From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jan 16 20:32:40 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4AEB41065672 for ; Fri, 16 Jan 2009 20:32:40 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from andy@siliconlandmark.com) Received: from lexi.siliconlandmark.com (lexi.siliconlandmark.com [66.184.117.4]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 005668FC16 for ; Fri, 16 Jan 2009 20:32:39 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from andy@siliconlandmark.com) Received: from [10.7.6.254] ([63.76.235.163]) (authenticated bits=0) by lexi.siliconlandmark.com (8.14.2/8.14.2) with ESMTP id n0GKWapo066086 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=AES128-SHA bits=128 verify=NOT); Fri, 16 Jan 2009 20:32:37 GMT (envelope-from andy@siliconlandmark.com) Message-Id: From: Andre Guibert de Bruet To: "Gary R. Van Sickle" In-Reply-To: <17C934E643C24C478EAA0C15A2D898EB@DFW5RB41> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v930.3) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2009 15:32:30 -0500 References: <1b9f9a570901141518q1ba70c73ibc58a4f32811e254@mail.gmail.com><496EE1D9.7090309@nurfuerspam.de> <17C934E643C24C478EAA0C15A2D898EB@DFW5RB41> X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.930.3) X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV 0.94.1/8872/Fri Jan 16 16:55:46 2009 on lexi.siliconlandmark.com X-Virus-Status: Clean Cc: lcdproc@lists.omnipotent.net, current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: [Lcdproc] LCDProc CVS + PicoLCD on FreeBSD X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2009 20:32:40 -0000 On Jan 16, 2009, at 5:09 AM, Gary R. Van Sickle wrote: >> From: Andre Guibert de Bruet >> >> Unfortunately the PicoLCD 2X20 and 4X20 devices present >> themselves as HID devices. > > ...but... they *are* HID devices. Why is this "unfortunate"? The PicoLCD 4X20 devices offer a bunch of different bits of functionality: - A 4x20 character display. - 8 physical buttons. - An IR receiver. It is "unfortunate" because the FreeBSD HID implementation (Along with OSX, Linux and Windows') has no clue what to do why any of these. It is way more useful for a program to be able to attach to the device and interact with it in a user-configurable way. You may want to have the display print out the output of a program (Such as lcdproc or lcdexec), have the buttons map to commonly-used scripts and have the IR controller hooked up to lirc, for example. >> I filed PR usb/128803 and attached >> a patch which quirks the device, so that it doesn't get >> attached to by the HID driver (Thus making it available to >> libusb). It can be found at >> http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=128803 >> . It would be awesome if this would get committed on >> CURRENT and possibly MFC'ed... :) > > Perhaps I'm missing something, but how would that be awesome? > Wouldn't it > be significantly more awesome if these HID devices were communicated > with in > the same manner as any other HID device? Or is FreeBSD's HID > support really > that broken? It has nothing to do with FreeBSD being broken. As stated above, this quirk allows third-party programs to connect to the device and interact with it. Note that this device's smaller brother, the PicoLCD 2X20 is already being quirked in the USB stack. Cheers, /* Andre Guibert de Bruet * 436f 6465 2070 6f65 742e 2042 6974 206a */ /* Managing Partner * 6f63 6b65 792e 2053 7973 4164 6d69 6e2e */ /* GSM: +1 734 846 8758 * 2055 4e49 5820 736c 6575 7468 2e00 0000 */ /* WWW: siliconlandmark.com * C/C++, Java, Perl, PHP, SQL, XHTML, XML */