Re: 2.6.36/2.6.37: broken compatibility with userspace input-utils ?

On 11-01-24 12:54 PM, Dmitry Torokhov wrote:

Hi Mark,

On Sun, Jan 23, 2011 at 12:03:47PM -0500, Mark Lord wrote:

quoted

As of the 2.6.36 kernel, the userspace commands lsinput and input-kbd
no longer work.  And if I grab newer/patched versions of those from the latest
Ubuntu 10.10, then those newer/patched versions do not work with kernels
*before* 2.6.36.

At first glance, this looks like a visible regression.
Is there a version of input-utils that works with both
old and new kernels ?

The event protocol number was updated to reflect support of large
scancodes, unfortunately some of the utilities expected exact version
and refuse to work with updated one.

So is there a danger of memory corruption if running a binary
that doesn't check the version number?

In other words, did the size and/or format of returned data
change for an ioctl() or something here?

If so, then that is a user-visible regression, and shouldn't happen.
One correct way to handle that, would be to create a new ioctl(),
and mark the old one as deprecated, for removal a few years later perhaps.

???

Thanks