---------------------------
-What: V4L2 VIDIOC_G_MPEGCOMP and VIDIOC_S_MPEGCOMP
-When: October 2007
-Why: Broken attempt to set MPEG compression parameters. These ioctls are
- not able to implement the wide variety of parameters that can be set
- by hardware MPEG encoders. A new MPEG control mechanism was created
- in kernel 2.6.18 that replaces these ioctls. See the V4L2 specification
- (section 1.9: Extended controls) for more information on this topic.
-Who: Hans Verkuil <hverkuil@xs4all.nl> and
- Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@infradead.org>
-
----------------------------
-
-What: /sys/devices/.../power/state
- dev->power.power_state
- dpm_runtime_{suspend,resume)()
+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
---------------------------
-What: RAW driver (CONFIG_RAW_DRIVER)
-When: December 2005
-Why: declared obsolete since kernel 2.6.3
- O_DIRECT can be used instead
-Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
-
----------------------------
-
What: old NCR53C9x driver
When: October 2007
Why: Replaced by the much better esp_scsi driver. Actual low-level
---------------------------
What: Video4Linux API 1 ioctls and video_decoder.h from Video devices.
-When: December 2006
-Files: include/linux/video_decoder.h
-Why: V4L1 AP1 was replaced by V4L2 API. during migration from 2.4 to 2.6
+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.
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.
-Who: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@brturbo.com.br>
+ Compatibility ioctls will be provided, for a while, via
+ v4l1-compat module.
+Who: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@infradead.org>
---------------------------
---------------------------
+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
-Funcs: kernel_thread
+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
---------------------------
-What: drivers depending on OSS_OBSOLETE_DRIVER
-When: options in 2.6.20, code in 2.6.22
-Why: OSS drivers with ALSA replacements
-Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.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.
---------------------------
-What: Interrupt only SA_* flags
-When: September 2007
-Why: The interrupt related SA_* flags are replaced by IRQF_* to move them
- out of the signal namespace.
-
-Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
+What: vm_ops.nopage
+When: Soon, provided in-kernel callers have been converted
+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: i2c-isa
-When: December 2006
-Why: i2c-isa is a non-sense and doesn't fit in the device driver
- model. Drivers relying on it are better implemented as platform
- drivers.
-Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>
-
----------------------------
-
-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: drivers depending on OBSOLETE_OSS
-When: options in 2.6.22, code in 2.6.24
-Why: OSS drivers with ALSA replacements
-Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
-
----------------------------
-
-What: ACPI hooks (X86_SPEEDSTEP_CENTRINO_ACPI) in speedstep-centrino driver
-When: December 2006
-Why: Speedstep-centrino driver with ACPI hooks and acpi-cpufreq driver are
- functionally very much similar. They talk to ACPI in same way. Only
- difference between them is the way they do frequency transitions.
- One uses MSRs and the other one uses IO ports. Functionaliy of
- speedstep_centrino with ACPI hooks is now merged into acpi-cpufreq.
- That means one common driver will support all Intel Enhanced Speedstep
- capable CPUs. That means less confusion over name of
- speedstep-centrino driver (with that driver supposed to be used on
- non-centrino platforms). That means less duplication of code and
- less maintenance effort and no possibility of these two drivers
- going out of sync.
- Current users of speedstep_centrino with ACPI hooks are requested to
- switch over to acpi-cpufreq driver. speedstep-centrino will continue
- to work using older non-ACPI static table based scheme even after this
- date.
-
-Who: Venkatesh Pallipadi <venkatesh.pallipadi@intel.com>
-
----------------------------
-
-What: /sys/firmware/acpi/namespace
-When: 2.6.21
-Why: The ACPI namespace is effectively the symbol list for
- the BIOS. The device names are completely arbitrary
- and have no place being exposed to user-space.
-
- For those interested in the BIOS ACPI namespace,
- the BIOS can be extracted and disassembled with acpidump
- and iasl as documented in the pmtools package here:
- http://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/lenb/acpi/utils
-Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
-
----------------------------
-
What: ACPI procfs interface
-When: July 2007
-Why: After ACPI sysfs conversion, ACPI attributes will be duplicated
- in sysfs and the ACPI procfs interface should be removed.
+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: Compaq touchscreen device emulation
-When: Oct 2007
-Files: drivers/input/tsdev.c
-Why: The code says it was obsolete when it was written in 2001.
- tslib is a userspace library which does anything tsdev can do and
- much more besides in userspace where this code belongs. There is no
- longer any need for tsdev and applications should have converted to
- use tslib by now.
- The name "tsdev" is also extremely confusing and lots of people have
- it loaded when they don't need/use it.
-Who: Richard Purdie <rpurdie@rpsys.net>
-
----------------------------
-
-What: read_dev_chars(), read_conf_data{,_lpm}() (s390 common I/O layer)
-When: December 2007
-Why: These functions are a leftover from 2.4 times. They have several
- problems:
- - Duplication of checks that are done in the device driver's
- interrupt handler
- - common I/O layer can't do device specific error recovery
- - device driver can't be notified for conditions happening during
- execution of the function
- Device drivers should issue the read device characteristics and read
- configuration data ccws and do the appropriate error handling
- themselves.
-Who: Cornelia Huck <cornelia.huck@de.ibm.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: 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>
+
+---------------------------
+
+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>
+
+---------------------------
+
+What: i2c-i810, i2c-prosavage and i2c-savage4
+When: May 2008
+Why: These drivers are superseded by i810fb, intelfb and savagefb.
+Who: Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>
+
+---------------------------
+
+What: bcm43xx wireless network driver
+When: 2.6.26
+Files: drivers/net/wireless/bcm43xx
+Why: This driver's functionality has been replaced by the
+ mac80211-based b43 and b43legacy drivers.
+Who: John W. Linville <linville@tuxdriver.com>
+
+---------------------------
+
+What: ieee80211 softmac wireless networking component
+When: 2.6.26 (or after removal of bcm43xx and port of zd1211rw to mac80211)
+Files: net/ieee80211/softmac
+Why: No in-kernel drivers will depend on it any longer.
+Who: John W. Linville <linville@tuxdriver.com>
+
+---------------------------
+
+What: rc80211-simple rate control algorithm for mac80211
+When: 2.6.26
+Files: net/mac80211/rc80211-simple.c
+Why: This algorithm was provided for reference but always exhibited bad
+ responsiveness and performance and has some serious flaws. It has been
+ replaced by rc80211-pid.
+Who: Stefano Brivio <stefano.brivio@polimi.it>
Code Review / linux-2.6.git / blobdiff