2.6.9-rc3-mm2 should-fix list

Not-ready features and speedups
===============================

Legend:

PRI1:	We're totally lame if this doesn't get in
PRI2:	Would be nice
PRI3:	Not very important

drivers/block/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

drivers/char/rtc/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

o rmk, trini: add support for alarms to the existing generic rtc driver.

  PRI2

console drivers
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  (Pavel Machek <pavel@ucw.cz>)

o There are few must-fix bugs in cursor handling.

o Play with gpm selection for a while and your cursor gets corrupted with
  random dots. Ouch.

device mapper
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

o ioctl interface cleanup patch is ready (redo the structure layouts)

  PRI1

o A port of the 2.4 snapshot and mirror targets is in progress

  PRI1

o the fs interface to dm needs to be redone.  gregkh was going to work on
  this.  viro is interested in seeing work thus-far.

  PRI2

drivers/net/wireless/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  (Jean Tourrilhes <jt@bougret.hpl.hp.com>)

o get HostAP driver in the kernel.  No consolidation of the 802.11
  management across driver can happen until this one is in (which is probably
  2.7.X material).  I think Jouni is mostly ready but didn't find time for
  it.

  PRI2

o get more wireless drivers into the kernel.  The most "integrable" drivers
  at this point seem the NWN driver, Pavel's Spectrum driver.

  PRI1

drivers/usb/gadget/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

o rmk: SA11xx USB client/gadget code (David B has been doing some work on
  this, and keeps trying to prod me, but unfortunately I haven't had the time
  to look at his work, sorry David.)

  PRI3

fs/
~~~

o ext3 and ext2 block allocators have serious failure modes - interleaved
  allocations. (Reservation patch in -mm).

  PRI3

o Integrate Chris Mason's 2.4 reiserfs ordered data and data journaling
  patches.  They make reiserfs a lot safer.

  Ordered: PRI2
  data journalled: PRI3

o viro: convert more filesystems to use lib/parser.c for options.

  PRI2

o aio: fs IO isn't async at present.  suparna has restart patches, they're
  in -mm.  Need to get Ben to review/comment.

  PRI1.

o drepper: various filesystems use ->pid wrongly

  PRI1

kernel/
~~~~~~~

o rusty: Zippel's Reference count simplification.  Tricky code, but cuts
  about 120 lines from module.c.  Patch exists, needs stressing.

  PRI3

o rusty: Fix module-failed-init races by starting module "disabled".  Patch
  exists, requires some subsystems (ie.  add_partition) to explicitly say
  "make module live now".  Without patch we are no worse off than 2.4 etc.

  PRI1

o kexec.  Seems to work, was in -mm.

  PRI3

o rmk: lib/inflate.c must not use static variables (causes these to be
  referenced via GOTOFF relocations in PIC decompressor.  We have a PIC
  decompressor to avoid having to hard code a per platform zImage link
  address into the makefiles.)

  PRI2


mm/
~~~


net/
~~~~

  (davem)

o Real serious use of IPSEC is hampered by lack of MPLS support.  MPLS is a
  switching technology that works by switching based upon fixed length labels
  prepended to packets.  Many people use this and IPSEC to implement VPNs
  over public networks, it is also used for things like traffic engineering.

  A good reference site is:

	http://www.mplsrc.com/

  Anyways, an existing (crappy) implementation exists.  I've almost
  completed a rewrite, I should have something in the tree next week.

  PRI1

o Sometimes we generate IP fragments when it truly isn't necessary.

  The way IP fragmentation is specified, each fragment must be modulo 8
  bytes in length.  So suppose the device has an MTU that is not 0 modulo 8,
  ethernet even classifies in this way.  1500 == (8 * 187) + 4

  Our IP fragmenting engine can fragment on packets that are sized within
  the last modulo 8 bytes of the MTU.  This happens in obscure cases, but it
  does happen.

  I've proposed a fix to Alexey, whereby very late in the output path we
  check the packet, if we fragmented but the data length would fit into the
  MTU we unfragment the packet.

  This is low priority, because technically it creates suboptimal behavior
  rather than mis-operation.

  PRI1

net/*/netfilter/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

o Lots of misc. cleanups, which are happening slowly.

  PRI2

power management
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

o Pat and Pavel disagree over swsusp. Need to sort that out.

  PRI2

o Frame buffer, AGP, DRI restore.

  PRI2

o XFree86 hooks

  PRI2

o IDE suspend/resume without races (Ben is looking at this a little)

  PRI2

o Pat: There are already CPU device structures; MTRRs should be a
  dynamically registered interface of CPUs, which implies there needs
  to be some other glue to know that there are MTRRs that need to be
  saved/restored.

  PRI1

global
~~~~~~

o viro: 64-bit dev_t (not a mustfix for 2.6.0). 32-bit dev_t is done, 64-bit
  means extra work on nfsd/raid/etc.

o We need a kernel side API for reporting error events to userspace (could
  be async to 2.6 itself)

  (Prototype core based on netlink exists)

  PRI2

o Kai: Introduce a sane, easy and standard way to build external modules
  - make clean and make modules_install are both broken

  PRI2

drivers
~~~~~~~

o Alan: Cardbus/PCMCIA requires all Russell's stuff is merged to do
  multiheader right and so on

  PRI1

drivers/acpi/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

o alan: VIA APIC stuff is one bit of this, there are also some other
  reports that were caused by ACPI not setting level v edge trigger some
  times

  PRI1

o mochel: it seems the acpi irq routing code could use a serious rewrite.

  grover: The problem is the ACPI irq routing code is trying to piggyback
  on the existing MPS-specific data structures, and it's generally a hack.
  So yes mochel is right, but it is also purging MPS-ities from common code
  as well.  I've done some preliminary work in this area and it doesn't seem
  to break anything (yet) but a rewrite in this area imho should not be
  rushed out the door.  And, I think the above bugs can be fixed w/o the
  rewrite.

  PRI2

o mochel: ACPI suspend doesn't work.  Important, not cricital.  Pat is
  working it.

  PRI2

drivers/block/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


drivers/char/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~


drivers/ide/
~~~~~~~~~~~~

  (Alan)

o IDE races, PIO problems, simplex, hotplug, taskfile.

  PRI2


drivers/isdn/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  (Kai, rmk)

o locking fixes, cleanups, adaption to recent APIs etc

  PRI2

o fixup tty-based ISDN drivers which provide TIOCM* ioctls (see my recent
  3-set patch for serial stuff)

  Alternatively, we could re-introduce the fallback to driver ioctl parsing
  for these if not enough drivers get updated.

  PRI3

drivers/net/
~~~~~~~~~~~~

o davej: Either Wireless network drivers or PCMCIA broke somewhen.  A
  configuration that worked fine under 2.4 doesn't receive any packets.  Need
  to look into this more to make sure I don't have any misconfiguration that
  just 'happened to work' under 2.4

  PRI1

drivers/scsi/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

o jejb: qlogic -

  o Merge the feral driver.  It covers all qlogic chips: 1020 all the way
    up to 23xxx. http://linux-scsi.bkbits.net/scsi-isp-2.5

  o qla2xxx: only for FC chips.  Has significant build issues.  hch
    promises to send me a "must fix" list for this.
    http://linux-scsi.bkbits.net/scsi-qla2xxx-2.5

  PRI2

o hch, Mike Anderson, Badari Pulavarty: scsi locking issues

  o there are lots of members of struct Scsi_Host/scsi_device/scsi_cmnd
    with very unclear locking, many of them probably want to become
    atomic_t's or bitmaps (for the 1bit bitfields).

  o there's lots of volatile abuse in the scsi code that needs to be
    thought about.

  o there's some global variables incremented without any locks

  PRI2

sound/
~~~~~~

  (rmk)

o ALSA-fication of drivers, forward port 2.4 bugfixes
  (Killing off OSS is 2.7 material)

PRI2

arch/i386/
~~~~~~~~~~

o davej: PAT support (for mtrr exhaustion w/ AGP)

  PRI2

o ECC driver questions are not yet sorted (DaveJ is working on this) (Dan
  Hollis)

  alan: ECC - I have some test bits from Dan's stuff - they need no kernel
  core changes for most platforms.  That means we can treat it as a random
  driver merge.

  PRI3


arch/x86_64/
~~~~~~~~~~~~

  (Andi)

o need to coredump 64bit vsyscall code with dwarf2

  PRI2

o move 64bit signal trampolines into vsyscall code and add dwarf2 for it.
  (in progress)

  PRI1

o describe kernel assembly with dwarf2 annotations for kgdb

  PRI3

arch/alpha/
~~~~~~~~~~~

o rth: Ptrace writes are broken.  This means we can't (reliably) set
  breakpoints or modify variables from gdb.

  PRI1

arch/arm/
~~~~~~~~~

o rmk: missing raw keyboard translation tables for all ARM machines.
  Haven't even looked into this at all.  This could be messy since there
  isn't an ARM architecture standard.  I'm presently hoping that it won't be
  an issue.  If it does, I guess we'll see drivers/char/keyboard.c explode.

  PRI2

arch/others/
~~~~~~~~~~~~

o SH needs resyncing, as do some other ports. SH64 needs merging.
  No impact on mainstream platforms hopefully.

  PRI2

arch/s390/
~~~~~~~~~


drivers/s390/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

o The 3270 console driver needs to be replaced with a working one
  (prototype is there, needs to be finished).

  PRI2

o Minor interface changes are pending in cio/ when the z990 machines are
  out.

  PRI2

o a block device driver for ramdisks shared among virtual machines

  PRI3

o driver for crypto hardware

  PRI3

o 'claw' network device driver

  PRI3