BCM5974(4)

📦 version 15.1, in freebsd 14.5, freebsd 15.1, nixpkgs unstable

💅 BCM5974(4) — bestie's guide to the Wellspring touchpad driver 🍓

okay so this is the bcm5974 page from the Kernel Interfaces Manual, and honestly? it's short, it's sweet, and it's lowkey iconic. let's get into it ✨

🌸 NAME 🌸

bcm5974 — the Wellspring touchpad driver. yes queen, that's the whole name section, she's brief and she knows it 💅

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

so there are two whole vibes here: bake it into the kernel, or load it as a module. pick your fighter 🎀

Option A — compile it into the kernel (main character energy): drop these lines into your kernel configuration file, exactly like this, no notes:

device bcm5974
device hidbus
device hid
device usbhid
device usb
device evdev

Option B — load it as a module at boot time (lowkey easier): put this one single line in loader.conf(5):

bcm5974_load="YES"

that's it. that's the whole synopsis. slay 💖

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

the bcm5974 driver provides support for the Wellspring touchpads found in many Apple laptops. so if you've got one of those trackpads and you're like "why is nothing working," this is your girl 🫶

and here's the tea: to get the multi-touch device working in X(7) (ports/x11/xorg-docs), you gotta install ports/x11-drivers/xf86-input-libinput. no cap, that's the move. don't skip it or you'll be sitting there like 😭

🎀 FILES 🎀

  • bcm5974 creates a pseudo-device file, /dev/input/eventX, which presents the multi-touch device as an input event device. yes, eventX — the X is a placeholder, don't come for me, that's literally what the page says 🌈

👑 SEE ALSO 👑

go read those if you're nosy (affectionate) 🔥

🧚 AUTHORS 🧚

the bcm5974 driver was written by Vladimir Kondratyev <wulf@FreeBSD.org>. king behavior 👑

it's based on the wsp(4) driver written by Huang Wen Hui <huanghwh@gmail.com>. giving credit where credit is due, we love to see it 💜

💀 BUGS 💀

bcm5974 cannot act like sysmouse(4)

that's it. that's the bug. it just can't do that one thing. not a skill issue, it's just not built for it, and honestly? respect the boundaries 🙈

okay bestie that's the whole page, short and iconic, just like we like it 💅✨

and for the sign-off: this page came from Debian, dated February 27, 2022 — so shoutout to whoever pushed that, mwah 🎀💖🦋

📦 where this page comes from