Re: In-kernel IR remote control support

[J.R. Mauro]

On Sat, Nov 15, 2008 at 6:58 AM, Pavel Machek <pavel@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Thu 2008-11-13 00:09:00, Christoph Bartelmus wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> on 12 Nov 08 at 14:39, J.R. Mauro wrote:
>> [...]
>> > On Wed, Nov 5, 2008 at 3:07 PM, Jon Smirl <jonsm...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> >> On Wed, Nov 5, 2008 at 2:59 PM, J.R. Mauro <jrm8...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> >>> On Wed, Nov 5, 2008 at 2:47 PM, Jon Smirl <jonsm...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> >>>> New release of in-kernel IR support implementing evdev support. The goal
>> >>>> of in-kernel IR is to integrate IR events into the evdev input event
>> >>>> queue and maintain ordering of events from all input devices. Still
>> >>>> looking for help with this project.
>>
>> >>> (Forgive me if this has already been asked or dealt with)
>>
>> >>> Have you contacted the LIRC developers? Is there any overlap between
>> >>> your projects?
>>
>> >> The LIRC people know about this. Pieces of the code are coming from
>> >> the LIRC source base and being reworked for kernel inclusion.
>>
>> > Great, it's nice to see there's cooperation.
>>
>> LOL. There's just a small omission from Jon's side...
>> Yes, LIRC people know about this. And Jon has a no-go from me.
>>
>> Decoding IR protocols in-kernel is the wrong way IMHO and this will not be
>> supported by LIRC as long as I maintain LIRC.
>
> Time to fork lirc...?
>
> Can you elaborate?  I don't see why IR remotes deserve special
> handling. I'd expect to just plug in the receiver and have it work as
> /dev/input/*.
>
>> It's simply not possible to decode all existing IR protocols and LIRC just
>> stores the timing data for these protocols as-is without trying to decode
>> them. With the in-kernel decoding approach these remotes cannot be
>> supported. I'm not willing to sacrifice the support for these even though
>> they only consist of a very small fraction of remotes in use.
>
> So you make it suck for everyone just because few obscure IR
> remotes. Perfect enemy of good, I'd say :-(.
>
> Can we merge the common ones into the kernel, while still keeping the
> obscure ones in userspace using uinput or something?
>
> I don't see why Jon's work bothers you. He's trying to do the right
> support for the common remotes. That seems like a net plus to me, and
> you can still keep the obscure ones in userland.

We manage to have both kernelspace and userspace USB drivers. I think
that would be the right approach here, especially since whole classes
of some remotes change model to model. Apple remotes are an example of
this: you have to figure out what different signal each new model
sends and it is really nice for the user to be able to do this and put
it in a config file and not have to wait for the next kernel version.

Finding the middle ground here is probably the sanest course.

>
>
> --
> (english) http://www.livejournal.com/~pavelmachek
> (cesky, pictures) http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~pavel/picture/horses/blog.html
>
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