What is evdev and autoloading?

[Mark Millard]

On 2019-Feb-17, at 18:35, Rodney W. Grimes <freebsd-rwg at pdx.rh.CN85.dnsmgr.net> wrote:

>> On Sun, Feb 17, 2019 at 03:04:41PM -0800, Mark Millard wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 2019-Feb-17, at 10:03, Steve Kargl <sgk at troutmask.apl.washington.edu> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Anyone have insight into what evdev is?  There appears to
>>> be no manual page.  When I reboot a system with custom
>>> kernel, the system is autoloading evdev.ko, uhid.ko, and
>>> wmt.ko.  I do not need nor what these modules loaded.
>>> How does one prevent this autoloading?
>>> 
>>> Looking via the web lead to:
>             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> web lies

The URL I listed (below) is to www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query. . .
and I looked at the page's content before sending the message. That
is how I got the text that I quoted. (It is from section 4 "special
files".)

The freeBSD manpage servers might provide more man pages than are
installed?

>>> 
>>> https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=evdev&apropos=0&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+12.0-RELEASE&arch=default&format=html
>>> So:
>>> 
>>> NAME
>>>       evdev - Generic Linux input driver
>>> 
>>> DESCRIPTION
>>> 
>>> 	evdev is an Xorg input driver for Linux's generic event devices. It
>>> 	therefore supports all input  devices  that  the kernel	 knows about,
>>> 	including most mice, keyboards, tablets and touchscreens. evdev
>>> 	is the default driver on the major Linux distributions.
>>> . . .
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> but it seems to not have a 13-current entry. It does have
>>> a 12.0-RELEASE entry.
>>> 
>> 
>> Thanks.  Kinda odd that freebsd-current doesn't have a manual
>> page, but FreeBSD-12 does.
> 
> rgrimes at t400:~ % man evdev
> No manual entry for evdev
> rgrimes at t400:~ % man -k evdev
> apropos: nothing appropriate
> rgrimes at t400:~ % uname -a
> FreeBSD t400.dnsmgr.net 12.0-RELEASE FreeBSD 12.0-RELEASE GENERIC  amd64
> rgrimes at t400:~ % 
> There is no man page for evdev in 12.0-RELEASE
> 
>> 
>> I have a wireless logitech mouse.  It seems that the
>> wireless USB dongle is causing the load of the modules.
>> I still understand why as ums(4) does not should a 
>> dependency on uhid, wmt, or evdev.
> 



===
Mark Millard
marklmi at yahoo.com
( dsl-only.net went
away in early 2018-Mar)