[Hal] Re: [PATCH] add detection of Tablet PCs with WACOM tablet devices

[Danny Kukawka]

Hi,

On Wednesday 17 August 2005 20:49, you wrote:
> Then it shouldn't have any input.* properties nor the capability.. What
> input.* properties mean is that there is a kernel abstraction for the
> device and users can e.g. expect to read input.device which contains the
> name of the device file used to access the input device...

o.k. I understand.

> > The problem: if we do only a match from a fdi-file for pnp.id, we don't
> > get the informtation about the serial irq and port to use setserial. Them
> > are all different for every manufacturer of Tablet PCs and sometimes
> > between models from one manufacturer (e.g ACER: 0x93f8/4 and 0x06f8/6,
> > FSC:0x0220/4, HP/Compaq: 0x0300/4 and 0x0200/6 ...) so we can't add this
> > to a fdi-file for all machines. I collected data about many different
> > Tablet PCs for my diploma thesis (but not for all) and I think it's also
> > complicated to collect this data (irq/port/pnp.id and dmimatch) for all
> > and keep the information up-to-date. Since the kernel provides the
> > information to sysfs HAL is the perfect place to parse this information.
>
> Well, yea, I see your point but I'm not sure there is big difference
> whether this is in hald or in a helper invoked by hald?

I would prefer to povide the information about irq and port directly from HAL. 
Also I would prefer to add any kind of string to know that this is a 
tablet/tablet pc. This would make it easier to match this also for upcomming 
other tablets. I would probose this keys:

pnp.serial.port=string
pnp.serial.irq=int
info.category="tabletPC"

> > This is a internal serial device. The information about the device come
> > from the bios/dsdt. I tested if you get a hotplug event: no event if you
> > use setserial. Also not from e.g. /dev/ttyS0.
>
> oh.. so there is no Linux Input Event device file, eg. /dev/input/event3
> for the abstraction for this physical device? There really needs to be..
> that's what ppl expect from a hal device object of capability input. If
> there isn't maybe the kernel driver needs to get updated?

There is IMO no special driver for this device. It directly serial device, you 
don't need to load a special module and can use /dev/ttyS0 directly for your 
X server. You get a event interface for this only if you add a USB-Tablet.

The only way I currently see is:
- add fdi file to merge callout and to add needed info:
  - pnp.set.dev="/dev/ttyS0" (can differ for special machines)
- add a helper to call out if info.category="tabletPC" is set
- helper: 
   - read irq and port from HAL
   - call: 'setserial "pnp.set.dev" port "pnp.serial.port" irq 
                     "pnp.serial.irq" autoconfigure'
   - add the /dev/ttyS* input device to HAL as new device if 
     setserial was successful

Any other ideas?

Cheers,

Danny