Date:	Wed, 25 Nov 2009 13:43:24 -0500
From:	Jarod Wilson <jarod@...sonet.com>
To:	Devin Heitmueller <dheitmueller@...nellabs.com>
Cc:	Krzysztof Halasa <khc@...waw.pl>,
	Christoph Bartelmus <lirc@...telmus.de>, awalls@...ix.net,
	dmitry.torokhov@...il.com, j@...nau.net, jarod@...hat.com,
	linux-input@...r.kernel.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	linux-media@...r.kernel.org, mchehab@...hat.com, superm1@...ntu.com
Subject: Re: [RFC] Should we create a raw input interface for IR's ?

On Nov 25, 2009, at 1:20 PM, Devin Heitmueller wrote:

> On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 1:07 PM, Jarod Wilson <jarod@...sonet.com> wrote:
>> Took me a minute to figure out exactly what you were talking about. You're referring to the current in-kernel decoding done on an ad-hoc basis for assorted remotes bundled with capture devices, correct?
>> 
>> Admittedly, unifying those and the lirc driven devices hasn't really been on my radar.
> 
> This is one of the key use cases I would be very concerned with.  For
> many users who have bought tuner products, the bundled remotes work
> "out-of-the-box", regardless of whether lircd is installed.  I have no
> objection so much as to saying "well, you have to install the lircd
> service now", but there needs to be a way for the driver to
> automatically tell lirc what the default remote control should be, to
> avoid a regression in functionality.  We cannot go from a mode where
> it worked automatically to a mode where now inexperienced users now
> have to deal with the guts of getting lircd properly configured.

Agreed. Auto-config of lircd for remotes bundled with receivers is definitely on the TODO list. It sorta kinda works using gnome-lirc-properties, but well, that's not an actual lirc project component, and from what I've seen, its fairly incomplete (and reproduces a device ID list within its own code, that has never been fully updated to match the list of stuff the lirc drivers actually support).

> If such an interface were available, I would see to it that at least
> all the devices I have added RC support for will continue to work
> (converting the in-kernel RC profiles to lirc RC profiles as needed
> and doing the associations with the driver).
> 
> The other key thing I don't think we have given much thought to is the
> fact that in many tuners, the hardware does RC decoding and just
> returns NEC/RC5/RC6 codes.  And in many of those cases, the hardware
> has to be configured to know what format to receive.  We probably need
> some kernel API such that the hardware can tell lirc what formats are
> supported, and another API call to tell the hardware which mode to
> operate in.

Well, we've got a number of IOCTLs already, could extend those. (Although its been suggested elsewhere that we replace the IOCTLs with sysfs knobs). A simple sysfs attr that contains the name of the default config file for the bundled remote of a given receiver would seem simple enough to implement.

> This is why I think we really should put together a list of use cases,
> so that we can see how any given proposal addresses those use cases.
> I offered to do such, but nobody seemed really interested in this.

D'oh, sorry, I recall reading that email, but neglected to respond. Yes, I think that's useful, and would gladly contribute to the list.

-- 
Jarod Wilson
jarod@...sonet.com



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