On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 08:49:56AM -0800, Garrett D'Amore wrote: > I had suggested a similar approach (using keyboard keys) -- actually my > original suggestion went a step further, and suggested that this module > could emulate a USB keyboard and generate USB boot-protocol HID keyboard > events. > > However, the problem, as I understand it, is that as rich as the USB > spec is, there are still some keys that lack standard keyboard defines > in the USB spec -- e.g. the WLAN toggle key, and LCD backlight control keys. > > I think the current plan has the X server generate key events (X11 > events) so that tools like gnome can operate on them the same way as > ordinary keys. While not as elegant as a lower level emulation would > be, I think it is reasonable.
That's fine. What's NOT fine is having to build a kernel module in order to provide a set of mappings. That's really difficult to use. An ioctl() that can take a list of mappings provided by a user-land program that parses a configuration file would be better. And either way there needs to be a mechanism by which it is possible to discover what the actual hotkey keyboard layout is (i.e., "what laptop is this?"). Nico --
