Subject: Re: [RFC] What are the goals for the architecture of an in-kernel
 IR  system?
From: Andy Walls <awalls@radix.net>
To: Jon Smirl <jonsmirl@gmail.com>
Cc: Krzysztof Halasa <khc@pm.waw.pl>, Christoph Bartelmus <lirc@bartelmus.de>,
       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
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Date: Sat, 28 Nov 2009 23:32:01 -0500
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On Sat, 2009-11-28 at 12:37 -0500, Jon Smirl wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 28, 2009 at 12:35 PM, Krzysztof Halasa <khc@pm.waw.pl> wrote:
> > Jon Smirl <jonsmirl@gmail.com> 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

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