Re: [linux-usb-devel] Anything new about Logitech IFeel-Mouse ForceFeedback-Support?

[Adam G. <ad...@ev...>]

I started my SF page with the intent to make 2 items:

 1. The low level kernel drivers,

 2. the higher level userspace libraries and integration with Qt/GTK+.


Part 1 more rightfully belongs in the linuxconsole project, I think. They
have done an excellent job so far with all things USB, and I think they
will have something excellent for 2.5. They also have a force feedback
framework in place.

Part 2 doesn't exist yet, because we don't have Part 1... ;)

For now, it makes sense to focus resources on linuxconsole, because
that is where all the good stuff will happen. I looked at doing this,
but was somewhat stopped by two things:

 a) The lack of a good way to send interrupt messages to USB devices
    from userspace (like libusb, but someone suggested this isn't too
    hard to fix),

 b) the somewhat more troubling problem of where to fit the iFeel driver.
    The iFeel mouse is a regular old HID device, and I think that the
    HID driver does a wonderful job in controlling it. But the iFeel has
    an extra interrupt endpoint which takes the force feedback commands,
    and I wasn't sure the best way to put this nonstandard extension
    into the current USB framework without rewriting or duplicating a
    lot of code nicely implemented in the HID driver.

Problem a is not a huge problem, it just makes it easier to test and
develop the lowest level stuff.

Problem b is a more complicated issue, and I think this needs to be resolved
before we can move forward. I don't think it's a huge issue, but it needs
to be addressed. The place to do it is with the linuxconsole folks...



Yay, verbosity. Anyway, I hope that this gives you a better idea of 
where I'm at, and what needs to get done before we get some progress.
The actual commands to send to the mouse are dirt simple, we just
need to get them there smoothly... :)

For now, my 'tactile' SF project is sleeping. Once we get the basic kernel
stuff going, I think it would be a good place to work on the higher level
stuff, perhaps in a more device independent way. (That's why I named it
'tactile' and not 'ifeel-linux'.)



Regards,

Adam




On Thu, Oct 04, 2001 at 09:03:36PM +0200, Johann Deneux wrote:
> On Wed, 3 Oct 2001, Adam Goode wrote:
> 
> > Not really, the force feedback stuff has to go into the new Ruby
> > Linuxconsole code, and I haven't had a lot of time to hack around with
> > it...
> > 
> > Maybe this weekend... ha!
> > 
> 
> It seems you opened a project on sourceforge dedicated to this device,
> btw. As it does not look very active, do you expect to use it in the
> future, or do you intend to use the linuxconsole project ? I am asking
> that, because I sometimes receive questions related to force feedback and
> IFeel mice. Should I redirect people to the linux-usb-dev ML, the
> linuxconsole one, or your project page on sourceforge ?
> 
> Did you manage to get any information about the protocol itself ?
> 
> -- 
> Johann Deneux
> 
>