In the ongoing effort to reduce the power consumption of the linux kernel [story] and take better advantage of the tickless kernel patch [story], Stephen Hemminger posted a patch to make it possible to unload the keyboard blink driver, "the blink driver wakes up every jiffy which wastes power unnecessarily. Using a notifier gives same effect. Also add ability to unload module." The blink driver was only recently merged, described as a "simple driver that blinks the keyboard LEDs when loaded. Useful for checking that the kernel is still alive or for crashdumping."

Linus Torvalds reviewed the driver and retorted, "I really get the feeling this thing should be removed entirely. Wasting power is the _least_ of its problems." When it was pointed out that the driver is only a debugging tool, Linus listed his complaints, "it has been a total disaster from beginning to end. It wastes power. It hangs machines when it tries to blink," going on to add, "its main problem is that PEOPLE SHOULD NOT USE IT, but it sounds cool, so people end up configuring the damn thing even though they shouldn't." Ultimately, Linus removed the driver before the 2.6.22 release [story] noting, "we could have just disabled it, but there's work on a new one that isn't as fundamentally broken, so there really doesn't seem to be any point in keeping it around."