e4c9cdb618675874becb91b2fd581ee707e6. 313 Removal is subject to fixing any remaining bugs in ACPI which may 314 cause the thermal throttling not to happen at the right time. 315Who: Dave Jones <davej@redhat.com>, Matthew Garrett <mjg@redhat.com> 316 317----------------------------- 318 319What: fakephp and associated sysfs files in /sys/bus/pci/slots/ 320When: 2011 321Why: In 2.6.27, the semantics of /sys/bus/pci/slots was redefined to 322 represent a machine's physical PCI slots. The change in semantics 323 had userspace implications, as the hotplug core no longer allowed 324 drivers to create multiple sysfs files per physical slot (required 325 for multi-function devices, e.g.). fakephp was seen as a developer's 326 tool only, and its interface changed. Too late, we learned that 327 there were some users of the fakephp interface. 328 329 In 2.6.30, the original fakephp interface was restored. At the same 330 time, the PCI core gained the ability that fakephp provided, namely 331 function-level hot-remove and hot-add. 332 333 Since the PCI core now provides the same functionality, exposed in: 334 335 /sys/bus/pci/rescan 336 /sys/bus/pci/devices/.../remove 337 /sys/bus/pci/devices/.../rescan 338 339 there is no functional reason to maintain fakephp as well. 340 341 We will keep the existing module so that 'modprobe fakephp' will 342 present the old /sys/bus/pci/slots/... interface for compatibility, 343 but users are urged to migrate their applications to the API above. 344 345 After a reasonable transition period, we will remove the legacy 346 fakephp interface. 347Who: Alex Chiang <achiang@hp.com> 348 349--------------------------- 350 351What: CONFIG_RFKILL_INPUT 352When: 2.6.33 353Why: Should be implemented in userspace, policy daemon. 354Who: Johannes Berg <johannes@sipsolutions.net> 355 356---------------------------- 357 358What: sound-slot/service-* module aliases and related clutters in 359 sound/sound_core.c 360When: August 2010 361Why: OSS sound_core grabs all legacy minors (0-255) of SOUND_MAJOR 362 (14) and requests modules using custom sound-slot/service-* 363 module aliases. The only benefit of doing this is allowing 364 use of custom module aliases which might as well be considered 365 a bug at this point. This preemptive claiming prevents 366 alternative OSS implementations. 367 368 Till the feature is removed, the kernel will be requesting 369 both sound-slot/service-* and the standard char-major-* module 370 aliases and allow turning off the pre-claiming selectively via 371 CONFIG_SOUND_OSS_CORE_PRECLAIM and soundcore.preclaim_oss 372 kernel parameter. 373 374 After the transition phase is complete, both the custom module 375 aliases and switches to disable it will go away. This removal 376 will also allow making ALSA OSS emulation independent of 377 sound_core. The dependency will be broken then too. 378Who: Tejun Heo <tj@kernel.org> 379 380---------------------------- 381 382What: sysfs-class-rfkill state file 383When: Feb 2014 384Files: net/rfkill/core.c 385Why: Documented as obsolete since Feb 2010. This file is limited to 3 386 states while the rfkill drivers can have 4 states. 387Who: anybody or Florian Mickler <florian@mickler.org> 388 389---------------------------- 390 391What: sysfs-class-rfkill claim file 392When: Feb 2012 393Files: net/rfkill/core.c 394Why: It is not possible to claim an rfkill driver since 2007. This is 395 Documented as obsolete since Feb 2010. 396Who: anybody or Florian Mickler <florian@mickler.org> 397 398---------------------------- 399 400What: KVM paravirt mmu host support 401When: January 2011 402Why: The paravirt mmu host support is slower than non-paravirt mmu, both 403 on newer and older hardware. It is already not exposed to the guest, 404 and kept only for live migration purposes. 405Who: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com> 406 407---------------------------- 408 409What: iwlwifi 50XX module parameters 410When: 3.0 411Why: The "..50" modules parameters were used to configure 5000 series and 412 up devices; different set of module parameters also available for 4965 413 with same functionalities. Consolidate both set into single place 414 in drivers/net/wireless/iwlwifi/iwl-agn.c 415 416Who: Wey-Yi Guy <wey-yi.w.guy@intel.com> 417 418---------------------------- 419 420What: iwl4965 alias support 421When: 3.0 422Why: Internal alias support has been present in module-init-tools for some 423 time, the MODULE_ALIAS("iwl4965") boilerplate aliases can be removed 424 with no impact. 425 426Who: Wey-Yi Guy <wey-yi.w.guy@intel.com> 427 428--------------------------- 429 430What: xt_NOTRACK 431Files: net/netfilter/xt_NOTRACK.c 432When: April 2011 433Why: Superseded by xt_CT 434Who: Netfilter developer team <netfilter-devel@vger.kernel.org> 435 436---------------------------- 437 438What: IRQF_DISABLED 439When: 2.6.36 440Why: The flag is a NOOP as we run interrupt handlers with interrupts disabled 441Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de> 442 443---------------------------- 444 445What: PCI DMA unmap state API 446When: August 2012 447Why: PCI DMA unmap state API (include/linux/pci-dma.h) was replaced 448 with DMA unmap state API (DMA unmap state API can be used for 449 any bus). 450Who: FUJITA Tomonori <fujita.tomonori@lab.ntt.co.jp> 451 452---------------------------- 453 454What: iwlwifi disable_hw_scan module parameters 455When: 3.0 456Why: Hareware scan is the prefer method for iwlwifi devices for 457 scanning operation. Remove software scan support for all the 458 iwlwifi devices. 459 460Who: Wey-Yi Guy <wey-yi.w.guy@intel.com> 461 462---------------------------- 463 464What: Legacy, non-standard chassis intrusion detection interface. 465When: June 2011 466Why: The adm9240, w83792d and w83793 hardware monitoring drivers have 467 legacy interfaces for chassis intrusion detection. A standard 468 interface has been added to each driver, so the legacy interface 469 can be removed. 470Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org> 471 472---------------------------- 473 474What: xt_connlimit rev 0 475When: 2012 476Who: Jan Engelhardt <jengelh@medozas.de> 477Files: net/netfilter/xt_connlimit.c 478 479---------------------------- 480 481What: ipt_addrtype match include file 482When: 2012 483Why: superseded by xt_addrtype 484Who: Florian Westphal <fw@strlen.de> 485Files: include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ipt_addrtype.h 486 487---------------------------- 488 489What: i2c_driver.attach_adapter 490 i2c_driver.detach_adapter 491When: September 2011 492Why: These legacy callbacks should no longer be used as i2c-core offers 493 a variety of preferable alternative ways to instantiate I2C devices. 494Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org> 495 496---------------------------- 497 498What: Support for UVCIOC_CTRL_ADD in the uvcvideo driver 499When: 3.2 500Why: The information passed to the driver by this ioctl is now queried 501 dynamically from the device. 502Who: Laurent Pinchart <laurent.pinchart@ideasonboard.com> 503 504---------------------------- 505 506What: Support for UVCIOC_CTRL_MAP_OLD in the uvcvideo driver 507When: 3.2 508Why: Used only by applications compiled against older driver versions. 509 Superseded by UVCIOC_CTRL_MAP which supports V4L2 menu controls. 510Who: Laurent Pinchart <laurent.pinchart@ideasonboard.com> 511 512---------------------------- 513 514What: Support for UVCIOC_CTRL_GET and UVCIOC_CTRL_SET in the uvcvideo driver 515When: 3.2 516Why: Superseded by the UVCIOC_CTRL_QUERY ioctl. 517Who: Laurent Pinchart <laurent.pinchart@ideasonboard.com> 518 519---------------------------- 520 521What: Support for driver specific ioctls in the pwc driver (everything 522 defined in media/pwc-ioctl.h) 523When: 3.3 524Why: This stems from the v4l1 era, with v4l2 everything can be done with 525 standardized v4l2 API calls 526Who: Hans de Goede <hdegoede@redhat.com> 527 528---------------------------- 529 530What: Driver specific sysfs API in the pwc driver 531When: 3.3 532Why: Setting pan/tilt should be done with v4l2 controls, like with other 533 cams. The button is available as a standard input device 534Who: Hans de Goede <hdegoede@redhat.com> 535 536---------------------------- 537 538What: Driver specific use of pixfmt.priv in the pwc driver 539When: 3.3 540Why: The .priv field never was intended for this, setting a framerate is 541 support using the standardized S_PARM ioctl 542Who: Hans de Goede <hdegoede@redhat.com> 543 544---------------------------- 545 546What: Software emulation of arbritary resolutions in the pwc driver 547When: 3.3 548Why: The pwc driver claims to support any resolution between 160x120 549 and 640x480, but emulates this by simply drawing a black border 550 around the image. Userspace can draw its own black border if it 551 really wants one. 552Who: Hans de Goede <hdegoede@redhat.com> 553 554---------------------------- 555 556What: For VIDIOC_S_FREQUENCY the type field must match the device node's type. 557 If not, return -EINVAL. 558When: 3.2 559Why: It makes no sense to switch the tuner to radio mode by calling 560 VIDIOC_S_FREQUENCY on a video node, or to switch the tuner to tv mode by 561 calling VIDIOC_S_FREQUENCY on a radio node. This is the first step of a 562 move to more consistent handling of tv and radio tuners. 563Who: Hans Verkuil <hans.verkuil@cisco.com> 564 565---------------------------- 566 567What: Opening a radio device node will no longer automatically switch the 568 tuner mode from tv to radio. 569When: 3.3 570Why: Just opening a V4L device should not change the state of the hardware 571 like that. It's very unexpected and against the V4L spec. Instead, you 572 switch to radio mode by calling VIDIOC_S_FREQUENCY. This is the second 573 and last step of the move to consistent handling of tv and radio tuners. 574Who: Hans Verkuil <hans.verkuil@cisco.com> 575 576---------------------------- 577 578What: g_file_storage driver 579When: 3.8 580Why: This driver has been superseded by g_mass_storage. 581Who: Alan Stern <stern@rowland.harvard.edu> 582 583---------------------------- 584 585What: threeg and interface sysfs files in /sys/devices/platform/acer-wmi 586When: 2012 587Why: In 3.0, we can now autodetect internal 3G device and already have 588 the threeg rfkill device. So, we plan to remove threeg sysfs support 589 for it's no longer necessary. 590 591 We also plan to remove interface sysfs file that exposed which ACPI-WMI 592 interface that was used by acer-wmi driver. It will replaced by 593 information log when acer-wmi initial. 594Who: Lee, Chun-Yi <jlee@novell.com> 595 596---------------------------- 597What: The XFS nodelaylog mount option 598When: 3.3 599Why: The delaylog mode that has been the default since 2.6.39 has proven 600 stable, and the old code is in the way of additional improvements in 601 the log code. 602Who: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de> 603

