Where input (hotplugging) methods might go - highly speculative (was: Re: Zapping the Xorg server)

[Peter Hutterer]

On Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 06:59:48PM +0200, Wolfgang Draxinger wrote:
> On Thu, 26 Aug 2010 12:20:31 +1000
> Peter Hutterer <peter.hutterer at who-t.net> wrote:
> 
> > uhm. hotplugging works in that the X server receives an event when a
> > device was added by the kernel. Then it opens the device file.
> 
> See, that's exactly what I meant: There's extra work to be done by X,
> or any other program dealing with complex input. Why not place the
> abstraction in the operating system core (i.e. kernel for monolithic,
> or system daemons for microkernel). Have a special
> devices /dev/input/consoleset<n>/allinput (or whatever you're going to
> name it) which always refers to the abstract input device of current
> VT.

like /dev/input/mice?
we've used that for years, before X itself had hotplugging support. Turns
out that for plenty of use-cases having the devices available in the X
server is quite handy.

you're still free to disable hotplugging and use the mouse and keyboard
drivers, thus not having the X server see any new devices and just handle
the kernel accumulated ones.

Cheers,
  Peter