WiSH X10 Device Drivers?

[Michael H. Warfield]

On Tue, 2005-11-08 at 09:16 -0500, Gene Heskett wrote:
> On Tuesday 08 November 2005 01:00, Rahul Sundaram wrote:
> >Chris Spencer wrote:
> >> I noticed the WiSH drivers for X10 home automation devices
> >> (http://wish.sourceforge.net) don't appear to be normally included in
> >> any distributions, including Fedora. Is there a reason for this? Is
> >> WiSH still too immature, or are X10 devices too exotic to include
> >> support for? What's the general procedure on getting device drivers
> >> included in Fedora?
> >>
> >> Chris
> >
> >If it doesnt require patches and is a standalone software, you can
> >package it in Fedora Extras
> >
> >http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Extras
> >
> >If it requires patches, encourage the developers to submit it  and get
> >it included in the upstream project. For the kernel the procedure is
> >documented in

> I've been using 'heyu' with 'xtend' for years.  One can write some
> pretty sofisticated programs with them.  I change my configuration on
> how the exterior lights are controlled 3 times a day.  This stuff is
> all standalone, needing only the support for your serial ports in the
> kernel.

	He's not talking about heyu or xtend.  Wish (aka x10dev) is an entirely
different project that maps the x10 address space into a set of devices
in /dev.  It's the only one of the three with actually kernel level
device drivers.

	The older wish/x10dev stuff (1.x for the 2.4 and earlier kernels)
required patches and a kernel rebuild.  I contributed a bit to getting
the newer (2.x) version working as an external compile of the kernel
modules.  Consequently, the latest versions do NOT require patching the
kernel and DO compile just nicely against the 2.6 -devel packages.

	There are advantages and disadvantages to both packages (heyu and
x10dev - xtend is mostly a macro supporting package which can run
independently from heyu).  Wish/x10dev does not support timers or some
of the onboard intelligence of the CM11A and similar controllers.
OTOH...  It DOES support the PowerLinc controllers (serial and USB)
which the heyu project decidedly does NOT.  Heyu does not involve any
device drivers, which is both a plus and a minus.  X10dev splits the
units and housecodes out so you can create very diverse packages of
multiple scripts.  But it doesn't support some of the finer grained
capabilities of Heyu (like extended codes).

	To turn a device off in heyu:

	heyu turn a10 off

	To turn a device off in X10dev:

	echo off > /dev/x10/a10

	Whole housecodes can be independently monitored just by cat'ing their
device in x10dev:

	cat /dev/x10/a

	Or the whole controller by:

	cat /dev/x10/status

	Heyu becomes a problem when you are trying to deal with contention and
multiple scripts and commands and access.

	I use them both depending on application.  I wish I could set up
wish/x10dev with a "raw" interface that would then allow heyu to
communicate directly with the controller through x10dev.  That would
give me the best of both possible worlds for the CM11A controllers.
Even better would be if x10dev could translate from heyu to the
PowerLinc devices (which, IMHO, are superior controllers to the ones
from X10 corp).

	IAC...  All three packages, heyu, xtend, and x10dev would be
appropriate candidates for extras.

> >http://lxr.linux.no/source/Documentation/SubmittingDrivers
> >
> >regards
> >Rahul
> 
> -- 
> Cheers, Gene
> "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
>  soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
> -Ed Howdershelt (Author)
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> message by Gene Heskett are:
> Copyright 2005 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved.

	Mike
-- 
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