Device files for keyboard(s)?

Device files for keyboard(s)?

[Nico Schottelius]

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Hello dear Kernel-Developers,

I've the problem that I've connected two keyboards
(one via usb and one via ps/2) to my machine and I want to have
different keyboard layout on it.

While I was trying to find out what would be the best way to do that,
I was somehow surprised that keyboards are not presented via
a device file to userspace.

My questions are:

- Is there a reason not to have devices for keyboards?
- If I would implement it into a recent kernel, would it have any chance
  getting into mainline?

I know this would have some consequences for user space, at least those:

- x11 (x.org/xfree) would have to modify their input device section for Linux
  for keyboards
- loadkeys would have to be patched so one could specify which keyboard
  to change the layout for
- kde/gnome would have to be changed in the manner that they support more
  than one keyboard

Nico

P.S.: Please cc me.

-- 
Latest project: cinit-0.2.1 (http://linux.schottelius.org/cinit/)
Open Source nutures open minds and free, creative developers.

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Re: Device files for keyboard(s)?

[Dmitry Torokhov]

On Saturday 10 December 2005 03:57, Nico Schottelius wrote:
> Hello dear Kernel-Developers,
> 
> I've the problem that I've connected two keyboards
> (one via usb and one via ps/2) to my machine and I want to have
> different keyboard layout on it.
> 
> While I was trying to find out what would be the best way to do that,
> I was somehow surprised that keyboards are not presented via
> a device file to userspace.
>

They are. You need to use event input interface. All input devices can
be accessed via /dev/input/eventX device nodes.
 
> My questions are:
> 
> - Is there a reason not to have devices for keyboards?
> - If I would implement it into a recent kernel, would it have any chance
>   getting into mainline?
> 
> I know this would have some consequences for user space, at least those:
> 
> - x11 (x.org/xfree) would have to modify their input device section for Linux
>   for keyboards
> - loadkeys would have to be patched so one could specify which keyboard
>   to change the layout for
> - kde/gnome would have to be changed in the manner that they support more
>   than one keyboard
> 
> Nico
> 
> P.S.: Please cc me.
> 

-- 
Dmitry