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1 | ACPI Sony Notebook Control Driver (SNC) Readme | ||
2 | ---------------------------------------------- | ||
3 | Copyright (C) 2004- 2005 Stelian Pop <stelian@popies.net> | ||
4 | |||
5 | This mini-driver drives the ACPI SNC device present in the | ||
6 | ACPI BIOS of the Sony Vaio laptops. | ||
7 | |||
8 | It gives access to some extra laptop functionalities. In | ||
9 | its current form, this driver is mainly useful for controlling the | ||
10 | screen brightness, but it may do more in the future. | ||
11 | |||
12 | You should probably start by trying the sonypi driver, and try | ||
13 | sony_acpi only if sonypi doesn't work for you. | ||
14 | |||
15 | Usage: | ||
16 | ------ | ||
17 | |||
18 | Loading the sony_acpi module will create a /proc/acpi/sony/ | ||
19 | directory populated with a couple of files. | ||
20 | |||
21 | You then read/write integer values from/to those files by using | ||
22 | standard UNIX tools. | ||
23 | |||
24 | The 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 | |||
30 | Note that some files may be missing if they are not supported | ||
31 | by your particular laptop model. | ||
32 | |||
33 | Example usage: | ||
34 | # echo "1" > /proc/acpi/sony/brightness | ||
35 | sets the lowest screen brightness, | ||
36 | # echo "8" > /proc/acpi/sony/brightness | ||
37 | sets the highest screen brightness, | ||
38 | # cat /proc/acpi/sony/brightness | ||
39 | retrieves the current screen brightness. | ||
40 | |||
41 | Development: | ||
42 | ------------ | ||
43 | |||
44 | If you want to help with the development of this driver (and | ||
45 | you are not afraid of any side effects doing strange things with | ||
46 | your ACPI BIOS could have on your laptop), load the driver and | ||
47 | pass the option 'debug=1'. | ||
48 | |||
49 | REPEAT: DON'T DO THIS IF YOU DON'T LIKE RISKY BUSINESS. | ||
50 | |||
51 | In your kernel logs you will find the list of all ACPI methods | ||
52 | the SNC device has on your laptop. You can see the GBRT/SBRT methods | ||
53 | used to get/set the brightness, but there are others. | ||
54 | |||
55 | I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THOSE METHODS DO. | ||
56 | |||
57 | The sony_acpi driver creates, for some of those methods (the most | ||
58 | current ones found on several Vaio models), an entry under | ||
59 | /proc/acpi/sony/, just like the 'brightness' one. You can create | ||
60 | other entries corresponding to your own laptop methods by further | ||
61 | editing the source (see the 'sony_acpi_values' table, and add a new | ||
62 | structure to this table with your get/set method names). | ||
63 | |||
64 | Your mission, should you accept it, is to try finding out what | ||
65 | those entries are for, by reading/writing random values from/to those | ||
66 | files and find out what is the impact on your laptop. | ||
67 | |||
68 | Should you find anything interesting, please report it back to me, | ||
69 | I will not disavow all knowledge of your actions :) | ||
70 | |||
71 | Bugs/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 | |||