udev

[Niclas Zeising]

On 2020-02-23 11:58, ajtiM via freebsd-x11 wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> I am reading emails and FreeBSD forum about problems with new udev
> xserver. Can someone explain, please, what is advantage using udev vs
> native devd which works long time? Are we going toward Linux, Windows,
> systemd?
> It will be nice that we now where to put changes if something going
> wrong - is it /etc/X11/xorg.conf or /usr/local*etc*x11/xorg.conf.d/?
> Is it possible to choose devd option to build xserver and do not install
> xf86-input-libinput?

Hi!
I'll try to explain.
the UDEV option gives us a couple of things.  First off, it is the same 
interface that linux uses, which means it is much more well tested 
upstream.  The devd backend we have used is only used on FreeBSD.  It is 
also the only way to handle input devices on wayland, and having a 
unified way to do this is good, because then we can iron out bugs in one 
place, instead of having multiple ways to handle this.
In practice, it gives much better support for trackpads, touchpads and 
the like.  For instance, working two finger scroll, taps and all sorts 
of "modern" features laptops.
You are of course welcome to keep on using the DEVD interface, the 
option is still there and you can switch to use it.  You have to compile 
xorg-server yourself though.
Having a big configuration file in /etc/X11/xorg.conf is the old way of 
configuring xorg, it is, to my knowledge still supported.  Having config 
snippets in /usr/local/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ is the new way, then you can 
add config snippets there, either as a sysadmin, using a configuration 
tool or if your package depends on it, if you are a package maintainer.

I hope this answers your questions.
Regards
-- 
Niclas Zeising