Best way to work with Xorg / debug server modules

Question

I want to work with the Xorg server module, and I wonder how I can reload the module at runtime.

Also, maybe someone can give me some useful tips on how to do this (because I have never worked with Xorg server code before).

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Esp. I am running Ubuntu Xorg 7.5 (if that matters, right?).

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What I want to do specifically is to implement mouse wheel acceleration in XInput.

I was thinking of adding a new option for this that could be installed somewhere (I think xorg.conf is no longer the place where you will configure the XInput configuration, where it is now, and what would be the best way to introduce a new one, t .e. MouseWheelAccel or sth, how is it?).

And then, of course, realize the actual acceleration. Since mouse wheel events are similar to button click events, I thought of simply increasing the rate of fire with such events. How to implement this is actually a really minor problem. (I actually think of it as trivial. Let's see if the Xorg code makes it so simple ...)

Answer 1

So far I have done this:

Reports:

• in Launchpad / (K) Ubuntu
• in ubuntu brainstorm
• on the Ubuntu forums
• in KDE
• on Freedesktop / Xorg

Check out Xorg through Git, get ready to compile and get the XServer code . Mainly:

...
git clone git://anongit.freedesktop.org/git/xorg/util/macros
...
sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-dev
sudo apt-get install x11proto-gl-dev x11proto-xf86dri-dev x11proto-fixes-dev x11proto-damage-dev x11proto-xcmisc-dev x11proto-bigreqs-dev x11proto-composite-dev x11proto-scrnsaver-dev x11proto-resource-dev x11proto-xinerama-dev x11proto-xf86dga-dev x11proto-record-dev x11proto-xf86vidmode-dev
sudo apt-get install libxfont-dev libudev-dev
git clone git://anongit.freedesktop.org/git/mesa/mesa
git clone git://anongit.freedesktop.org/xorg/xserver
cd xserver
git checkout -b server-1.7-branch origin/server-1.7-branch -t
# apply a bunch of Debian patches (apt-get source xserver-xorg-core && ls xorg-server-1.7.6/debian/patches)
# esp., apply the config-libudev-backend and config-xorg-conf-d 
./autogen.sh --prefix=/opt/xorg --enable-xorg --disable-dmx --disable-xvfb --disable-xnes \
--disable-xwin --disable-xprint --with-mesa-source=../mesa \
--enable-dga --enable-glx --enable-aiglx --enable-glx-tls \
--enable-dri --enable-dri2 \
--enable-config-udev --enable-registry --enable-composite --enable-record \
--enable-xv --enable-xvmc --enable-dga --enable-screensaver \
--enable-xdmcp --enable-xdm-auth-1 --enable-xfree86-utils \
--with-xkb-bin-directory=/usr/bin --with-xkb-path=/usr/share/X11/xkb --with-xkb-output=/var/lib/xkb \
--with-dri-driver-path=/usr/lib/dri \
--with-default-font-path="/usr/share/fonts/X11/misc,/usr/share/fonts/X11/cyrillic,/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi/:unscaled,/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi/:unscaled,/usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1,/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi,/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi,/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType,built-ins"
sudo chmod o+w /var/lib/xkb # just to be able to proceed as user
... # work on it
sudo /opt/xorg/bin/Xorg :1 vt8 # for testing
sudo cp /opt/xorg/bin/* /usr/bin # temporarily install it as main Xserver