Customization of input drivers

Thanks for your reply. I accidently deleted your message after reading it.

I believe that the following would not be kernel bloat. Currently, the kernel does have keyboard remapping abilities (although I do not know the implementation details). Keyboard mapping _needs_ to be done at the kernel level because of the console layer. I need to be able to type with the dvorak layout soon after init is loaded. I do not want to run something like X in order to get a text console. If this remapping was done inside of input.c or evdev.c, this would kill two birds with one stone: keyboard re-mapping and mouse event re-mapping.

Mouse mapping is not strictly needed here. It is just a nice side effect of moving mapping into input.c

Perhaps two mappings would be necessary: one for the scan codes->linux keycodes (which would be in the keyboard's driver) and another for linux codes->input events.

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I like for the left button sends a BTN_MIDDLE event while the touchpad sends BTN_TOUCH. Is there a map somewhere that can change these button mappings at runtime? Looking at mousdev.c, the BTN_TOUCH, BTN_LEFT, and BTN_0 all send a mouse-0 event to the mouse device.... I would like for my driver to be able to send a BTN_LEFT event when I click the left button and have that converted somewhere into a mouse-1 event.

The touchpad itself reports when there has been a touch click or a drag. In order for this configuration to be done in userspace, there are two options:

1) report the finger movements and use some complex, time-critical algorithm to determine if the user wants the touch to be translated into holding the mouse button down or if the user wants a click and then to move the mouse or a double click.

2) Let the hareware handle it, and add some new event such as BTN_TOUCH_DRAG.

I am not sure as to if kernel configuration or the second choice above would be the best.

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Another configuration flag that I would like to export to userspace is if the user wants to be able to use the touchpad to click, and if so, also be able to use a drag-lock. Many people that I know hate these options....

The ABS_* events seem to be directed towards toucdscreens and drawing tablets. Is it the right thing to do to convert to REL_ events in psmouse.c?

Now that I think about it, this point seems moot. The psmouse driver is the only place where it would have mattered. It is a hack and should die.

On a side note, I like being able to mix multiple mouse devices. This should be done in gpm, etc.... What is supposed to happen when a device is hot-plugged? Will the hotplug daemon have to restart gpm (and supply the correct arguments) when a device is removed or added?

On the same Sony laptop, a key sometimes gets stuck down. It is almost always the shift key. The enter key started repeating right after I typed 'sudo halt'. My guess is that the key-release event is getting lost somewhere and the autorepeat (now done in software and not the keyboard that knows the correct state) is doing its job too well. Could you give me some pointers in debugging this? This happens in X and in the console.

Is there a mailing list somewhere to which I should be sending this message?