[arch-dev-public] lirc kernel drivers

[Tom Gundersen]

On Mon, Nov 4, 2013 at 5:11 PM, Tobias Powalowski
<tobias.powalowski at googlemail.com> wrote:
> Am 14.10.2013 14:57, schrieb Tom Gundersen:
>> Hi guys,
>>
>> As lirc package is currently an orphan, I thought I'd had a look at it
>> to see if we can clean it up.
>>
>> Most of the lirc kernel drivers are now upstream, so we only ship three of them:
>>
>>  *) lirc_atiusb: this overlaps with ati_remote [0] which is upstream.
>> This is bad as it means users will essentially get a random driver
>> loaded unless one of the two are blacklisted. Moreover, it is not
>> possible to use both driver at the same time for different devices.
>>
>> It seems to me based on [1], that there is reason to doubt the
>> validity of the modaliases that lirc_atiusb supports but ati_remote
>> does not. I therefore suggest we drop lirc_atiusb and if there is
>> fallout from this we try to fix that in ati_remote upstream (e.g. add
>> missing modaliases).
>>
>> *) lirc_i2c: this was removed from staging in [2], as the
>> functionality is replaced by ir-kbd-i2c (which appears to be written
>> mostly by the same people). I suggest we remove this driver too as it
>> appears to be redundant (though it has no autoloading support as far
>> as I can tell, so probably less harmful).

I got it confirmed from upstream that these are now redundant, so
removed them from svn.

>> *) lirc_wpc8769l: I suggest we keep this as the only remaining module
>> for now. Based on comments in winbond-cir [3], that driver can
>> probably be extended to support WEC102* (WPC8769L is WEC1020). I'll
>> get in touch with the maintainers to check it out.
>>
>> Any comments?
>>
>> Tom
>>
>> [0] compare the aliases as shown by 'modinfo'.
>> [1] <https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=5132088697fbfd1330facf723499091182f6ef91>
>> [2] <https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=41ca2b1ac269e2ed64e2562b91fa61cab0b19e7a>
>> [3] <https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/media/rc/winbond-cir.c#n5>
> Do the changes you think are best,
> I never used lirc in any way.

We now only have one lirc kernel module left, according to [0] it does
not appear to be much used (i.e., not at all). If you want to avoid
having to rebuild lirc for every kernel release you might want to drop
the last module into the AUR, but I'll leave that decision up to you.

Cheers,

Tom

[0]: <https://www.archlinux.de/?page=ModuleStatistics>

On Mon, Nov 4, 2013 at 5:11 PM, Tobias Powalowski
<tobias.powalowski at googlemail.com> wrote:
> Am 14.10.2013 14:57, schrieb Tom Gundersen:
>> Hi guys,
>>
>> As lirc package is currently an orphan, I thought I'd had a look at it
>> to see if we can clean it up.
>>
>> Most of the lirc kernel drivers are now upstream, so we only ship three of them:
>>
>>  *) lirc_atiusb: this overlaps with ati_remote [0] which is upstream.
>> This is bad as it means users will essentially get a random driver
>> loaded unless one of the two are blacklisted. Moreover, it is not
>> possible to use both driver at the same time for different devices.
>>
>> It seems to me based on [1], that there is reason to doubt the
>> validity of the modaliases that lirc_atiusb supports but ati_remote
>> does not. I therefore suggest we drop lirc_atiusb and if there is
>> fallout from this we try to fix that in ati_remote upstream (e.g. add
>> missing modaliases).
>>
>> *) lirc_i2c: this was removed from staging in [2], as the
>> functionality is replaced by ir-kbd-i2c (which appears to be written
>> mostly by the same people). I suggest we remove this driver too as it
>> appears to be redundant (though it has no autoloading support as far
>> as I can tell, so probably less harmful).
>>
>> *) lirc_wpc8769l: I suggest we keep this as the only remaining module
>> for now. Based on comments in winbond-cir [3], that driver can
>> probably be extended to support WEC102* (WPC8769L is WEC1020). I'll
>> get in touch with the maintainers to check it out.
>>
>> Any comments?
>>
>> Tom
>>
>> [0] compare the aliases as shown by 'modinfo'.
>> [1] <https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=5132088697fbfd1330facf723499091182f6ef91>
>> [2] <https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=41ca2b1ac269e2ed64e2562b91fa61cab0b19e7a>
>> [3] <https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/media/rc/winbond-cir.c#n5>
> Do the changes you think are best,
> I never used lirc in any way.
>
> greetings
> tpowa
>
> --
> Tobias Powalowski
> Archlinux Developer & Package Maintainer (tpowa)
> http://www.archlinux.org
> tpowa at archlinux.org
>
>