From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: David Herrmann Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/2] input: Add INPUT_PROP_POINTING_STICK property Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2014 14:55:53 +0200 Message-ID: References: <1409661804-10489-1-git-send-email-hdegoede@redhat.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Return-path: Received: from mail-ie0-f172.google.com ([209.85.223.172]:46595 "EHLO mail-ie0-f172.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753621AbaIBMzy (ORCPT ); Tue, 2 Sep 2014 08:55:54 -0400 Received: by mail-ie0-f172.google.com with SMTP id rd18so7545480iec.17 for ; Tue, 02 Sep 2014 05:55:53 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <1409661804-10489-1-git-send-email-hdegoede@redhat.com> Sender: linux-input-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: linux-input@vger.kernel.org To: Hans de Goede Cc: Dmitry Torokhov , Peter Hutterer , Benjamin Tissoires , "open list:HID CORE LAYER" Hi On Tue, Sep 2, 2014 at 2:43 PM, Hans de Goede wrote: > Hi, > > It is useful for userspace to know that they're not dealing with a regular > mouse but rather with a pointing stick (e.g. a trackpoint) so that userspace > can e.g. automatically enable middle button scrollwheel emulation. > > It is impossible to tell the difference from the evdev info without resorting > to putting a list of device / driver names in userspace, this is undesirable. ..so it is better to put that table into the kernel? I thought the plan was to avoid putting more hardware tables into the kernel. All those tables are always loaded into RAM, whereas solutions like udev hwdb can provide the exact same features in user-space but avoid loading it into RAM, except if used. hwdb is pretty nice to store information about hardware. It is not meant for configuration or volatile data, but rather as read-only lookup table for hardware information. You could easily extend the hwdb with a trackpoint variable that marks specific devices as trackpoints. Anyhow, if you guys want it in the kernel, go ahead. I just don't see the advantage of having it in kernel-space. Thanks David