From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Andy Walls Subject: Re: [RFC] What are the goals for the architecture of an in-kernel IR system? Date: Sat, 28 Nov 2009 23:32:01 -0500 Message-ID: <1259469121.3125.28.camel@palomino.walls.org> References: <9e4733910911280906if1191a1jd3d055e8b781e45c@mail.gmail.com> <9e4733910911280937k37551b38g90f4a60b73665853@mail.gmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: Received: from mail1.radix.net ([207.192.128.31]:63584 "EHLO mail1.radix.net" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753758AbZK2Edn (ORCPT ); Sat, 28 Nov 2009 23:33:43 -0500 In-Reply-To: <9e4733910911280937k37551b38g90f4a60b73665853@mail.gmail.com> Sender: linux-input-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: linux-input@vger.kernel.org To: Jon Smirl Cc: Krzysztof Halasa , Christoph Bartelmus , dmitry.torokhov@gmail.com, j@jannau.net, jarod@redhat.com, jarod@wilsonet.com, linux-input@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-media@vger.kernel.org, maximlevitsky@gmail.com, mchehab@redhat.com, stefanr@s5r6.in-berlin.de, superm1@ubuntu.com On Sat, 2009-11-28 at 12:37 -0500, Jon Smirl wrote: > On Sat, Nov 28, 2009 at 12:35 PM, Krzysztof Halasa wrote: > > Jon Smirl writes: > > > >> There are two very basic things that we need to reach consensus on first. > >> > >> 1) Unification with mouse/keyboard in evdev - put IR on equal footing. BTW, circa 1995 my serial mouse "Just Worked" in Linux. Sometime around the release of Fedora Core 3 or 4, serial mice stopped being well supported as input devices AFAICT. (I still have a dual boot Windows95/Linux machine with a serial mouse because it has ISA slots.) Are serial port connected IR devices going to see the same fate in this model? Why not consider IR devices as bi-directional communications devices vs. input devices like mice or keyboards? Theoretically the TTY layer with line discipline modules for underlying IR hardware could also interface IR devices to user space. Sorry, the input subsystem cannot meet all the end user IR requirements. I doubt it could easily support all the current user space only IR drivers moving into the kernel. I suspect the serial port connected IR devices will be deemed "too hard" and IR Tx as "not input" and dropped on the floor. The more I think about IR integration with input, the more I think any effort beyond the plug-and-plug for default configurations is a waste of time and effort. Something more is needed to handle the transmitters and serial connected IRs. It's also too convenient to access USB IR hardware from existing userspace drivers to bother porting into the kernel. Regards, Andy