ThinkPad X61s functions keys

Dan Langille dan at langille.org
Sun Apr 13 15:45:20 UTC 2008


Elsewhere in this thread I had stated I'd solved the problem.  I'm 
posting the details here.

Alberto Rizzi wrote:
> Dan Langille ha scritto:
>> Hi,
>>
>> Running FreeBSD 7.0-RELEASE on a ThinkPad X61s.
>>
>> Some keys do not work:
>>
>> - volume adjustment
>> - screen brightness (FN HOME, FN END)
>>
>> The keyboard light does work (FN-PgUp) as does
>> Numeric Lock (FN ScrLk).
>>
>> What can I do to help diagnose the issue so we can get these
>> functions working?
>>
> Have the same problem with a Thinkpad T61
> If you read man acpi_ibm there is a partial solution
> 
> You have to load acpi_ibm at boot. Add
> acpi_ibm_load="YES"
> to /boot/loader.conf

This is loaded:

$ kldstat
Id Refs Address            Size     Name
  1   15 0xffffffff80100000 ac6c08   kernel
  2    1 0xffffffff80bc7000 39138    linux.ko
  3    1 0xffffffff80c01000 7108     if_tap.ko
  4    1 0xffffffff80c09000 1a670    snd_hda.ko
  5    2 0xffffffff80c24000 673b8    sound.ko
  6    1 0xffffffff80c8c000 53d0     acpi_ibm.ko
  7    1 0xffffffffb16e4000 4b61     i915.ko
  8    1 0xffffffffb16e9000 d5d8     drm.ko


> 
> Then activate event passing to devd. Add
> dev.acpi_ibm.0.events=1
> to /etc/sysctl.conf

I cannot get this set to 1 after boot:

$ grep ibm /etc/sysctl.conf
dev.acpi_ibm.0.events=1

$ sysctl dev.acpi_ibm.0.events
dev.acpi_ibm.0.events: 0

Under these circumstances, the keys will not work.  If I manually set 
the events flag:

$ sudo sysctl dev.acpi_ibm.0.events=1
Password:
dev.acpi_ibm.0.events: 0 -> 1
$ sysctl dev.acpi_ibm.0.events
dev.acpi_ibm.0.events: 1


Then the brightness keys start working

> 
> Then tell devd that you want to get events. Add
> notify 10 {
>     match "system"        "ACPI";
>     match "subsystem"     "IBM";
>     action "/usr/local/sbin/acpi_oem_exec.sh $notify ibm";
> }

This was the missing key.  The last line needs a trailing ;

Once I added that in, things started working.

> 
> to /etc/devd.conf
> 
> Now you have to create that script
> ----------
> #!/bin/sh
> NOTIFY=`echo $1`
> ECHO="echo"
> CALC="bc"
> 
> case ${NOTIFY} in
>     0x10)
>         LEVEL=`sysctl -n dev.acpi_ibm.0.lcd_brightness`
>         PERCENT=`${ECHO} "${LEVEL} + 1" | ${CALC}`
>         MESSAGE="brightness level ${PERCENT}"
>         sysctl dev.acpi_ibm.0.lcd_brightness=${PERCENT}
>         ;;
>     0x11)
>         LEVEL=`sysctl -n dev.acpi_ibm.0.lcd_brightness`
>         PERCENT=`${ECHO} "${LEVEL} - 1" | ${CALC}`
>         MESSAGE="brightness level ${PERCENT}"
>         sysctl dev.acpi_ibm.0.lcd_brightness=${PERCENT}
>         ;;
>     *)
>         ;;
> esac
> echo `date` >> /tmp/prova
> ${ECHO} ${LEVEL} ${NOTIFY} ${MESSAGE} >> /tmp/prova
> exit 0   
> 
> -------
> If you leave the last two debug line, with a tail -f /tmp/prova you can 
> check the events sent to devd.
> 
> With this script you can change the brightness both under console and 
> under xorg but you are bound to 8 levels (0 - 7)
> If you want 100 levels you can use xbacklight under xorg only and modify 
> the script to use xbacklight instead of sysctl
> 
> Mute and volume keys don't send events to devd: I don't know why but if 
> I press mute it works and dev.acpi_ibm.0.mute becomes 1
> If I press volume up or down, dev.acpi_ibm.0.mute becomes 0

Using the Fn key and pressing the F1-F12 keys, I get the following log 
entrys in /tmp/prova:
Sun Apr 13 11:39:48 EDT 2008
0x01
Sun Apr 13 11:39:48 EDT 2008
0x02
Sun Apr 13 11:39:49 EDT 2008
0x03
Sun Apr 13 11:39:50 EDT 2008
0x05
Sun Apr 13 11:39:50 EDT 2008
0x06
Sun Apr 13 11:39:50 EDT 2008
0x07
Sun Apr 13 11:39:54 EDT 2008
0x08
Sun Apr 13 11:39:54 EDT 2008
0x09
Sun Apr 13 11:39:55 EDT 2008
0x0b
Sun Apr 13 11:39:55 EDT 2008
0x0c


Note the following exceptions which can be observed from the above log 
entries:

Fn-F4 - sleep: does not give any log entry
Fn-F10 - unlabelled on the keyboard, gives no log entry

Other Fn key results:

SysReq - no log entry, no effect seen
NumLk - no log entry but system goes into NumLock mode
Pause - no log entry, no effect seen
ThinkLight - works, and creates a log entry 0x12
Spacebar - create log entry 0x14




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