Many HDMI CEC Drivers Being Written For Linux

The Linux state for HDMI CEC (Consumer Electronics Control) continues to improve and several drivers are in the works.

HDMI CEC is the specification for allowing users to command and control via HDMI, allowing one remote control to in turn control multiple HDMI devices. HDMI CEC in turn is branded by names such as Samsung Anynet, Sharp Aquos Link, Philips EasyLink, and other trade names while all being HDMI CEC at heart.

The core HDMI CEC code has been in mainline for a few cycles now while more drivers for making use of HDMI CEC are still forthcoming. Developer Hans Verkuil has written a status update concerning this functionality. It's his goal to have CEC "supported for any mainlined HDMI driver where the hardware supports CEC", he said on the mailing list.

Linux 4.13 will have more core work around HDMI CEC. There are many CEC drivers in progress including for the Allwinner A10, OMAP4, NVIDIA Tegra, Raspberry Pi, DisplayPort CEC-Tunneling-over-AUX, and more. See this status update for all the details if you are interested in controlling multimedia devices via HDMI from your Linux desktop. Cec-ctl is one of the user-space applications that can be used via the command-line for controlling HDMI CEC connected devices.