As stated in an email from Jeff Garzik: http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0312.2/1192.html the sidewinder module fills the kernel log with not very usefull debug information. Besides, the gamepad works perfectly. This happens with every gentoo-dev-sources kernel from the 2.6.x series. In the mail there is a patch, but it's only one line. I changed /usr/src/linux/drivers/input/joystick/sidewinder.c:48 from #define SW_DEBUG to /*#define SW_DEBUG*/ and the messages are gone. I'm using gentoo-dev-sources-2.6.9-r9 The module works OK, so the debug messages are useless. And the change is pretty simple. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Load the sidewinder module. 2. Use the Microsoft Sidewinder Gamepad. 3. Use dmesg. Actual Results: Dmesg is fulled with the line: sidewinder.c: Read 5 triplets. [77773] Expected Results: Not full the kernel log with not very usefull information.
Well that sure seems pretty silly. I wonder why it was never fixed. You should probably ping LKML again to get that changed.
Created attachment 47345 [details, diff] Disable sidewinder debug messages patch I have submitted a patch to LKML, lets see if someone comments or commits it. If no one has an issue with it but no action is taken I'll start CCing people...
Well, I have not heard from the maintainer or anyone, but it has been in the -ac patchset for a while now.
Michael, could you please resend this while CC'ing vojtech@suse.cz and linux-input@atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz and linux-joystick@atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz
Resent to half the world (ok, not really, just a quarter) It should get in by the next kernel release, if not the trivial patch monkey will follow up on it. I declare this one officially out of my hands. PS, for anyone out there who reads this, dsd did add this patch to gentoo-dev-sources.
Just FYI, the patch is moving along and was released in 2.6.11-rc1-mm2: http://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/akpm/patches/2.6/2.6.11-rc1/2.6.11-rc1-mm2/broken-out/disable-sidewinder-debug-messages.patch
