This patch series was posted in reply to a table of contents
https://lkml.org/lkml/2011/4/2/8
"By the end of this series, pm_idle is removed as a public
x86 idle-loop registration mechanism. A few other things are
cleaned up in the process."
Ok so lets rewind a bit - why do we want to remove pm_idle rather than
just fix up the way registration occurs. It's just a symbol, one trivial
interface that is exported and perhaps wants the export method tidying up.
Trinabh also replied to you, pointing one of the previous
LKML discussions about the mis-use of pm_idle.
And there are misuses of just about every kernel symbol - kmalloc for
example causes some people a lot of trouble !
We'll create a new APM cpuidle driver in Linux (Trinabh prototyped one),
and at the same time, schedule it for removal in a year. Personally,
I think it is make-work, and in real-life it is more likely to do
more harm than removing apm_idle, but I don't want to stand in the
way of process.
So you could just leave it alone - that's less work, less disruption and
doesn't do any harm at all.
As I read this the plan at the moment otherwise is
- churn up all the code
- remove PM idle hook
- rewrite the APM code
- replace the APM code
whereas you could just leave the symbol exported or even just a hook to
make people to do it right using:
int register_pm_idle(function);