Re: [gentoo-user] The saga of the missing Logitech drivers

[Mick]

On Friday, 31 January 2020 17:42:20 GMT Andrew Lowe wrote:
> Hi all,
> 	I posted something a few days ago about middle click of a mouse not
> working. In investigating this, I think I have come across something a
> bit dodgy.
>
> 	I have just updated my kernel to 5.5.0. This has the dodgy
behaviour of
> the middle button not working.   A bit of Googling led me to reboot my
> machine with an older kernel, 5.4.14. The middle button worked. The
> kernel is the problem I thought. I in turn diff'd the configs for the
> two kernels. 5.4.14 has 7 lines of Logitech stuff under CONFIG_HID_.
> 5.5.0 has none. The Logitech stuff appears in the 5.5.0 kernel if I
> search within the kernel config thingy, "make menuconfig". It should be
> noted that I usually roll my old config file over into the new kernel
> then run "make oldconfig".
>
> 	"make menuconfig" under 5.5.0 shows, in my situation, Device
> Drivers->HID support->Special HID drivers:
>
> ...
> ...
> Kensington...
> LC-Power
> Lenovo...
> Apple Magic...
> Maltron...
> ...
> ...
>
> Under 5.4.14 there would have been a Logitech between Lenovo & Magic Mouse
>
> 	With this in mind, I deleted the current config file, the one based
on
> 5.4.14 with "make oldconfig" and missing Logitech and then reran "make
> menuconfig". Working my way down to the mouse drivers, lo & behold,
> there are entries for the Logitech mice. When I exit "make menuconfig"
> and look at the .config file, the Logitech stuff is there.
>
> 	Now the big questions are:
>
> 1) Is "make oldconfig" broken?
> 2) Can I no longer take my old config across and update it?
> 3) Am I a dill and doing something obviously wrong?
>
> 	I don't want to have to start from a fresh config file and weed out
all
> the %^&^$^#^# stuff I don't need, all of the weird network cards, the
> Intel CPU stuf, I run AMD, etc etc.
>
> 	Any thoughts on how to rectify this situation would be greatly
appreciated,
>
> 	Andrew

I have not noticed 'make oldconfig' failing to configure my devices.  However, 
I run stable sources and this might make a difference (it shouldn't).

What may be happening is the tree of options has changed and Logitech or 
whatever you're fishing for may have now been reclassified under some other 
major option, which in the latest kernel config is disabled by default.  Your 
old config does not have the same tree structure and therefore you may have 
missed the chance to enable whatever Logitech is now a suboption of.

I have come across this a couple of times over the years, especially on 
network options which it seems to me change in name and number along with the 
seasons.  When something breaks I use menuconfig and hunt around for any 
relevant major option I need to enable, in order to make the suboption I'm 
after to reappear.  Kernel changelogs/git may provide a hint.  It can be 
annoying when you're rushing to get a new kernel to boot correctly, but I 
haven't found a cleverer way around it.

-- 
Regards,

Mick