[LWN Logo]

Date:	Sun, 6 Jun 1999 23:35:22 +0200
From:	Vojtech Pavlik <vojtech@twilight.ucw.cz>
To:	mj@ucw.cz, pavel@ucw.cz, kernel@suse.de, linux-usb@suse.com, linux-kernel@vger.rutgers.edu, Andreas Gal <gal@cs.uni-magdeburg.de>,
Subject: [announce] Linux Input Driver suite version 0.1.0

Hi!

I've just released the first really useable version of the new
Linux Input Drivers, a suite of drivers that intends to make
handling of devices like keyboards, mice and joysticks simpler
in Linux.

It tries to get rid of all the old cruft and dust that has gathered
in the keyboard and mouse drivers present in the kernel, and I
think it is quite useful in doing that.

A couple of immediate advantages you'll see after installing it:

* If you have a Logitech M-S48 mouse, the wheel will work.
* If you have a 3-button serial MouseSystems mouse, it'll
  have twice as fast updates when using the drivers than when you
  let GPM or X talk to it directly.
* The Pause key repeat works
* You can have an XT or Sun keyboard attached to your PC
* No more mouse problems when switching to and from X
* You can unplug and re-plug AT keyboards and PS/2 mice, and they
  will keep working, and won't loose the LED and autorepeat settings
* You plug any mouse in your computer, be it PS/2, Serial, USB,
  or busmouse, and you get an emulated /dev/psaux, allowing for
  a simpler configuration

There are more of benefits for the future, like allowing easy
multihead support, easy transition to the bus & hotplug scheme
described by Martin Mares earlier.

The only two drawback of these patches I see:

* integrating PS/2 and Serial mouse decoding routines into the kernel, but
  because those are rather small in size I think its way worth it.

* The large size of the patch (14000 lines), that comes from rewriting
  drivers from scratch and moving them around in the directory tree.

I'm very interested in opinions, and, success/failure reports
on these patches.

Have fun,
	Vojtech

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/