Re: [RFC v2] Another approach to IR

[Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@redhat.com>]

Jon Smirl wrote:
> Some major use cases:
> using IR as a keyboard replacement, controlling X and apps with it in
> via mouse and keyboard emulation.
> using IR to control a headless embedded device possibly running
> multiple apps - like audio and home automation (my app)
> IR during boot when it is the only input device the box has.
> multifunction remote controlling several apps
> using several different remotes to control a single app

I think you reasonably described the major usecases.

>>> If everyone hates configfs the same mapping can be done via the set
>>> keys IOCTL and making changes to the user space apps like loadkeys.
>>>
>> It is not the hate of configfs per se, but rather concern that configfs
>> takes too much resources and is not normally enabled.
> 
> It adds about 35K on 64b x86. 30K on 32b powerpc. If it gets turned on
> by default other subsystems might start using it too. I work on an
> embedded system. These arguments about non-swapable vs swapable are
> pointless. Embedded systems don't have swap devices.

> Of course config can be eliminated by modifying the setkeys IOCTL and
> user space tools. It will require some more mods to input to allow
> multiple maps monitoring the input stream and splitting them onto
> multiple evdev devices. This is an equally valid way of building the
> maps.
> 
> The code I posted is just demo code. It is clearly not in shape to be
> merged. Its purpose was to spark a design discussion around creating a
> good long-term architecture for IR.

Unfortunately, afaik, most distros don't enable configfs yet. I have to
manually compile my kernel when I need some useful stuff there.

I agree with Dmitry: IR is probably not enough to have this enabled by
default on distros. I prefer a more traditional approach like ioctls 
(and/or sysfs) instead of configfs.

Cheers,
Mauro.