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Comment by Galanwe | Hacker News Reader

If it's just a driver problem, why not checkout the old one, build it as a new module with a different ID, and insmod it on the new kernel?

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Because an artist using, say, Krita on Linux to paint shouldn't be expected to rebuild kernel modules.

> Krita on Linux to paint shouldn't be expected to rebuild kernel modules.

The other-side of the coin is that if your using Linux, you should expect that such things happen without your desire. And that if you wish for the previous feature you'll have to nose-dive in to if you want to fix or just revert back to the previous version. You shouldn't, but here we are.

At the risk of downvotes, I would also say you shouldn't really need to update the kernel either. Unless there is really a feature required, or extreme-security vulnerability of your current version, exclude it.

That was the past-beauty of Linux, you didn't need to be on $latest; that was Microsoft's realm, always requiring updates. If it worked you left it be for this exact reason. Every day I look at my iPhone and everyday there's a batch of updates for my apps sometimes twice on the same day for the same app and I don't use many.

The current fearing update culture we live in is terrible.

/vent

> if your using Linux, you should expect that such things happen without your desire

Why?

Because Linux is a community ran, free. You can't demand a volenteer maintainer to keep it the way you like it. You either accept it, keep back/change or incentive the maintainer.

If using the second button as a eraser is the de-facto feature, then it's likely it's going to be implemented the same everywhere else. Or could simply be the maintainer doesn't like his art work, a sadist and changed for the sake of pure evil.

Either way you can't expect anything to stay as you like it if it's free. It's why forks/distributions exist.

The catch is that this is antithetical to what Linux 'wants to be[0]'. Linux cannot become an every-man's desktop OS when issues like this are allowed to occur.

[0]Or what at least some Linux evangelists want it to become

True, Linux isn't every-man's desktop OS.

Linux is just a kernel to create an operating system in the way the creator wants it to be. You either hook on that train, find another distribution that makes you happy or make your own.

Maybe the author should change to another distribution that doesn't have the change applied.

Because, as shown here, there's no real testing for this stuff. You're the forever-beta tester, fearing every update.

This has always been my experience with Linux, but I also don’t buy computers, and peripherals, specifically for Linux, which seems to be a very heavy requirement for a good experience, as the perpetual year of Linux on the desktop has unrelentingly shown us through the decades.

> The other-side of the coin is that if your using Linux, you should expect that such things happen without your desire.

Please define "linux"

What happened to the author while using Fedora wouldn't have happened while using RedHat Enterprise Linux or any other distro with long term support of an existing kernel. Besides author can still boot with old kernel version.

> Please define "Linux"

Linux, a kernel enabling you to create an operating system

Yeah, but what’s the alternative?

When using proprietary software on windows/mac, somebody somewhere decides how you’ll be living your life from now on and you just suck it up. They might even decide that your perfectly working hardware is deprecated and drop support. Or decide that from now on you have to pay a monthly toll to keep using their software. And you have no way to voice on the matter.

Freedom has its price.

Windows or macOS is the alternative. You don't get to trot out the "but big software will decide how your devices work" bogeyman when Linux literally just did the exact same thing to this person.

The point there is not that the decision will be made - that can happen anywhere. The difference is that in one of those, you can still patch the old behaviour. In the other two you can only raise a bug and hope somebody cares.

Well in a windows or macOS case, there is usually no workaround. In this specific case user can still boot the old kernel version or decide to compile the old module.

Why the fuck not?

I'm not a chef, but it's expected that I cook for myself;

I'm not a taxi, but it's expected that I drive a car;

I think, even an "artist" can be expected to have a certain amount of self-sufficiency,

and I do not think rebuilding kernel modules is any harder than those things,

"I'm a blacksmith and I expect every chef to be at least able to forge their own knife."

Uh, no? You are completely out of touch on other (non-programmer) people's backgrounds. They don't know what a kernel or even a terminal is. It's more than just copy-pasting commands from SE.

Exactly yes.

A chef, that for whatever reason cannot forge their own knife, better make friends with a blacksmith, and think about what they want when they want them to make them a knife.

They should not expect blacksmiths around the world to read their mind and make them knives for free. They should expect it's their own responsibility.

On the other hand, if your livelihood depends on your OS working correctly you AND you don't want to be expected to rebuild kernel modules or to know how to do it, maybe you should be considering paying for enterprise support. A redhat or suse engineer would totally send him instruction and/or rpm/source code so that a clueless user can fix his computer.

I think posting about this problem is quite a reasonable approach. Several kernel maintainers seem to have already noticed this, and gregkh provided instructions on how to potentially resolve such an issue (send an email to the maintainer and the appropriate mailing list).

"Just recompile your kernel" is how Linux people convince other Linux users to install Windows or buy a Mac.

> "Just recompile your kernel" is how Linux people convince other Linux users to install Windows or buy a Mac.

Well I'm not really proposing he does it, I'm just saying he should ask for someone to help him do it.

If I understand the post well, his workflow was relying on a bug in his pen driver. That bug got fixed. It's just the way things move forward, it happens on Linux, Windows, or any software really.

The sane solution is just to rebuild the old driver (not kernel).

> email to the maintainer and the appropriate mailing list

David Revoy has reached out to the linux-input mailing list:

https://lore.kernel.org/linux-input/877c9bed-181a-4fc0-a876-...

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