Handling event device files [was: Bug#324604: [Fwd: The bug persists]]
Hi.
I've a problem here where I'm unsure how to handle it. A mail from
the corresponding bug report is appended for reference but I will
try to explain it in my own words:
pbbuttonsd is a program for Apple Powerbooks that handles things like
powermanagment and special keys. It uses the event device files
(/dev/input/event*) to monitor attached input devices. The problem
now is that makedev only generates four of these event device files
(event0 to event3). On my fully standard Powerbook with an attached
USB mouse I have already _six_ of these those, if I would plug in
e.g. an external keybord or a second pointer device I could easily
have seven or eight of them. This leads to problems for users that
have a static /dev/ (i.e. don't use udev) since pbbuttonsd will
not see events from some of the devices.
There are three possible solutions to this AFAICS:
1) generate more device files in the postinst of the package with
mknod (which is a policy violation IIRC)
2) make makedev produce more of these files (but probably most users
don't need them, at least not on desktop PCs which have seldomly
two mouses or keyboards)
3) Just tell each user to fix it himself (e.g. in a README.Debian
file). Not really complicated, just some calls to mknod
(or an installation of udev), but...
Any hints or comments would be welcome.
Gruesse,
Frank Lichtenheld
----- Forwarded message from Matthias Grimm <matthias.grimm@htp-tel.de> -----
Subject: Bug#324604: [Fwd: The bug persists]
Reply-To: Matthias Grimm <matthias.grimm@htp-tel.de>,
324604@bugs.debian.org
X-Debian-PR-Message: report 324604
X-Debian-PR-Package: pbbuttonsd
X-Debian-PR-Keywords: unreproducible
From: Matthias Grimm <matthias.grimm@htp-tel.de>
To: Frank Lichtenheld <djpig@debian.org>
Cc: 324604@bugs.debian.org, Eugen.Dedu@pu-pm.univ-fcomte.fr
On Tue, 6 Sep 2005 15:39:22 +0200
Frank Lichtenheld <djpig@debian.org> wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 06, 2005 at 02:12:28PM +0200, Matthias Grimm wrote:
> > On Tue, 06 Sep 2005 12:41:08 +0200
> > Eugen Dedu <Eugen.Dedu@pu-pm.univ-fcomte.fr> wrote:
> >
> > > [4] ids - 3 45e 47 300 Name: Microsoft Microsoft 5-Button Mouse with
> > > IntelliEye(TM)
> > > Supported Events:
> > > 0 (Reset) 1 (Key) 2 (Relative)
> >
> > Here it is :-) Only an event device file was missed. Debian has no
> > device handler installed by default and I think this was the cause of
> > our trouble.
>
> Just for the record, which file?
> But that certainly explain why I couldn't reproduce that since I
> run udev here.
/dev/input/event4 was missing. A "mknod /dev/input/event4 c 13 68"
solved the problem.
Best Regards
Matthias
----- End forwarded message -----
--
Frank Lichtenheld <djpig@debian.org>
www: http://www.djpig.de/
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