Re: Supporting multiple keyboard

[Vojtech P. <vo...@su...>]

On Thu, Jun 08, 2000 at 09:36:08AM -0400, jsi...@li... wrote:

> > Wouldn't be very useful, /dev/mouse is there for backward compatibility
> > only - as soon as we (or someone else) teach X and SVGAlib and GPM to
> > use /dev/input/event, even /dev/input/mouse can go away. The same
> > applies to /dev/input/js, but that'll take much more time - the joystick API
> > was good and there are many programs using it.
> 
> Okay. Another question is why do you have more than one /dev/input/event?
> I pictured it working like /dev/shmiq on IRIX. You open it and read a
> bunch of events coming in from a bunch of different devices. A unverisal 
> event queue. 

Well, I have one /dev/input/eventX per one input devices, so that every
application receiving input events doesn't have to get them from all
devices in the system.

They're simple char devices with no extra magic. This is ideal for X.
Should you want to implement some clever schemes with events from
different devices, and disabling events in case the VT isn't active,
best do this through the VT's.

> The way it knows if a VT switch was by watching the keys pressed and doing
> it itself. It will be awhile before all all the cards XFree86 supports is
> ported over to fbdev.

I fear this will never happen. Even the X folks have trouble getting all
cards supported in 3.3 to be also supported in 4.0.

> > And SVGAlib and all programs using it?.
> 
> Yeap. The most important being XFree86. I think SVGAlib days are over now
> that we have /dev/fb. Eventually all the video cards SVGAlib support now
> will be moved over to fbdev. As for other programs I haven't seen to many
> programs that cook the keyboard and hit the video hardware directly.

Lots of work ahead ...

-- 
Vojtech Pavlik
SuSE Labs