Joysticks/joypads/etc information needed for Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex and later

[Loïc Martin]

Timo Aaltonen wrote:
> On Tue, 21 Oct 2008, Loïc Martin wrote:
>
>> Timo Aaltonen wrote:
>>> On Mon, 20 Oct 2008, Loïc Martin wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> Stating with Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex and due to changes in Xorg, 
>>>> each
>>>> model of joystick needs a special file to be recognised properly. For
>>>> the moment 8.10 doesn't ship with these files, and thus your joystick
>>>> shouldn't be working anymore (instead, it should move the mouse 
>>>> cursor,
>>>> sometimes preventing the use of the mouse until you unplug the 
>>>> joystick).
>>>
>>> No, we don't need that. 
>> I'll quote you:
> <snip>
>> Which means we (the community) still need the lshal information if we 
>> want to write specific fdi files for users' joysticks (I hope neither 
>> you nor Martin were expecting normal users to hack their fdi file 
>> themselves, when most wouldn't be able to do so) so they can just 
>> download them and copy them in /etc/hal/fdi/policy/
>
> Ok, we were talking past each other. Still, no need to do that, since 
> the evdev-problem only happened on amd64, and there is a oneliner fix 
> available now, thanks to Albert Damen:
>
> https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=18150
>
> which will get in the evdev driver after RC. With this patch evdev 
> refuses to use joysticks, so that fixes the first half of the problem. 
> x-x-i-joystick still needs the HAL fix to be able to use a sensible 
> fdi to match input.joystick, but that's only for those that need 
> x-x-i-j which should be the minority of the users.
>
Nice. However, let's see an updated package in Intrepid first (we might 
also want the users that reported a problem to test it and check if that 
works for everybody).
>> On the contrary, Martin just wrote:
>>> The current model specific .fdi file in xserver-xorg-input-joystick is
>>> really just a quick hack, but we shouldn't really go down that route.
>>>
>> Can somebody please explain what we expect Intrepid users to do in 
>> order to make their joysticks work?
>
> <snip>
>
> you can add the "blacklist" fdi (which leaves x11_driver empty) to 
> /e/h/f/policy, and configure the device like before in xorg.conf. The 
> driver in intrepid doesn't support properties, but once it does in 
> Jaunty, it'll be simple to write gui support for configuring the 
> device through properties (or use xinput).
>
>
> t
What is the "blacklist" fdi ? And for the "configure the device like 
before in xorg.conf", I can't remember a time where I had to configure 
my joysticks in xorg.conf ;) and I hope users won't be expected to do 
this for Intrepid.

Your post is a bit confusing - it seems like nothing will be required 
for joystick to work properly in Intrepid, and on the other hand it 
looks like users will still have to do things far more complicated (and 
hazardous) than copying a file in /etc/hal/fdi/policy.

If we can test the updated package right now, before the SRU, it would 
help us not only test if it works, but also update the documentation and 
the advices we're going to give to users. Is it possible to get it in 
-proposed now, or at least on a PPA?

Thanks,
Loïc