REPLACE_PRE_CODE BUG

text:

I noticed that BOINC is not able to detect user input on Linux http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/ticket/463. I need mouse event detection and interpretation too and I have noticed that whether /dev/input/events work depends on which mouse/usbhid/evdev drivers are loaded. I guess some drivers just do not use the /dev/input/event interface. The /dev/input/events used to work on my laptop and Vojtech Pavlik's evtest worked. But afterwards I have changed the software configuration (upgraded distribution, probably X and Linux). Now I am using Ubuntu's Linux 2.6.27-11-generic and BOINC 6.2.12 i686-pc-linux-gnu. As expected, BOINC does not detect USB mouse activity.



Gnome's Tracker indexing and search tool uses X to detect mouse events and to stop indexing when user activity is detected. Perhaps BOINC could also use X until this shortcoming is fixed in Linux? I made (or actually copied it from somewhere and modified a bit) this little program which waits for mouse events and exits when 50 movements (MotionNotify) have been detected:



[code]

#include <stdio.h>

#include <unistd.h>

#include <X11/X.h>

#include <X11/Xlib.h>

#include <X11/Intrinsic.h>

#include <X11/StringDefs.h>

#include <X11/Xutil.h>

#include <X11/Shell.h>





Display *d;



void snoop_all_windows(Window root, unsigned long type)

{



  static int level = 0;

  Window parent, *children, *child2;

  unsigned int nchildren;

  int stat, i,j,k;



  level++;



  stat = XQueryTree(d, root, &root, &parent, &children, &nchildren);

  if (stat == FALSE)

   {

     fprintf(stderr, "Can't query window tree...\n");

     return;

   }



  if (nchildren == 0)

  

    return;



  XSelectInput(d, root, type);



  for(i=0; i < nchildren; i++)

   {

     XSelectInput(d, children[i], type);

     snoop_all_windows(children[i], type);

   }



  XFree((char *)children);

}





int main(int argc, char **argv)

{

  //daemon(0,0);

  //sleep(10);



  char *hostname;

  char *string;

  XEvent xev;

  int count = 0;



  if (argv[1] == NULL)

    hostname = ":0";

  else

    hostname = argv[1];



  d = XOpenDisplay(hostname);

  if (d == NULL)

   {

     fprintf(stderr, "Blah, can't open display: %s\n", hostname);

     exit(10);

   }



  snoop_all_windows(DefaultRootWindow(d), PointerMotionMask);



  while(1)

    {

      int k;

      k = 1;

      while (k<50) {

	XNextEvent(d, &xev);

	k++;

	}

      



      switch (xev.type) {

	

      case MotionNotify:

	return;

	

      }



   }

}

[/code]



/proc/interrupts cannot be used to detect USB mouse activity because it sums all USB interrupts. Here is my /proc/interrupts sampled at 1 second interval while not moving the mouse or typing: 

[pre]

           CPU0       CPU1       

  0:   13250755    7627303   IO-APIC-edge      timer

  1:      73286       6555   IO-APIC-edge      i8042

  8:         72         65   IO-APIC-edge      rtc0

  9:      19177       1334   IO-APIC-fasteoi   acpi

 12:      16868       4253   IO-APIC-edge      i8042

 14:      92427      12625   IO-APIC-edge      ata_piix

 15:          0          0   IO-APIC-edge      ata_piix

 16:   32063753    1108943   IO-APIC-fasteoi   uhci_hcd:usb1, HDA Intel, fglrx[0]@PCI:1:0:0

 17:          0          0   IO-APIC-fasteoi   uhci_hcd:usb2

 18:          0          0   IO-APIC-fasteoi   ehci_hcd:usb3, uhci_hcd:usb6

 20:  127813539    7708352   IO-APIC-fasteoi   uhci_hcd:usb4, ehci_hcd:usb7

 21:   24865509     278023   IO-APIC-fasteoi   uhci_hcd:usb5

219:    7669594     117154   PCI-MSI-edge      ahci

NMI:          0          0   Non-maskable interrupts

LOC:  293717402  249457069   Local timer interrupts

RES:    3507848    5451895   Rescheduling interrupts

CAL:      13948      16305   function call interrupts

TLB:      60245     133669   TLB shootdowns

SPU:          0          0   Spurious interrupts

ERR:          2

MIS:          0

           CPU0       CPU1       

  0:   13250755    7627303   IO-APIC-edge      timer

  1:      73290       6555   IO-APIC-edge      i8042

  8:         72         65   IO-APIC-edge      rtc0

  9:      19177       1334   IO-APIC-fasteoi   acpi

 12:      16868       4253   IO-APIC-edge      i8042

 14:      92427      12625   IO-APIC-edge      ata_piix

 15:          0          0   IO-APIC-edge      ata_piix

 16:   32063861    1108943   IO-APIC-fasteoi   uhci_hcd:usb1, HDA Intel, fglrx[0]@PCI:1:0:0

 17:          0          0   IO-APIC-fasteoi   uhci_hcd:usb2

 18:          0          0   IO-APIC-fasteoi   ehci_hcd:usb3, uhci_hcd:usb6

 20:  127813564    7708352   IO-APIC-fasteoi   uhci_hcd:usb4, ehci_hcd:usb7

 21:   24865866     278023   IO-APIC-fasteoi   uhci_hcd:usb5

219:    7669625     117154   PCI-MSI-edge      ahci

NMI:          0          0   Non-maskable interrupts

LOC:  293717980  249457392   Local timer interrupts

RES:    3507850    5451898   Rescheduling interrupts

CAL:      13948      16305   function call interrupts

TLB:      60245     133669   TLB shootdowns

SPU:          0          0   Spurious interrupts

ERR:          2

MIS:          0

[/pre]





Perhaps this message about putting an activity counter into Linux is also of interest. 



The Windows version of BOINC uses the GetLastInputInfo API which is not system-wide but apparently BOINC tries to make it system-wide with some kind of shared file/memory and DLL. Perhaps this could be ported to X?

Now I am using Ubuntu's Linux 2.6.27-11-generic and BOINC 6.2.12 i686-pc-linux-gnu.

Can you please test if it still doesn't work with Boinc 6.10.13? It's easy to say it doesn't work on a version that's over a year old, but that doesn't mean it may not have been fixed in the mean time (and the ticket be forgotten to close).

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Can you please test if it still doesn't work with Boinc 6.10.13? It's easy to say it doesn't work on a version that's over a year old, but that doesn't mean it may not have been fixed in the mean time (and the ticket be forgotten to close).

I assumed that it wouldn't work because the trunk still has the algorithm that relies on /proc/interrupt. The function is here: http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/browser/trunk/boinc/client/hostinfo_unix.cpp#L1330. But to be absolutely sure I tested version 6.10.13 i686-pc-linux-gnu and it behaves like the old version 6.2.12: detects keyboard but not USB mouse.

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Ok, with thanks on that. I have forwarded this thread to the developers.

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The developers are adding code to the Linux client now to detect mouse movements. It is a work in progress, but there is a good chance this code will be available in the next BOINC 6.10 release candidate.

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