[gentoo-amd64] Re: Keyboard Stops Working Under X

[Duncan]

Randy Barlow posted on Wed, 14 Nov 2012 17:06:54 -0500 as excerpted:

> On Wed, 14 Nov 2012 16:45:27 -0500, Frank Peters
> <frank.peters@×××××××.net> wrote:
>> For the moment, at least, my solution will be to stop and then restart
>> X.
>
> If I may, I suggest that you try the evdev solution that some others
> have pointed out. The package is xf86-input-evdev, and it replaced your
> mouse and keyboard drivers as one unified driver. I believe it may
> require adjusting your xorg.conf since you have a custom one.
>
> According to [0], which admittedly did not cite a source (and I'm lazy
> so I didn't do much searching), the evdev driver obsoletes the keyboard
> and mouse driver. I seem to recall that there was a Gentoo news or
> something about this a while back too, saying that keyboard and mouse
> were obsolete,
> but I again am lazy and haven't even attempted to find that :)
>
> [0] http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/X.Org/Mouse

Yes, evdev is the standard replacement for both the X keyboard and mouse 
drivers.  There's a couple things to note, however:

* There's a kernel option that must be turned on as well.  If it's not, 
the evdev driver won't find the devices to work with (CONFIG_INPUT_EVDEV, 
listed as "Event interface" under device drivers, input device support, 
generic input layer).

* If you run gpm for text console mouse support, you still need the 
kernel's mouse interface (CONFIG_INPUT_MOUSEDEV, providing
/dev/input/mice and /dev/input/mouseX) turned on.  Otherwise you can turn 
it off.  It doesn't interfere with evdev.

* If you run special purpose hardware like touchpads (the syntouch 
driver), you can still use those instead if you wish.  However, evdev 
should work for the vast majority of cases, and can be used for most 
special purpose including touchpad devices as well, except it doesn't 
have all the extra touchpad (or other hardware) specific configuration 
options.


* An additional more general point about xorg.conf.  As others have 
suggested, it's rarely needed now, except for specifying "unusual" 
configurations such as the orientation of multiple monitors if you're 
using them, non-default drivers and/or driver options (the syntouch 
driver, or mouse accel options, for instance), etc.  And for that, 
multiple individual *.conf files in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/, each with a 
section or more with its non-default options, works better for many than 
a single monolithic xorg.conf file does.

Here, I have four such *.conf files, one with the "Device" section for my 
graphics card (with as I said a few non-default settings), one for my 
"InputClass" sections (trackball accel settings on my main machine, 
syntouch settings on my netbook, an Option "Ignore" section for the HDMI 
audio on my graphics card and another for the /dev/input/mouseX and mice 
devices to quiet the X logs a bit, etc), one with "Monitor" sections to 
setup their positioning for my multiple monitors on my main machine and 
activate the additional modes section, and one with that "Modes" section 
with extra modes for non-default resolutions.  They're named accordingly, 
so I can edit just the one I want if I want to change something, without 
even looking at the others.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman