[fpc-devel] Linux kernel behaviour change regarding keyboard

[Michael Van Canneyt]

On Wed, 18 Jul 2007, Daniël Mantione wrote:

> 
> 
> Op Wed, 18 Jul 2007, schreef Michael Van Canneyt:
> 
> > > > well then that's it... If you want to use these keys, you'll have to run your
> > > > programs as root...
> > > > 
> > > > Or use a GUI IDE like Lazarus...
> > > 
> > > You just proposed this yourself, but before executing the IDE?
> > 
> > ? I proposed to use a small wrapper program, which does an Exec() after setting
> > the proper TTY properties. Not set up a communication channel with a setuid root
> > program. The solution is worse than the problem then...
> 
> What is bad about such a solution?

It's not KIS. If you can't have certain keys without being root, well then
you'll have to learn to live with it. This is no longer the MS-DOS age when
everything was possible. It's a shortcoming of the platform, and for me
this is the end of the story. The keyboard unit should in no way set up
such a communication channel; if you absolutely want that, you can set 
it up for the IDE (I don't use it anyway), but not for the standard keyboard 
driver unit. Develop a driver that handles this, and use that in the IDE.

I can agree that some of the Linux kernel developers are braindead - seeing 
what they have done - but I don't think we should go out of our way to fix 
that. Rather, we should request that they implement a decent keyboard 
interface which allows you to detect properly the state of all keys on 
the terminal which you are currently using.

Michael.