evdev

Evdev and libevdev form a prominent part of the Linux API.

Ergonomy requires the response time to be below a certain threshold.

evdev is a generic input event interface in the Linux kernel.^[1] It generalizes raw input events from device drivers and makes them available through character devices in the /dev/input/ directory.

The user-space library for the Linux kernel component evdev is called libevdev. Libevdev abstracts the evdev ioctls through type-safe interfaces and provides functions to change the appearance of the device. Libevdev shares similarities with the read system call.^[2]

It sits below the process that handles input events, in between the kernel and that process.

Linux kernel → libevdev → xf86-input-evdev → X server → X client

For Weston/Wayland, the stack would look like this:

Linux kernel → libevdev → libinput → Weston → Wayland client

Since version 1.16 the xorg-xserver obtained support for libinput:

Linux kernel → libevdev → libinput → xf86-input-libinput → X server → X client

evdev is primarily used by display servers like X.org (via xf86-input-evdev driver and libevdev) and Weston.

See also

References

1. "Linux Input drivers v1.0"
2. "freedesktop.org/../libevdev".

External links

• "Linux Input drivers v1.0" by Vojtech Pavlik, 2001 (Linux kernel document, now somewhat dated)
• libevdev, a C library for evdev interface
• Python bindings for evdev interface
• "linux input ecosystem" by Joe Shaw, 1 October 2010 (blog post)