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authorStelian Pop <stelian@popies.net>2007-01-13 17:04:31 -0500
committerLen Brown <len.brown@intel.com>2007-02-13 03:04:22 -0500
commit7f09c432bed80cecfba634933ddc06735e64da00 (patch)
tree9c0640829aa5d72b74f0197942ecebf3814ea83e /Documentation
parent62d0cfcb27cf755cebdc93ca95dabc83608007cd (diff)
sony_acpi: SNC device support for Sony Vaios
From: Bjorn Helgaas <bjorn.helgaas@hp.com> Even though the devices claimed by sony_acpi.c can not be hot-plugged, the driver registration infrastructure allows the .add() and .remove() methods to be called at any time while the driver is registered. So remove __init and __exit from them. From: Matthew Garrett <mjg59@srcf.ucam.org> [UBUNTU:acpi/sony] Add FN hotkey support Source URL of Patch: http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/bcollins/ubuntu-dapper.git;a=commitdiff;h=7a9b49cba4919e8506604629db03add8e0b85767 Signed-off-by: Ben Collins <bcollins@ubuntu.com> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org> Signed-off-by: Mattia Dongili <malattia@linux.it> Signed-off-by: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
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1ACPI Sony Notebook Control Driver (SNC) Readme
2----------------------------------------------
3 Copyright (C) 2004- 2005 Stelian Pop <stelian@popies.net>
4
5This mini-driver drives the ACPI SNC device present in the
6ACPI BIOS of the Sony Vaio laptops.
7
8It gives access to some extra laptop functionalities. In
9its current form, this driver is mainly useful for controlling the
10screen brightness, but it may do more in the future.
11
12You should probably start by trying the sonypi driver, and try
13sony_acpi only if sonypi doesn't work for you.
14
15Usage:
16------
17
18Loading the sony_acpi module will create a /proc/acpi/sony/
19directory populated with a couple of files.
20
21You then read/write integer values from/to those files by using
22standard UNIX tools.
23
24The files are:
25 brightness current screen brightness
26 brightness_default screen brightness which will be set
27 when the laptop will be rebooted
28 cdpower power on/off the internal CD drive
29
30Note that some files may be missing if they are not supported
31by your particular laptop model.
32
33Example usage:
34 # echo "1" > /proc/acpi/sony/brightness
35sets the lowest screen brightness,
36 # echo "8" > /proc/acpi/sony/brightness
37sets the highest screen brightness,
38 # cat /proc/acpi/sony/brightness
39retrieves the current screen brightness.
40
41Development:
42------------
43
44If you want to help with the development of this driver (and
45you are not afraid of any side effects doing strange things with
46your ACPI BIOS could have on your laptop), load the driver and
47pass the option 'debug=1'.
48
49REPEAT: DON'T DO THIS IF YOU DON'T LIKE RISKY BUSINESS.
50
51In your kernel logs you will find the list of all ACPI methods
52the SNC device has on your laptop. You can see the GBRT/SBRT methods
53used to get/set the brightness, but there are others.
54
55I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THOSE METHODS DO.
56
57The sony_acpi driver creates, for some of those methods (the most
58current ones found on several Vaio models), an entry under
59/proc/acpi/sony/, just like the 'brightness' one. You can create
60other entries corresponding to your own laptop methods by further
61editing the source (see the 'sony_acpi_values' table, and add a new
62structure to this table with your get/set method names).
63
64Your mission, should you accept it, is to try finding out what
65those entries are for, by reading/writing random values from/to those
66files and find out what is the impact on your laptop.
67
68Should you find anything interesting, please report it back to me,
69I will not disavow all knowledge of your actions :)
70
71Bugs/Limitations:
72-----------------
73
74* This driver is not based on official documentation from Sony
75 (because there is none), so there is no guarantee this driver
76 will work at all, or do the right thing. Although this hasn't
77 happened to me, this driver could do very bad things to your
78 laptop, including permanent damage.
79
80* The sony_acpi and sonypi drivers do not interact at all. In the
81 future, sonypi could use sony_acpi to do (part of) its business.
82
83* spicctrl, which is the userspace tool used to communicate with the
84 sonypi driver (through /dev/sonypi) does not try to use the
85 sony_acpi driver. In the future, spicctrl could try sonypi first,
86 and if it isn't present, try sony_acpi instead.
87