Re: X compiled for evdev?

[<Jim...@hp...>]

> Sender: lin...@li...
> From: James Simmons <jsi...@tr...>
> Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 14:25:06 -0700 (PDT)
> To: Brad Midgley <bmi...@tu...>
> Cc: lin...@li...
> Subject: Re: X compiled for evdev?
> -----
> > I see a note in linux/Documentation/input/input.txt about using X with
> > the current input stuff for getting multihead. Has anyone built X with
> > evdev support or is it standard via XFConfig manipulation?
> >
> > either way I'd like to document this.
> 
> Jim Getty was working on supporting evdev in X windows but I haven't heard
> how far he has gotten.

I haven't gotten anywhere yet: been distracted on other things. I hope
to get back to it this summer,  unless someone beats me to the punch.

> 
> > what about order detection? if two usb keyboards are attached, aren't
> > they essentially randomly ordered? a long time ago i wrote an app for
> > sorting this out via "press the 1 key" and "press the 2 key" etc on each
> > head. do we have to do something like that?
> 
> That would require a huge reconstruction of the X server. The core code
> assumes one keyboard.
> 
You can have multiple keyboards:
	o either they get merged and look like one keyboard
	o or, if you use the X Input extension, it appears as another input
device.

There is a built in presumption about there being one primary keyboard
and pointing device; some of these will eventually have to get revisited
in an extension to deal with situations like display walls being used
by multiple people simultaneously.
			- Jim


--
Jim Gettys
Cambridge Research Laboratory
HP Labs, Hewlett-Packard Company
Jim...@hp...