Re: What is evdev and autoloading?

> On Mon, Feb 18, 2019 at 9:12 AM Rodney W. Grimes <
> freebsd-rwg_at_pdx.rh.cn85.dnsmgr.net> wrote:
> 
> > > On Mon, Feb 18, 2019 at 07:12:24AM -0800, Rodney W. Grimes wrote:
> > > > > On 2/18/19 12:06 PM, Stefan Blachmann wrote:
> > > > > > On 2/18/19, Vladimir Kondratyev <vladimir_at_kondratyev.su> wrote:
> > > > > >> On 2019-02-17 21:03, Steve Kargl wrote:
> > > > > >>> Anyone have insight into what evdev is?
> > > > > >> evdev.ko is a small in-kernel library that makes all your input
> > events
> > > > > >> like keyboard presses libinput-compatible.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > And libinput was created by the Freedesktop Wayland team to create
> > > > > > pressure on OS people to make their systems Wayland-compatible.
> > > > > >
> > > > > >>> I do not need nor what these modules loaded.
> > > > > >> I think removing "option EVDEV_SUPPORT" from your kernel config
> > should
> > > > > >> disable most of evdev.ko dependencies
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Shouldn't the EVDEV_SUPPORT default be off on FreeBSD anyway, as
> > well
> > > > > > as libinput not be part of the standard packages?
> > > > > >
> > > > > > The Freedesktop Wayland team consists of people with the Kay
> > Sievers
> > > > > > mentality, which made Linus Torvalds ban his contributions. They do
> > > > > > not care about the bugs they introduce, forcing others to clean up
> > the
> > > > > > mess they create.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I'd be glad if FreeBSD would keep clean of following that Wayland
> > fad...
> > > > >
> > > > > EVDEV_SUPPORT was enabled in GENERIC on 13 and 12-stable to improve
> > > > > input device handling in X and Wayland.  Not having it means that a
> > lot
> > > > > of input devices stop working, or work much worse.
> > > > >
> > > > > We in the FreeBSD Graphics Team are working very hard to improve the
> > > > > FreeBSD Desktop experience, since it is an avenue to recruit new
> > users,
> > > > > and make current users use FreeBSD more.
> > > >
> > > > Sadly your execution on that seems to be missing the mark,
> > > > telling people they have to go get a port now to get drm working
> > > > because it could not be maintained in base, and then telling them,
> > > > oh, you need this new code in base so that it is so much easier
> > > > to use graphical stuff this way.
> > > >
> > > > These seem to be conflicting stories.
> > > >
> > > You are missing the point, one does not evolve as fast as the other,
> > meaning
> > > one can be maintained within usual freebsd lifecycle, the other cannot
> > or it
> > > becomes very painful.
> >
> > So to ditch our 5 years support model, kick the code out of the tree and
> > make the users suffer?  The support model is suppose to be under review,
> > and IMHO, if kicking functional code out of the base system is to make
> > it possible to meet some support model we should defanitly take a very
> > close look at that issue.
> >
> > The code has simply gone from being in base to a few git repositories
> > which are probably going to rot every time a breaking ABI change occurs
> > and we wend up with un happy users, un happy developers and bugmisters
> > who have to close bogus bug reports.
> >
> > Have we really moved the state of the art forward by this action, simply
> > in the name of "we could not suppor that code?"
> >
> 
> I don't know. I think the fact that drm2 doesn't support anything newer
> than 5-year-old hardware is a pretty convincing evidence that the old way
> is broken and doesn't work.

But it DOES work, I am pretty sure we have 1000's of users on that 5 year
old hardware that are totally happy with the intree DRM2 that is in stable/12,
and some of whom have ventured into head/13 are having issues with the
"new" model (ie kmod broken by a base commit).  I know that there is wip
to get CI coverage for that, but wip is wip, and we need to start changing
the cart horse driver order we keep doing and get things right.  Port
up and working, with CI testing *before* we go remove kmod'ed code from
base would be a much more appropriate path.

I think one serious problem here is the summary dismissal of things
simply on the "5 year old" basis.  Not everyone, and infact few now
a days other than corporate buyers, can afford new hardware, 
giving the minimal performance increase in systems over the last 5
years the cost/benifit factor of a new computer is just too low.

One of the long standing features of running a BSD is that it could
stretch very good life out of hardware, and imho it would be in our
best interest to try and keep that.   And we do in most aspects,
though recently in some hardware testing OpenBSD beat us in several
cases of "just booted and worked" on several pieces of hardware
that came accross my bench for data recovery.  FreeBSD would not
even boot, or paniced early in the kernel :-(  None of these systems
was older than a P4.

> Warner

-- 
Rod Grimes                                                 rgrimes_at_freebsd.org