X.Org EvDev 2.1 Driver Released, New Features

[phoronix]

Phoronix: X.Org EvDev 2.1 Driver Released, New Features

In addition to being responsible for Multi-Pointer X, Peter Hutterer has also been working a fair bit on the evdev driver as of late. Evdev is the generic X.Org input driver and in the most recent release that occurred yesterday it has picked up a few new key features. The xf86-input-evdev 2.1 driver has added support for axis inversion, touchscreen support, runtime calibration for absolute devices, axis swapping, mouse wheel emulation, and drag lock...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=Njg2NA

[Extreme Coder]

Can somebody enlighten me on the differences between this driver and using kbd or mouse drivers?

[shredwheat]

Is this going to allow things like Wine and games to support relative mouse motion cleanly from the device?

[TechMage89]

As far as I know, the purpose of evdev ("event device") is to support "everything else." For example, on my tablet pc, I need evdev for the volume buttons, scroll bar, and assorted stuff like that to work.

[RealNC]

I could be wrong, but I think evdev relies much more on the kernel than the normal drivers. That probably means that input should be more "snappy" during heavy load situations (I think Windows does this too).

I could be wrong though.

[rbmorse]

Ah...KMS for mice...<g>.

[curaga]

Can someone comment on the new touchscreen support?
How good is it? How is the runtime calibration done, there is no documentation about that in the tarball?

[Inkaine]

Originally Posted by Extreme Coder

Can somebody enlighten me on the differences between this driver and using kbd or mouse drivers?

Quite simple: with evdev there won't be a need for kbd and mouse anymore. I have two PCs - a 64 bit desktop system and a 32bit Atom netbook - running on evdev and successfully uninstalled all other input drivers (with the exception of the new synaptics driver of course). What evdev basically does is supporting hotpluggable input driver support through hal and the kernel. So it doesn't require any pre-configuration in xorg.conf, devices can be plugged and unplugged without restart of X, etc. There might be little flaws still but long story short - it's the future.