Re: [PATCH] Kconfig: purge twenty-nine legacy ghost options

On Fri, Sep 04, 2026 at 08:12:40PM -0300, Breno Rodrigues Alves wrote:

You can keep a dead config option around for a while out of sympathy.
After a couple of releases it stops being "transitional" and starts
being "you are confusing every user who greps for it". These options
select nothing, gate nothing, and -- I checked by hand, this is not a
regex accident -- are referenced by exactly nobody in the tree.

Evidence for each removal:
  * no CONFIG_<sym> reference outside the Kconfig definition itself
  * no <sym> reference as an 'if'/'select'/'depends on' target
  * no mention in any defconfig, any Documentation, or any source build
  * the code they used to gate is gone (removed or folded into a real
    driver that already has its own, functioning config symbol)

Headliners of the graveyard:
  - HID_THINGM: help text literally said "will be removed soon". Well.
    Gone now. The blink(1) driver is HJID_LED.
  - USB_CONFIGFS_F_TCM: the real fabric always built via USB_F_TCM; the
    "CONFIGFS" name was a leftover from when someone could not decide
    what to call the thing.
  - USB_EHCI_TEGRA, USB_OCTEON_OHCI, USB_OHCI_HCD_SSB: help text says
    "driver was removed, use X instead". The other X already exists.
  - PANEL: proudly labeled "OLD OPTION" with its own "Deprecated
    options" section in the file. The actual parport lcd driver has
    always been PARPORT_PANEL.
  - COMMON_CLK_MT6765_*: seven sysclk entries with no matching object
    in the Makefile. Zero files built, zero regrets.
  - The usual kconfig-vandalism suspects (HAVE_PWRCTL, REGULATOR_MT6316,
    INTERCONNECT_MTK_MT8196, CLK_SUNXI_PRCM_SUN9I, DVB_ULE_DEBUG, ...).

Validated: defconfig, olddefconfig and randconfig parse clean on both
x86_64 and arm64; headers_install (the target that replaced the dearly
departed headers_check, which this tree does not have) succeeds with a
clean UAPI on both architectures. Because someone will ask: yes, I
checked the s390/arm/riscv No, I did not delete any arch/* Kconfig, and
no, I did not touch a single include/uapi/ file.

Why should you care? Because "make menuconfig" allegedly lets people
configure the kernel, and leaving a menu full of options that do
nothing makes them feel like they have a choice when they really are
just being sold snake oil. Clean it up.

Signed-off-by: Breno Rodrigues Alves <redacted>

Did you forget the Assisted-by: tag here?

ANd this should be broken up per subsystem please.

thanks,

greg k-h