649 lines
24 KiB
Plaintext
649 lines
24 KiB
Plaintext
The following is a list of files and features that are going to be
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removed in the kernel source tree. Every entry should contain what
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exactly is going away, why it is happening, and who is going to be doing
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the work. When the feature is removed from the kernel, it should also
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be removed from this file.
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---------------------------
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What: PRISM54
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When: 2.6.34
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Why: prism54 FullMAC PCI / Cardbus devices used to be supported only by the
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prism54 wireless driver. After Intersil stopped selling these
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devices in preference for the newer more flexible SoftMAC devices
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a SoftMAC device driver was required and prism54 did not support
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them. The p54pci driver now exists and has been present in the kernel for
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a while. This driver supports both SoftMAC devices and FullMAC devices.
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The main difference between these devices was the amount of memory which
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could be used for the firmware. The SoftMAC devices support a smaller
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amount of memory. Because of this the SoftMAC firmware fits into FullMAC
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devices's memory. p54pci supports not only PCI / Cardbus but also USB
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and SPI. Since p54pci supports all devices prism54 supports
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you will have a conflict. I'm not quite sure how distributions are
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handling this conflict right now. prism54 was kept around due to
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claims users may experience issues when using the SoftMAC driver.
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Time has passed users have not reported issues. If you use prism54
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and for whatever reason you cannot use p54pci please let us know!
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E-mail us at: linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org
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For more information see the p54 wiki page:
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http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/p54
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Who: Luis R. Rodriguez <lrodriguez@atheros.com>
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---------------------------
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What: IRQF_SAMPLE_RANDOM
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Check: IRQF_SAMPLE_RANDOM
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When: July 2009
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Why: Many of IRQF_SAMPLE_RANDOM users are technically bogus as entropy
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sources in the kernel's current entropy model. To resolve this, every
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input point to the kernel's entropy pool needs to better document the
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type of entropy source it actually is. This will be replaced with
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additional add_*_randomness functions in drivers/char/random.c
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Who: Robin Getz <rgetz@blackfin.uclinux.org> & Matt Mackall <mpm@selenic.com>
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---------------------------
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What: Deprecated snapshot ioctls
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When: 2.6.36
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Why: The ioctls in kernel/power/user.c were marked as deprecated long time
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ago. Now they notify users about that so that they need to replace
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their userspace. After some more time, remove them completely.
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Who: Jiri Slaby <jirislaby@gmail.com>
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---------------------------
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What: The ieee80211_regdom module parameter
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When: March 2010 / desktop catchup
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Why: This was inherited by the CONFIG_WIRELESS_OLD_REGULATORY code,
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and currently serves as an option for users to define an
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ISO / IEC 3166 alpha2 code for the country they are currently
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present in. Although there are userspace API replacements for this
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through nl80211 distributions haven't yet caught up with implementing
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decent alternatives through standard GUIs. Although available as an
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option through iw or wpa_supplicant its just a matter of time before
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distributions pick up good GUI options for this. The ideal solution
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would actually consist of intelligent designs which would do this for
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the user automatically even when travelling through different countries.
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Until then we leave this module parameter as a compromise.
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When userspace improves with reasonable widely-available alternatives for
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this we will no longer need this module parameter. This entry hopes that
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by the super-futuristically looking date of "March 2010" we will have
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such replacements widely available.
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Who: Luis R. Rodriguez <lrodriguez@atheros.com>
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---------------------------
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What: dev->power.power_state
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When: July 2007
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Why: Broken design for runtime control over driver power states, confusing
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driver-internal runtime power management with: mechanisms to support
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system-wide sleep state transitions; event codes that distinguish
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different phases of swsusp "sleep" transitions; and userspace policy
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inputs. This framework was never widely used, and most attempts to
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use it were broken. Drivers should instead be exposing domain-specific
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interfaces either to kernel or to userspace.
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Who: Pavel Machek <pavel@suse.cz>
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---------------------------
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What: Video4Linux API 1 ioctls and from Video devices.
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When: July 2009
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Files: include/linux/videodev.h
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Check: include/linux/videodev.h
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Why: V4L1 AP1 was replaced by V4L2 API during migration from 2.4 to 2.6
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series. The old API have lots of drawbacks and don't provide enough
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means to work with all video and audio standards. The newer API is
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already available on the main drivers and should be used instead.
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Newer drivers should use v4l_compat_translate_ioctl function to handle
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old calls, replacing to newer ones.
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Decoder iocts are using internally to allow video drivers to
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communicate with video decoders. This should also be improved to allow
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V4L2 calls being translated into compatible internal ioctls.
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Compatibility ioctls will be provided, for a while, via
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v4l1-compat module.
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Who: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@infradead.org>
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---------------------------
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What: PCMCIA control ioctl (needed for pcmcia-cs [cardmgr, cardctl])
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When: 2.6.35/2.6.36
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Files: drivers/pcmcia/: pcmcia_ioctl.c
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Why: With the 16-bit PCMCIA subsystem now behaving (almost) like a
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normal hotpluggable bus, and with it using the default kernel
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infrastructure (hotplug, driver core, sysfs) keeping the PCMCIA
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control ioctl needed by cardmgr and cardctl from pcmcia-cs is
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unnecessary and potentially harmful (it does not provide for
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proper locking), and makes further cleanups and integration of the
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PCMCIA subsystem into the Linux kernel device driver model more
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difficult. The features provided by cardmgr and cardctl are either
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handled by the kernel itself now or are available in the new
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pcmciautils package available at
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http://kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/pcmcia/
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For all architectures except ARM, the associated config symbol
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has been removed from kernel 2.6.34; for ARM, it will be likely
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be removed from kernel 2.6.35. The actual code will then likely
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be removed from kernel 2.6.36.
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Who: Dominik Brodowski <linux@dominikbrodowski.net>
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---------------------------
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What: sys_sysctl
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When: September 2010
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Option: CONFIG_SYSCTL_SYSCALL
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Why: The same information is available in a more convenient from
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/proc/sys, and none of the sysctl variables appear to be
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important performance wise.
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Binary sysctls are a long standing source of subtle kernel
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bugs and security issues.
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When I looked several months ago all I could find after
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searching several distributions were 5 user space programs and
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glibc (which falls back to /proc/sys) using this syscall.
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The man page for sysctl(2) documents it as unusable for user
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space programs.
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sysctl(2) is not generally ABI compatible to a 32bit user
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space application on a 64bit and a 32bit kernel.
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For the last several months the policy has been no new binary
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sysctls and no one has put forward an argument to use them.
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Binary sysctls issues seem to keep happening appearing so
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properly deprecating them (with a warning to user space) and a
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2 year grace warning period will mean eventually we can kill
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them and end the pain.
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In the mean time individual binary sysctls can be dealt with
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in a piecewise fashion.
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Who: Eric Biederman <ebiederm@xmission.com>
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---------------------------
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What: remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(kernel_thread)
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When: August 2006
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Files: arch/*/kernel/*_ksyms.c
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Check: kernel_thread
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Why: kernel_thread is a low-level implementation detail. Drivers should
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use the <linux/kthread.h> API instead which shields them from
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implementation details and provides a higherlevel interface that
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prevents bugs and code duplication
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Who: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
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---------------------------
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What: Unused EXPORT_SYMBOL/EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL exports
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(temporary transition config option provided until then)
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The transition config option will also be removed at the same time.
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When: before 2.6.19
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Why: Unused symbols are both increasing the size of the kernel binary
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and are often a sign of "wrong API"
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Who: Arjan van de Ven <arjan@linux.intel.com>
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---------------------------
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What: PHYSDEVPATH, PHYSDEVBUS, PHYSDEVDRIVER in the uevent environment
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When: October 2008
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Why: The stacking of class devices makes these values misleading and
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inconsistent.
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Class devices should not carry any of these properties, and bus
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devices have SUBSYTEM and DRIVER as a replacement.
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Who: Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@suse.de>
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---------------------------
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What: ACPI procfs interface
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When: July 2008
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Why: ACPI sysfs conversion should be finished by January 2008.
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ACPI procfs interface will be removed in July 2008 so that
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there is enough time for the user space to catch up.
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Who: Zhang Rui <rui.zhang@intel.com>
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---------------------------
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What: /proc/acpi/button
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When: August 2007
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Why: /proc/acpi/button has been replaced by events to the input layer
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since 2.6.20.
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Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
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---------------------------
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What: /proc/acpi/event
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When: February 2008
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Why: /proc/acpi/event has been replaced by events via the input layer
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and netlink since 2.6.23.
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Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
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---------------------------
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What: i386/x86_64 bzImage symlinks
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When: April 2010
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Why: The i386/x86_64 merge provides a symlink to the old bzImage
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location so not yet updated user space tools, e.g. package
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scripts, do not break.
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Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
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---------------------------
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What: GPIO autorequest on gpio_direction_{input,output}() in gpiolib
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When: February 2010
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Why: All callers should use explicit gpio_request()/gpio_free().
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The autorequest mechanism in gpiolib was provided mostly as a
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migration aid for legacy GPIO interfaces (for SOC based GPIOs).
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Those users have now largely migrated. Platforms implementing
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the GPIO interfaces without using gpiolib will see no changes.
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Who: David Brownell <dbrownell@users.sourceforge.net>
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---------------------------
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What: b43 support for firmware revision < 410
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When: The schedule was July 2008, but it was decided that we are going to keep the
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code as long as there are no major maintanance headaches.
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So it _could_ be removed _any_ time now, if it conflicts with something new.
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Why: The support code for the old firmware hurts code readability/maintainability
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and slightly hurts runtime performance. Bugfixes for the old firmware
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are not provided by Broadcom anymore.
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Who: Michael Buesch <mb@bu3sch.de>
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---------------------------
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What: /sys/o2cb symlink
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When: January 2010
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Why: /sys/fs/o2cb is the proper location for this information - /sys/o2cb
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exists as a symlink for backwards compatibility for old versions of
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ocfs2-tools. 2 years should be sufficient time to phase in new versions
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which know to look in /sys/fs/o2cb.
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Who: ocfs2-devel@oss.oracle.com
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---------------------------
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What: Ability for non root users to shm_get hugetlb pages based on mlock
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resource limits
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When: 2.6.31
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Why: Non root users need to be part of /proc/sys/vm/hugetlb_shm_group or
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have CAP_IPC_LOCK to be able to allocate shm segments backed by
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huge pages. The mlock based rlimit check to allow shm hugetlb is
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inconsistent with mmap based allocations. Hence it is being
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deprecated.
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Who: Ravikiran Thirumalai <kiran@scalex86.org>
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---------------------------
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What: CONFIG_THERMAL_HWMON
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When: January 2009
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Why: This option was introduced just to allow older lm-sensors userspace
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to keep working over the upgrade to 2.6.26. At the scheduled time of
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removal fixed lm-sensors (2.x or 3.x) should be readily available.
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Who: Rene Herman <rene.herman@gmail.com>
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---------------------------
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What: Code that is now under CONFIG_WIRELESS_EXT_SYSFS
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(in net/core/net-sysfs.c)
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When: After the only user (hal) has seen a release with the patches
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for enough time, probably some time in 2010.
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Why: Over 1K .text/.data size reduction, data is available in other
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ways (ioctls)
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Who: Johannes Berg <johannes@sipsolutions.net>
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---------------------------
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What: CONFIG_NF_CT_ACCT
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When: 2.6.29
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Why: Accounting can now be enabled/disabled without kernel recompilation.
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Currently used only to set a default value for a feature that is also
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controlled by a kernel/module/sysfs/sysctl parameter.
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Who: Krzysztof Piotr Oledzki <ole@ans.pl>
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---------------------------
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What: sysfs ui for changing p4-clockmod parameters
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When: September 2009
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Why: See commits 129f8ae9b1b5be94517da76009ea956e89104ce8 and
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e088e4c9cdb618675874becb91b2fd581ee707e6.
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Removal is subject to fixing any remaining bugs in ACPI which may
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cause the thermal throttling not to happen at the right time.
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Who: Dave Jones <davej@redhat.com>, Matthew Garrett <mjg@redhat.com>
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-----------------------------
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What: __do_IRQ all in one fits nothing interrupt handler
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When: 2.6.32
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Why: __do_IRQ was kept for easy migration to the type flow handlers.
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More than two years of migration time is enough.
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Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
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-----------------------------
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What: fakephp and associated sysfs files in /sys/bus/pci/slots/
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When: 2011
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Why: In 2.6.27, the semantics of /sys/bus/pci/slots was redefined to
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represent a machine's physical PCI slots. The change in semantics
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had userspace implications, as the hotplug core no longer allowed
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drivers to create multiple sysfs files per physical slot (required
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for multi-function devices, e.g.). fakephp was seen as a developer's
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tool only, and its interface changed. Too late, we learned that
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there were some users of the fakephp interface.
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In 2.6.30, the original fakephp interface was restored. At the same
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time, the PCI core gained the ability that fakephp provided, namely
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function-level hot-remove and hot-add.
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Since the PCI core now provides the same functionality, exposed in:
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/sys/bus/pci/rescan
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/sys/bus/pci/devices/.../remove
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/sys/bus/pci/devices/.../rescan
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there is no functional reason to maintain fakephp as well.
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We will keep the existing module so that 'modprobe fakephp' will
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present the old /sys/bus/pci/slots/... interface for compatibility,
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but users are urged to migrate their applications to the API above.
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After a reasonable transition period, we will remove the legacy
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fakephp interface.
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Who: Alex Chiang <achiang@hp.com>
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---------------------------
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What: CONFIG_RFKILL_INPUT
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When: 2.6.33
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Why: Should be implemented in userspace, policy daemon.
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Who: Johannes Berg <johannes@sipsolutions.net>
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---------------------------
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What: CONFIG_INOTIFY
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When: 2.6.33
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Why: last user (audit) will be converted to the newer more generic
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and more easily maintained fsnotify subsystem
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Who: Eric Paris <eparis@redhat.com>
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----------------------------
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What: lock_policy_rwsem_* and unlock_policy_rwsem_* will not be
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exported interface anymore.
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When: 2.6.33
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Why: cpu_policy_rwsem has a new cleaner definition making it local to
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cpufreq core and contained inside cpufreq.c. Other dependent
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drivers should not use it in order to safely avoid lockdep issues.
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Who: Venkatesh Pallipadi <venkatesh.pallipadi@intel.com>
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----------------------------
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What: sound-slot/service-* module aliases and related clutters in
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sound/sound_core.c
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When: August 2010
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Why: OSS sound_core grabs all legacy minors (0-255) of SOUND_MAJOR
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(14) and requests modules using custom sound-slot/service-*
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module aliases. The only benefit of doing this is allowing
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use of custom module aliases which might as well be considered
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a bug at this point. This preemptive claiming prevents
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alternative OSS implementations.
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Till the feature is removed, the kernel will be requesting
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both sound-slot/service-* and the standard char-major-* module
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aliases and allow turning off the pre-claiming selectively via
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CONFIG_SOUND_OSS_CORE_PRECLAIM and soundcore.preclaim_oss
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kernel parameter.
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After the transition phase is complete, both the custom module
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aliases and switches to disable it will go away. This removal
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will also allow making ALSA OSS emulation independent of
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sound_core. The dependency will be broken then too.
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Who: Tejun Heo <tj@kernel.org>
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----------------------------
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What: Support for VMware's guest paravirtuliazation technique [VMI] will be
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dropped.
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When: 2.6.37 or earlier.
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Why: With the recent innovations in CPU hardware acceleration technologies
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from Intel and AMD, VMware ran a few experiments to compare these
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techniques to guest paravirtualization technique on VMware's platform.
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These hardware assisted virtualization techniques have outperformed the
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performance benefits provided by VMI in most of the workloads. VMware
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expects that these hardware features will be ubiquitous in a couple of
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years, as a result, VMware has started a phased retirement of this
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feature from the hypervisor. We will be removing this feature from the
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Kernel too. Right now we are targeting 2.6.37 but can retire earlier if
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technical reasons (read opportunity to remove major chunk of pvops)
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arise.
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Please note that VMI has always been an optimization and non-VMI kernels
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still work fine on VMware's platform.
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Latest versions of VMware's product which support VMI are,
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Workstation 7.0 and VSphere 4.0 on ESX side, future maintainence
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releases for these products will continue supporting VMI.
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For more details about VMI retirement take a look at this,
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http://blogs.vmware.com/guestosguide/2009/09/vmi-retirement.html
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Who: Alok N Kataria <akataria@vmware.com>
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----------------------------
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What: Support for lcd_switch and display_get in asus-laptop driver
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When: March 2010
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Why: These two features use non-standard interfaces. There are the
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only features that really need multiple path to guess what's
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the right method name on a specific laptop.
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Removing them will allow to remove a lot of code an significantly
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clean the drivers.
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This will affect the backlight code which won't be able to know
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if the backlight is on or off. The platform display file will also be
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write only (like the one in eeepc-laptop).
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This should'nt affect a lot of user because they usually know
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when their display is on or off.
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Who: Corentin Chary <corentin.chary@gmail.com>
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----------------------------
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What: usbvideo quickcam_messenger driver
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When: 2.6.35
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Files: drivers/media/video/usbvideo/quickcam_messenger.[ch]
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Why: obsolete v4l1 driver replaced by gspca_stv06xx
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Who: Hans de Goede <hdegoede@redhat.com>
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----------------------------
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What: ov511 v4l1 driver
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When: 2.6.35
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Files: drivers/media/video/ov511.[ch]
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Why: obsolete v4l1 driver replaced by gspca_ov519
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Who: Hans de Goede <hdegoede@redhat.com>
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----------------------------
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What: w9968cf v4l1 driver
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When: 2.6.35
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Files: drivers/media/video/w9968cf*.[ch]
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Why: obsolete v4l1 driver replaced by gspca_ov519
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Who: Hans de Goede <hdegoede@redhat.com>
|
|
|
|
----------------------------
|
|
|
|
What: ovcamchip sensor framework
|
|
When: 2.6.35
|
|
Files: drivers/media/video/ovcamchip/*
|
|
Why: Only used by obsoleted v4l1 drivers
|
|
Who: Hans de Goede <hdegoede@redhat.com>
|
|
|
|
----------------------------
|
|
|
|
What: stv680 v4l1 driver
|
|
When: 2.6.35
|
|
Files: drivers/media/video/stv680.[ch]
|
|
Why: obsolete v4l1 driver replaced by gspca_stv0680
|
|
Who: Hans de Goede <hdegoede@redhat.com>
|
|
|
|
----------------------------
|
|
|
|
What: zc0301 v4l driver
|
|
When: 2.6.35
|
|
Files: drivers/media/video/zc0301/*
|
|
Why: Duplicate functionality with the gspca_zc3xx driver, zc0301 only
|
|
supports 2 USB-ID's (because it only supports a limited set of
|
|
sensors) wich are also supported by the gspca_zc3xx driver
|
|
(which supports 53 USB-ID's in total)
|
|
Who: Hans de Goede <hdegoede@redhat.com>
|
|
|
|
----------------------------
|
|
|
|
What: sysfs-class-rfkill state file
|
|
When: Feb 2014
|
|
Files: net/rfkill/core.c
|
|
Why: Documented as obsolete since Feb 2010. This file is limited to 3
|
|
states while the rfkill drivers can have 4 states.
|
|
Who: anybody or Florian Mickler <florian@mickler.org>
|
|
|
|
----------------------------
|
|
|
|
What: sysfs-class-rfkill claim file
|
|
When: Feb 2012
|
|
Files: net/rfkill/core.c
|
|
Why: It is not possible to claim an rfkill driver since 2007. This is
|
|
Documented as obsolete since Feb 2010.
|
|
Who: anybody or Florian Mickler <florian@mickler.org>
|
|
|
|
----------------------------
|
|
|
|
What: capifs
|
|
When: February 2011
|
|
Files: drivers/isdn/capi/capifs.*
|
|
Why: udev fully replaces this special file system that only contains CAPI
|
|
NCCI TTY device nodes. User space (pppdcapiplugin) works without
|
|
noticing the difference.
|
|
Who: Jan Kiszka <jan.kiszka@web.de>
|
|
|
|
----------------------------
|
|
|
|
What: KVM memory aliases support
|
|
When: July 2010
|
|
Why: Memory aliasing support is used for speeding up guest vga access
|
|
through the vga windows.
|
|
|
|
Modern userspace no longer uses this feature, so it's just bitrotted
|
|
code and can be removed with no impact.
|
|
Who: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>
|
|
|
|
----------------------------
|
|
|
|
What: xtime, wall_to_monotonic
|
|
When: 2.6.36+
|
|
Files: kernel/time/timekeeping.c include/linux/time.h
|
|
Why: Cleaning up timekeeping internal values. Please use
|
|
existing timekeeping accessor functions to access
|
|
the equivalent functionality.
|
|
Who: John Stultz <johnstul@us.ibm.com>
|
|
|
|
----------------------------
|
|
|
|
What: KVM kernel-allocated memory slots
|
|
When: July 2010
|
|
Why: Since 2.6.25, kvm supports user-allocated memory slots, which are
|
|
much more flexible than kernel-allocated slots. All current userspace
|
|
supports the newer interface and this code can be removed with no
|
|
impact.
|
|
Who: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>
|
|
|
|
----------------------------
|
|
|
|
What: KVM paravirt mmu host support
|
|
When: January 2011
|
|
Why: The paravirt mmu host support is slower than non-paravirt mmu, both
|
|
on newer and older hardware. It is already not exposed to the guest,
|
|
and kept only for live migration purposes.
|
|
Who: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>
|
|
|
|
----------------------------
|
|
|
|
What: "acpi=ht" boot option
|
|
When: 2.6.35
|
|
Why: Useful in 2003, implementation is a hack.
|
|
Generally invoked by accident today.
|
|
Seen as doing more harm than good.
|
|
Who: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
|
|
|
|
----------------------------
|
|
|
|
What: iwlwifi 50XX module parameters
|
|
When: 2.6.40
|
|
Why: The "..50" modules parameters were used to configure 5000 series and
|
|
up devices; different set of module parameters also available for 4965
|
|
with same functionalities. Consolidate both set into single place
|
|
in drivers/net/wireless/iwlwifi/iwl-agn.c
|
|
|
|
Who: Wey-Yi Guy <wey-yi.w.guy@intel.com>
|
|
|
|
----------------------------
|
|
|
|
What: iwl4965 alias support
|
|
When: 2.6.40
|
|
Why: Internal alias support has been present in module-init-tools for some
|
|
time, the MODULE_ALIAS("iwl4965") boilerplate aliases can be removed
|
|
with no impact.
|
|
|
|
Who: Wey-Yi Guy <wey-yi.w.guy@intel.com>
|
|
|
|
---------------------------
|
|
|
|
What: xt_NOTRACK
|
|
Files: net/netfilter/xt_NOTRACK.c
|
|
When: April 2011
|
|
Why: Superseded by xt_CT
|
|
Who: Netfilter developer team <netfilter-devel@vger.kernel.org>
|
|
|
|
---------------------------
|
|
|
|
What: video4linux /dev/vtx teletext API support
|
|
When: 2.6.35
|
|
Files: drivers/media/video/saa5246a.c drivers/media/video/saa5249.c
|
|
include/linux/videotext.h
|
|
Why: The vtx device nodes have been superseded by vbi device nodes
|
|
for many years. No applications exist that use the vtx support.
|
|
Of the two i2c drivers that actually support this API the saa5249
|
|
has been impossible to use for a year now and no known hardware
|
|
that supports this device exists. The saa5246a is theoretically
|
|
supported by the old mxb boards, but it never actually worked.
|
|
|
|
In summary: there is no hardware that can use this API and there
|
|
are no applications actually implementing this API.
|
|
|
|
The vtx support still reserves minors 192-223 and we would really
|
|
like to reuse those for upcoming new functionality. In the unlikely
|
|
event that new hardware appears that wants to use the functionality
|
|
provided by the vtx API, then that functionality should be build
|
|
around the sliced VBI API instead.
|
|
Who: Hans Verkuil <hverkuil@xs4all.nl>
|
|
|
|
----------------------------
|
|
|
|
What: IRQF_DISABLED
|
|
When: 2.6.36
|
|
Why: The flag is a NOOP as we run interrupt handlers with interrupts disabled
|
|
Who: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
|
|
|
|
----------------------------
|
|
|