[gentoo-dev] xfree, synaptics, and kernel 2.6.x

[gentoo-dev] xfree, synaptics, and kernel 2.6.x

[Eric Sammer]

It seems that kernel versions >= 2.6.0-test6 and the xfree synaptics 
touchpad driver <= 0.11.6 (or maybe even 0.11.7) are incompatible. 
According to the Synaptics driver site 
(http://w1.894.telia.com/~u89404340/touchpad) this is known. The 
x11-misc/synaptics-0.11.8 ebuild is masked with the comment "until xfree 
stops installing the same files" which is understandable.

The question is now is this something that someone is working on (as the 
xfree ebuild is what adds the synaptics driver "by hand" and not using a 
dependency on the ebuild) or can I go ahead and do this without 
duplicating effort? I'd like to test the later test distros of the 
kernel, but not being able to run X is kind of annoying (not that it's 
anyone's fault).

TIA.
-- 
Eric Sammer
eric@ineoconcepts.com


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Re: [gentoo-dev] xfree, synaptics, and kernel 2.6.x

[Donnie Berkholz]

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On Tue, 2003-10-21 at 19:41, Eric Sammer wrote:
> It seems that kernel versions >= 2.6.0-test6 and the xfree synaptics 
> touchpad driver <= 0.11.6 (or maybe even 0.11.7) are incompatible. 
> According to the Synaptics driver site 
> (http://w1.894.telia.com/~u89404340/touchpad) this is known. The 
> x11-misc/synaptics-0.11.8 ebuild is masked with the comment "until xfree 
> stops installing the same files" which is understandable.
> 
> The question is now is this something that someone is working on (as the 
> xfree ebuild is what adds the synaptics driver "by hand" and not using a 
> dependency on the ebuild) or can I go ahead and do this without 
> duplicating effort? I'd like to test the later test distros of the 
> kernel, but not being able to run X is kind of annoying (not that it's 
> anyone's fault).

The xfree ebuild itself currently builds the synaptics driver, version
0.11.8 at present. You need to rebuild xfree to get a new version of the
synaptics driver at present, since not until the latest synaptics
version was it possible to build externally. Future revisions of xfree
will have synaptics build externally (4.3.0-r4, 4.3.99.15).

grep ^SYN_VER /usr/portage/x11-base/xfree-4.3.0-r3.ebuild to see which
version you'll get at any given time.

I already have an ebuild ready for 4.3.99.15 that does this the way it
will be done, but as 4.3.99.15 isn't out yet I can't commit it. =)

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Re: [gentoo-dev] xfree, synaptics, and kernel 2.6.x

[Eric Sammer]

Donnie Berkholz wrote:
> The xfree ebuild itself currently builds the synaptics driver, version
> 0.11.8 at present. You need to rebuild xfree to get a new version of the
> synaptics driver at present, since not until the latest synaptics
> version was it possible to build externally. Future revisions of xfree
> will have synaptics build externally (4.3.0-r4, 4.3.99.15).

Right, taht's what I was saying.

> grep ^SYN_VER /usr/portage/x11-base/xfree-4.3.0-r3.ebuild to see which
> version you'll get at any given time.
> 
> I already have an ebuild ready for 4.3.99.15 that does this the way it
> will be done, but as 4.3.99.15 isn't out yet I can't commit it. =)

I should have stated I'm running 4.3.99.13 already. My question was if 
someone was already working on an ebuild that built the driver 
externally (with the synaptics ebuild). Is there a reason why this 
wasn't released (with teh external driver build) as a -r1 release to 
4.3.99.14?

TIA.
-- 
Eric Sammer
eric@ineoconcepts.com


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Re: [gentoo-dev] xfree, synaptics, and kernel 2.6.x

[Donnie Berkholz]

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On Tue, 2003-10-21 at 20:49, Eric Sammer wrote:
> Donnie Berkholz wrote:
> > The xfree ebuild itself currently builds the synaptics driver, version
> > 0.11.8 at present. You need to rebuild xfree to get a new version of the
> > synaptics driver at present, since not until the latest synaptics
> > version was it possible to build externally. Future revisions of xfree
> > will have synaptics build externally (4.3.0-r4, 4.3.99.15).
> 
> Right, taht's what I was saying.
> 
> > grep ^SYN_VER /usr/portage/x11-base/xfree-4.3.0-r3.ebuild to see which
> > version you'll get at any given time.
> > 
> > I already have an ebuild ready for 4.3.99.15 that does this the way it
> > will be done, but as 4.3.99.15 isn't out yet I can't commit it. =)
> 
> I should have stated I'm running 4.3.99.13 already. My question was if 
> someone was already working on an ebuild that built the driver 
> externally (with the synaptics ebuild). Is there a reason why this 
> wasn't released (with teh external driver build) as a -r1 release to 
> 4.3.99.14?

The very small minority of people it would affect isn't worth having the
majority of people getting confused and thinking they need to recompile
4.3.99.14. It works as is anyway, so what's the point?

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Re: [gentoo-dev] xfree, synaptics, and kernel 2.6.x

[Eric Sammer]

Donnie Berkholz wrote:
> The very small minority of people it would affect isn't worth having the
> majority of people getting confused and thinking they need to recompile
> 4.3.99.14.

I see.

> It works as is anyway, so what's the point?

The point was that if the version of the synaptics driver changes prior 
to the release of the xfree .15 ebuild, it would require those of us 
using it to recompile xfree at least one extra time. The alternate 
argument is that it would force those not using it to recompile X and 
yes, that is obviously a much larger number. Also, it seemed redundant 
to have a synaptics ebuild that is just sitting there and have the xfree 
ebuild doing it "by hand." It makes maintaining it difficult by having 
it in two places. There is also the fact that xfree 4.3.99.* is still 
masked so I didn't think releasing a new version of the ebuild would be 
a big deal as it is uber-unstable.

It's rather subjective, and as someone who has to use the combination in 
question (xfree 4.3.99.x, synaptics, and the 2.6 kernel series (due to 
an IGP320M chipset)), it would be easier to have the xfree ebuild use 
the synaptics ebuild rather than pull it in itself. It's not that big of 
a deal, really. I can do it and just use it in PORTAGE_OVERLAY if it's 
not something that gentoo is interested in.

-- 
Eric Sammer
eric@ineoconcepts.com
http://www.ineoconcepts.com


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Re: [gentoo-dev] xfree, synaptics, and kernel 2.6.x

[Donnie Berkholz]

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On Tue, 2003-10-21 at 22:11, Eric Sammer wrote:
> Donnie Berkholz wrote:
> > It works as is anyway, so what's the point?
> 
> The point was that if the version of the synaptics driver changes prior 
> to the release of the xfree .15 ebuild, it would require those of us 
> using it to recompile xfree at least one extra time. 

There's no requirement to recompile xfree unless you _need_ a feature of
the newer synaptics driver. Yes it is nice to have the latest version,
but there's no purpose unless you require a fix in it. 

I'm glad you can appreciate my counterargument.

> The alternate 
> argument is that it would force those not using it to recompile X and 
> yes, that is obviously a much larger number. Also, it seemed redundant 
> to have a synaptics ebuild that is just sitting there and have the xfree 
> ebuild doing it "by hand." 

I committed the synaptics ebuild in advance so I would have one less
thing to do later. The xfree "by hand" synaptics is legacy, since as I
said it wasn't possible to compile the synaptics driver externally until
0.11.8, which was released just under two weeks ago.

> It makes maintaining it difficult by having 
> it in two places. 

There is nearly zero maintenance cost within the xfree ebuild for the
synaptics driver (simply change the driver version and go), and similar
holds true for the ebuild. I expect any extra maintenance caused between
13 October (when I committed synaptics) and whenever 4.3.99.15 is
released to be negligible.

> There is also the fact that xfree 4.3.99.* is still 
> masked so I didn't think releasing a new version of the ebuild would be 
> a big deal as it is uber-unstable.

In actuality, it is not uber-unstable. I've been running 4.3.99.x for a
fair while and have yet to encounter a crash that is 4.3.99.x-specific.
It's masked by virtue of being a development series.

> It's rather subjective, and as someone who has to use the combination in 
> question (xfree 4.3.99.x, synaptics, and the 2.6 kernel series (due to 
> an IGP320M chipset)), it would be easier to have the xfree ebuild use 
> the synaptics ebuild rather than pull it in itself. 

You don't need to use 2.6 for IGP chipsets. See the 2.4 patches:
http://bugs.xfree86.org/show_bug.cgi?id=314

> It's not that big of 
> a deal, really. I can do it and just use it in PORTAGE_OVERLAY if it's 
> not something that gentoo is interested in.

This isn't Gentoo, this is me. You're welcome to grab the 4.3.99.14-r1
ebuild from my overlay if you choose [1], but I don't consider it
appropriate for committing. Emerge it with `INPUT_DEVICES="synaptics"
emerge xfree` or preferably set INPUT_DEVICES in make.conf. 

1. http://dev.gentoo.org/~spyderous/overlay/

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Re: [gentoo-dev] xfree, synaptics, and kernel 2.6.x

[Eric Sammer]

Donnie Berkholz wrote:
> There's no requirement to recompile xfree unless you _need_ a feature of
> the newer synaptics driver. Yes it is nice to have the latest version,
> but there's no purpose unless you require a fix in it. 

The feature I need is for it to work with 2.6.0-test8 which .13 doesn't. 
I wasn't sure if .14 did, but I'm building it now to test.

> I'm glad you can appreciate my counterargument.

Always. It's silly to debate (or argue, or whatever) and not listen. 
That's like fighting with a goldfish - fun, but it never gets you anywhere.

> There is nearly zero maintenance cost within the xfree ebuild for the
> synaptics driver (simply change the driver version and go), and similar
> holds true for the ebuild. I expect any extra maintenance caused between
> 13 October (when I committed synaptics) and whenever 4.3.99.15 is
> released to be negligible.

What I meant by easier to maintain is simply remembering to bump the 
version number in the SYNDRV="xx" line (or whatever the variable is called).

>>There is also the fact that xfree 4.3.99.* is still 
>>masked so I didn't think releasing a new version of the ebuild would be 
>>a big deal as it is uber-unstable.
> 
> In actuality, it is not uber-unstable. I've been running 4.3.99.x for a
> fair while and have yet to encounter a crash that is 4.3.99.x-specific.
> It's masked by virtue of being a development series.

I didn't mean unstable as in code, but in name. I was assuming that many 
gentoo-ers (at least the ones that frequent freenode's #gentoo) do not 
unmask hard-masked items like the .99 series of xfree86.

>>It's rather subjective, and as someone who has to use the combination in 
>>question (xfree 4.3.99.x, synaptics, and the 2.6 kernel series (due to 
>>an IGP320M chipset)), it would be easier to have the xfree ebuild use 
>>the synaptics ebuild rather than pull it in itself. 
> 
> You don't need to use 2.6 for IGP chipsets. See the 2.4 patches:
> http://bugs.xfree86.org/show_bug.cgi?id=314

The 2.4 patches never worked on this laptop, so in fact, I do.
(HP 4420, ATI Radeon Mobility, AMD 2200M)

>>It's not that big of 
>>a deal, really. I can do it and just use it in PORTAGE_OVERLAY if it's 
>>not something that gentoo is interested in.
> 
> This isn't Gentoo, this is me. You're welcome to grab the 4.3.99.14-r1
> ebuild from my overlay if you choose [1], but I don't consider it
> appropriate for committing. Emerge it with `INPUT_DEVICES="synaptics"
> emerge xfree` or preferably set INPUT_DEVICES in make.conf. 
> 
> 1. http://dev.gentoo.org/~spyderous/overlay/

By "gentoo" I meant the maintainer of the ebuild and by maintainer of 
the ebuild, I meant you. Sorry for the confusion.

Not a big deal either way. Thanks, in any event.

-- 
Eric Sammer
eric@ineoconcepts.com
http://www.ineoconcepts.com


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