Back in February, there was a brief thread on non-input HID devices
(especially UPS's).
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-usb-devel&m=98102603213410&w=2 is the
start of the thread.
There was a kernel patch that produced a "hiddev" device on char 180, from
minor 96 on - an updated version is to be found on
http://athome.wetlogic.net:8008/hiddev/ , although it has a little problem
with hid.c in 2.4.3 ac patches (maybe all 2.4.3 - I didn't check).
I recently tried it (along with a second patch needed for my MGE Ellipse UPS -
see http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-usb-devel&m=98148133802440&w=2 ).
It works pretty well, although the ioctl()s are a bit confusing - possibly
because I am not so strong on HID reports and usage etc. The ups.c example
allowed me to make a few examples, which I will make into a programmers guide
for hiddev if it gets into the kernel.
Which brings me to the big question. Is there any reason why this can't go
into the kernel? It (or something equivalent) would appear to be needed to
support user space power device and monitor device drivers (and maybe PID),
and I think that power
(http://www.usb.org/developers/data/devclass/pdcv10.pdf) and monitor
(http://www.usb.org/developers/data/devclass/usbmon10.pdf) classes should be
in user space. It may also be needed for Point of Sale devices - I don't know
how that is going.
As a side benefit, it may be possible to modify the behaviour so that every
HID device gets attached to a hiddev device, and then we can make USBView
(http://www.kroah.com/linux-usb/) also display HID descriptors.
I am currently looking at making an interface for NUT
(http://www.exploits.org/nut/) to handle the UPS. However the interface driver
is dead without the kernel support. So I'd really like to know what the future
holds for this.
Any objections for someone making a patch for Alan Cox for the -ac patches?
Do you want me to do it?
Brad "more links than needed" Hards
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