Linux 5.11 HID + Input Changes Bring Inhibiting Support, AMD Sensor Fusion Hub

The input subsystem changes for the Linux 5.11 kernel have now been submitted and merged. Along related lines, the HID subsystem changes were also submitted with notable updates as well.

On the input side with Linux 5.11 a new feature is the "inhibited" feature to temporarily disregard input from select devices. The use-case for this inhibited input device support is for devices like 2-in-1 laptops where the laptop may be folded underneath the device at times and during that period no input events should reach user-space as it would amount to accidental input. With today's devices there are also other similar setups where at times you may want to avoid any input events from a given device or to prevent it from potentially waking the system. This inhibited input support was spearheaded by Google's Chrome OS engineers.

The input changes also bring a power button driver for Dell Wyse 3020 thin clients, various Atmel touchscreen enhancements, and other expanded hardware support for existing drivers. As for the Dell Wyse 3020 power button driver, it's just under 200 lines of code and is needed since the power button on the thin client is attached to an embedded controller with this driver reporting its power button presses and releases.

The list of input changes can be found via the kernel mailing list.

In related Linux 5.11 activity, the HID subsystem updates were also submitted and merged. Most notable on the HID front is finally seeing the AMD Sensor Fusion Hub (SFH) driver merged. The SFH driver is for various sensor functionality on modern AMD Ryzen laptops. Just about one year ago AMD finally published the initial source code to this Linux driver and after several rounds of review it is ready to go with Linux 5.11.

The HID updates also increase the maximum HID report size to 16KB to accommodate modern devices, various Sony DS4 fixes, support for the Guitar Hero Live PS3 / Wii U dongles, and other fixes.