Linux 3.0 Kernel May Remove Some Old Cruft

The discussion surrounding Linus Torvalds' proposal to end the Linux 2.6 kernel series and continue on as the Linux 3.0 kernel has continued on since it began less than 24 hours ago. The reaction has largely been positive and supportive of this proposed change. Of the few objections, some see no reason to mess around with the versioning, but now there may be a reason for this change: to drop the old cruft that's been living in the kernel.

The reasoning by Linus for the change to end the Linux 2.6 series came down to "voices in [his] head" with the numbering now getting high with the next kernel, if released as is, being the Linux 2.6.40 kernel. This year also happens to be the 20th anniversary of the Linux kernel.

This morning, Alan Cox has proposed eliminating lots of the old cruft from the Linux kernel as part of this change.

Can we drop most of MCA, EISA and ISA bus if we are going to have a big version change? A driver spring clean is much overdue and it's all in git in case someone wishes to sneak out at midnight and bring some crawly horror back from the dead.

Alan

Linux users can already configure their own kernel to be compiled without most of this old code that's only used by ancient computer hardware, but many would like to see the Linux kernel trimmed down and become more lean. We'll see if it happens...