[Pkg-lirc-maint] Bug#804397: lirc: installs bad udev rule

Alec Leamas leamas.alec at gmail.com
Sun Nov 8 05:48:45 UTC 2015


Package: lirc
Version: 0.9.0~pre1-1.2

Current lirc version installs an udev rule which restarts the lirc
service when a new /dev/lirc? device is created by udev. The purpose is
to relieve the user from restarting lirc when a new device is
hotplugged. However, the solution has several drawbacks:

- It puts too much focus on the /dev/lirc? devices. While an important
usecase, lirc uses a multitude of drivers and input devices. From 0.9.4
the default device is the first available /dev/input one. That lirc
restarts in one case and not the other is confusing.

- The feature is not documented, neither in upstream nor downstream docs.

- The feature is not acceptable upstream.

- The feature interferes with the carefully designed current lirc
startup based on socket activation since the udev rile will fire and
restart lirc on every startup where there is a /dev/lirc? device present.

- The feature is known to have caused hard-to-debug problems.

- As stated in the udev rule, the feature breaks as soon as there is
more than one /dev/lirc? device.

To configure lirc is actually not always easy. IMHO, this feature makes
it even harder due to it's non-logical behaviour and should be removed.
That said, there is no point touching existing, working installations.
Also, the rule could be included as a template users might want to try
in specific configurations.

Hotplugging support in LIRC is an important task, however much more
complicated than this kind of udev rule. It is tracked in upstream bug
#37, our oldest open bug.

--alec leamas



More information about the Pkg-lirc-maint mailing list