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xianfeng |
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: MXSER
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When: December 2007
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Why: Old mxser driver is obsoleted by the mxser_new. Give it some time yet
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and remove it.
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Who: Jiri Slaby
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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
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What: old NCR53C9x driver
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When: October 2007
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Why: Replaced by the much better esp_scsi driver. Actual low-level
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driver can be ported over almost trivially.
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Who: David Miller
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Christoph Hellwig
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What: Video4Linux API 1 ioctls and video_decoder.h from Video devices.
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When: December 2008
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Files: include/linux/video_decoder.h include/linux/videodev.h
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Check: include/linux/video_decoder.h 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
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What: PCMCIA control ioctl (needed for pcmcia-cs [cardmgr, cardctl])
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When: November 2005
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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 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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Who: Dominik Brodowski
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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
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---------------------------
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What: a.out interpreter support for ELF executables
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When: 2.6.25
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Files: fs/binfmt_elf.c
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Why: Using a.out interpreters for ELF executables was a feature for
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transition from a.out to ELF. But now it is unlikely to be still
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needed anymore and removing it would simplify the hairy ELF
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loader code.
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Who: Andi Kleen
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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 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
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---------------------------
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What: CONFIG_FORCED_INLINING
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When: June 2006
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Why: Config option is there to see if gcc is good enough. (in january
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2006). If it is, the behavior should just be the default. If it's not,
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the option should just go away entirely.
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Who: Arjan van de Ven
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---------------------------
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What: eepro100 network driver
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When: January 2007
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Why: replaced by the e100 driver
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Who: Adrian Bunk
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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
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What: USB driver API moves to EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL
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When: February 2008
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Files: include/linux/usb.h, drivers/usb/core/driver.c
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Why: The USB subsystem has changed a lot over time, and it has been
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possible to create userspace USB drivers using usbfs/libusb/gadgetfs
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that operate as fast as the USB bus allows. Because of this, the USB
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subsystem will not be allowing closed source kernel drivers to
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register with it, after this grace period is over. If anyone needs
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any help in converting their closed source drivers over to use the
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userspace filesystems, please contact the
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linux-usb-devel@lists.sourceforge.net mailing list, and the developers
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there will be glad to help you out.
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Who: Greg Kroah-Hartman
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---------------------------
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What: vm_ops.nopage
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When: Soon, provided in-kernel callers have been converted
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Why: This interface is replaced by vm_ops.fault, but it has been around
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forever, is used by a lot of drivers, and doesn't cost much to
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maintain.
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Who: Nick Piggin
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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
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What: i2c_adapter.list
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When: July 2007
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Why: Superfluous, this list duplicates the one maintained by the driver
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core.
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Who: Jean Delvare ,
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David Brownell
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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
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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
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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
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What: i2c-ixp2000, i2c-ixp4xx and scx200_i2c drivers
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When: September 2007
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Why: Obsolete. The new i2c-gpio driver replaces all hardware-specific
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I2C-over-GPIO drivers.
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Who: Jean Delvare
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What: 'time' kernel boot parameter
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When: January 2008
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Why: replaced by 'printk.time=' so that printk timestamps can be
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enabled or disabled as needed
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Who: Randy Dunlap
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What: drivers depending on OSS_OBSOLETE
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When: options in 2.6.23, code in 2.6.25
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Why: obsolete OSS drivers
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Who: Adrian Bunk
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What: libata spindown skipping and warning
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When: Dec 2008
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Why: Some halt(8) implementations synchronize caches for and spin
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down libata disks because libata didn't use to spin down disk on
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system halt (only synchronized caches).
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Spin down on system halt is now implemented. sysfs node
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/sys/class/scsi_disk/h:c:i:l/manage_start_stop is present if
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spin down support is available.
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Because issuing spin down command to an already spun down disk
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makes some disks spin up just to spin down again, libata tracks
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device spindown status to skip the extra spindown command and
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warn about it.
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This is to give userspace tools the time to get updated and will
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be removed after userspace is reasonably updated.
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Who: Tejun Heo
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What: Legacy RTC drivers (under drivers/i2c/chips)
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When: November 2007
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Why: Obsolete. We have a RTC subsystem with better drivers.
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Who: Jean Delvare
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---------------------------
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What: iptables SAME target
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When: 1.1. 2008
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Files: net/ipv4/netfilter/ipt_SAME.c, include/linux/netfilter_ipv4/ipt_SAME.h
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Why: Obsolete for multiple years now, NAT core provides the same behaviour.
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Unfixable broken wrt. 32/64 bit cleanness.
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Who: Patrick McHardy
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---------------------------
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What: The arch/ppc and include/asm-ppc directories
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When: Jun 2008
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Why: The arch/powerpc tree is the merged architecture for ppc32 and ppc64
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platforms. Currently there are efforts underway to port the remaining
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arch/ppc platforms to the merged tree. New submissions to the arch/ppc
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tree have been frozen with the 2.6.22 kernel release and that tree will
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remain in bug-fix only mode until its scheduled removal. Platforms
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that are not ported by June 2008 will be removed due to the lack of an
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interested maintainer.
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Who: linuxppc-dev@ozlabs.org
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---------------------------
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What: mthca driver's MSI support
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When: January 2008
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Files: drivers/infiniband/hw/mthca/*.[ch]
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Why: All mthca hardware also supports MSI-X, which provides
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strictly more functionality than MSI. So there is no point in
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having both MSI-X and MSI support in the driver.
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Who: Roland Dreier
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---------------------------
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What: sk98lin network driver
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When: Feburary 2008
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Why: In kernel tree version of driver is unmaintained. Sk98lin driver
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replaced by the skge driver.
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Who: Stephen Hemminger
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---------------------------
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What: i386/x86_64 bzImage symlinks
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When: April 2008
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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
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---------------------------
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What: shaper network driver
|
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When: January 2008
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Files: drivers/net/shaper.c, include/linux/if_shaper.h
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Why: This driver has been marked obsolete for many years.
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It was only designed to work on lower speed links and has design
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flaws that lead to machine crashes. The qdisc infrastructure in
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2.4 or later kernels, provides richer features and is more robust.
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Who: Stephen Hemminger
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---------------------------
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