PS/2, USB, I2C/SMBus, and VMware guest mice and touchpads
A broad collection of pointing-device drivers covering classic PS/2 and serial mice, laptop touchpads from Synaptics, ELAN, Cypress, ALPS and Apple (including the bcm5974 and appletouch families used in MacBooks), modern I2C/SMBus touchpads, generic USB mice, and the paravirtual vmmouse used by VMware guests. These devices are in nearly every laptop and desktop running Linux today.
recommendation
It should stay in the kernel because the hardware it supports is ubiquitous on current laptops and desktops, and the code is still receiving real bug-fix work in 2025-2026 (for example, recent fixes to the MacBook bcm5974 touchpad mode-switch recovery and an appletouch resume race). New USB mice from vendors like Logitech are still being sold, and VMware Workstation and Fusion remain shipping products that depend on the vmmouse guest path, so there is no plausible case for deprecation.
repository signals
sources
- git.kernel.org
This directory is the main Linux mouse/touchpad driver collection, including PS/2, serial, USB, I2C/SMBus, platform, and VMware guest support.
- git.kernel.org
The directory received a substantive upstream fix on 2026-02-18 (bcm5974 mode-switch recovery), indicating active maintenance rather than retirement.
- git.kernel.org
The directory also received a substantive appletouch resume/open race fix in the same recent window, showing continuing bug-fix traffic across device families.
- logitech.com
New commodity mice are still sold, with Logitech listing a current USB mouse compatible with Linux.
- vmware.com
VMware Workstation/Fusion remain current products with ongoing updates in 2025, supporting continued relevance of the in-tree VMware guest mouse path.
codex reasoning notes (technical)
`rg` and `sed` on the local tree showed this is an active top-level driver directory, not a helper/test/doc path, and confirmed broad present-day scope including PS/2 touchpads, ELAN/Cypress/Synaptics I2C/SMBus devices, USB touchpads, serial mice, and `vmmouse`. `git -c safe.directory ... log` provided the recent commit IDs used for the two kernel.org commit URLs; those kernel URLs and the Kconfig tree URL are canonical kernel.org pages recalled from the local path/IDs. `web.search_query` and `web.open`/`find` produced the Logitech and VMware URLs. A web search for lore removal/deprecation discussion returned no hits, while local history shows substantial 2025-2026 maintenance, so there is no evidence supporting deprecation or removal at directory level.