Put acpi/backlight code into kernel

Put acpi/backlight code into kernel

[schmirrwurst-gM/Ye1E23mwN+BqQ9rBEUg]

Hi, 

I'm trying to bring devs to support for backlight on nv50 cards for above 1 
year, without any success
A lot of laptop (from mac, hp, samsung) doesn't have laptop_panel in hal, and 
therefore no support for acpi/backlight..., and no entry in /proc/acpi/video 
nor /sys/class/backlight

Kernel team is not reacting, hal team won't fix, devicekit need standardise 
i/o...

I've tried nouveau, the acpi/backlight support works pretty well, but the 
driver itself is unusable for lambda users, it needs some times...
So I'm asking if someone could put the backlight code in a kernel module, or 
in the kernel itself, for people to have backlight support even when using 
nvidia driver or nv, or vesa... ???

Re: Put acpi/backlight code into kernel

[Matthew Garrett]

On Sat, Aug 22, 2009 at 08:34:28PM +0200, schmirrwurst-gM/Ye1E23mwN+BqQ9rBEUg@public.gmane.org wrote:

> I've tried nouveau, the acpi/backlight support works pretty well, but the 
> driver itself is unusable for lambda users, it needs some times...
> So I'm asking if someone could put the backlight code in a kernel module, or 
> in the kernel itself, for people to have backlight support even when using 
> nvidia driver or nv, or vesa... ???

Not really - drivers that touch registers belonging to other drivers are 
generally frowned upon.

-- 
Matthew Garrett | mjg59-1xO5oi07KQx4cg9Nei1l7Q@public.gmane.org

Re: Put acpi/backlight code into kernel

[schmirrwurst-gM/Ye1E23mwN+BqQ9rBEUg]

Le dimanche 13 septembre 2009 19:51:59, vous avez écrit :
> nouveau is perfectly stable for 2D use. You'd really need to ask nvidia
> to provide support for their driver.
> 
I'm trying to use nouveau since 2 month, and wasn't able to use it more than 1 
minute without trouble... and I'm using linux since 10 years, so I'm not a 
bloody newbie... 
Nvidia has already been asked 10000 times, they won't support backlight, 
because, every manufacturer is managing it differently, and there is anyway no 
real linux support by nvidia, that maybe also one of the most reason for 
nouveau, isn't it ?

I though it could be nice, to have backlight support until nouveau is really 
stable, because at that point, it is not designed for lambda users at all...

Nividia, nor someone else seems to be concerned by the fact that a lot of 
people, even with very recent hardware, are affected from this issue... and 
what we need, is a quick fix, even if nvidia would think about it, it would 
last some years until it works, I'm already waiting for backlight support for 
two years, one or two years more, and my hardware will be obselete !
We really need a fix that is quickly implemented, and if nouveau has already 
the code working, it must be not so complicated to add it to the kernel, or in 
a way that the backlight support is also working without nouveau...

Re: Put acpi/backlight code into kernel

[Matthew Garrett]

On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 08:09:37PM +0200, schmirrwurst-gM/Ye1E23mwN+BqQ9rBEUg@public.gmane.org wrote:

> Nvidia has already been asked 10000 times, they won't support backlight, 
> because, every manufacturer is managing it differently, and there is anyway no 
> real linux support by nvidia, that maybe also one of the most reason for 
> nouveau, isn't it ?

Then buy an AMD.

-- 
Matthew Garrett | mjg59-1xO5oi07KQx4cg9Nei1l7Q@public.gmane.org

Re: Put acpi/backlight code into kernel

[schmirrwurst-gM/Ye1E23mwN+BqQ9rBEUg]

Le lundi 14 septembre 2009 00:13:50, Matthew Garrett a écrit :
> On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 08:09:37PM +0200, schmirrwurst-gM/Ye1E23mwN+BqQ9rBEUg@public.gmane.org wrote:
> > Nvidia has already been asked 10000 times, they won't support backlight,
> > because, every manufacturer is managing it differently, and there is
> > anyway no real linux support by nvidia, that maybe also one of the most
> > reason for nouveau, isn't it ?
> 
> Then buy an AMD.
> 
What's that for a dumb answer !!
I thought linux aim is not to work only on specific hw like mac ! I can't buy 
another hw, only because of such a issue. The aim of linux is to be as 
compliant as possible. A lot of people are experiencing that issue on mac, hp, 
samsung with geforce, and I don't think the linux distribution can ask all 
those user to buy an AMD !!!!!!!!

A solution has already be found on nouveau, so I think it could be possible to 
integrate it in the kernel

Re: Put acpi/backlight code into kernel

[Maarten Maathuis]

Find someone who wants to create and maintain it.

Maarten.

Re: Put acpi/backlight code into kernel

[Renato Caldas]

On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 10:02 AM, Maarten Maathuis <madman2003-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org> wrote:
> Find someone who wants to create and maintain it.

This kind of code doesn't belong in the nouveau driver, as you
probably already know.

But there are things called "platform drivers" that support all those
non-standard features you may find on laptops, like radio switches,
leds, ... and backlight. There is one such driver for my Asus laptop,
which is called "asus-laptop".

So what you want is a platform driver for your hardware. Now you need
to either find someone who can code it, or do it yourself. It
shouldn't be that difficult if working code is already available.

Cheers,
  Renato

Re: Put acpi/backlight code into kernel

[schmirrwurst-gM/Ye1E23mwN+BqQ9rBEUg]

Thank you for your answer,

You said this kind of code doesn't belong in the nouveau driver, but backlight 
support have already been added in it, and it works well ...

So I need to find the person in charge of the sony platform driver, and ask him 
to take the nouveau backlight code.. would that work ?
Where are the platform driver hosted, who do I need to ask then ?

Thanks
Sebastien

Le lundi 14 septembre 2009 12:00:59, Renato Caldas a écrit :
> On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 10:02 AM, Maarten Maathuis <madman2003-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org> 
wrote:
> > Find someone who wants to create and maintain it.
> 
> This kind of code doesn't belong in the nouveau driver, as you
> probably already know.
> 
> But there are things called "platform drivers" that support all those
> non-standard features you may find on laptops, like radio switches,
> leds, ... and backlight. There is one such driver for my Asus laptop,
> which is called "asus-laptop".
> 
> So what you want is a platform driver for your hardware. Now you need
> to either find someone who can code it, or do it yourself. It
> shouldn't be that difficult if working code is already available.
> 
> Cheers,
>   Renato
> 

Re: Put acpi/backlight code into kernel

[Renato Caldas]

On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 1:40 PM,  <schmirrwurst-gM/Ye1E23mwN+BqQ9rBEUg@public.gmane.org> wrote:
> Thank you for your answer,
>
> You said this kind of code doesn't belong in the nouveau driver, but backlight
> support have already been added in it, and it works well ...

You need to be aware that people aren't comfortable in including every
possible non-standard feature in the kernel. That would be
unmaintainable, and it's the reason for the negative answers you've
received so far, it's not that people are unwilling to help.

> So I need to find the person in charge of the sony platform driver, and ask him
> to take the nouveau backlight code.. would that work ?
Possibly. IMHO that's the best place to put that kind of code.

> Where are the platform driver hosted, who do I need to ask then ?
That I have no idea. You can try to google for the project or check
the kernel logs..

Cheers,
  Renato
>
> Thanks
> Sebastien
>
> Le lundi 14 septembre 2009 12:00:59, Renato Caldas a écrit :
>> On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 10:02 AM, Maarten Maathuis <madman2003-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org>
> wrote:
>> > Find someone who wants to create and maintain it.
>>
>> This kind of code doesn't belong in the nouveau driver, as you
>> probably already know.
>>
>> But there are things called "platform drivers" that support all those
>> non-standard features you may find on laptops, like radio switches,
>> leds, ... and backlight. There is one such driver for my Asus laptop,
>> which is called "asus-laptop".
>>
>> So what you want is a platform driver for your hardware. Now you need
>> to either find someone who can code it, or do it yourself. It
>> shouldn't be that difficult if working code is already available.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>   Renato
>>
>

Re: Put acpi/backlight code into kernel

[Matthew Garrett]

On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 11:00:59AM +0100, Renato Caldas wrote:

> This kind of code doesn't belong in the nouveau driver, as you
> probably already know.

Sure it does. It's common for nvidia-based machines to use the GPU's 
built-in backlight control, and when that's the case the appropriate 
place for the control code is in the driver that touches the rest of 
those registers - nouveau, in this case.

> But there are things called "platform drivers" that support all those
> non-standard features you may find on laptops, like radio switches,
> leds, ... and backlight. There is one such driver for my Asus laptop,
> which is called "asus-laptop".

When there's a platform interface, a platform driver is indeed the 
correct answer. But in some cases (nvidia-based Sonys, for instance) 
there's no platform interface to use.

-- 
Matthew Garrett | mjg59-1xO5oi07KQx4cg9Nei1l7Q@public.gmane.org

Re: Put acpi/backlight code into kernel

[Renato Caldas]

On Sat, Sep 19, 2009 at 8:54 PM, Matthew Garrett <mjg59-1xO5oi07KQx4cg9Nei1l7Q@public.gmane.org> wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 11:00:59AM +0100, Renato Caldas wrote:
>
>> This kind of code doesn't belong in the nouveau driver, as you
>> probably already know.
>
> Sure it does. It's common for nvidia-based machines to use the GPU's
> built-in backlight control, and when that's the case the appropriate
> place for the control code is in the driver that touches the rest of
> those registers - nouveau, in this case.

Sorry, I seem to have missed the point of the original request.
Re-reading it fixed that.

>> But there are things called "platform drivers" that support all those
>> non-standard features you may find on laptops, like radio switches,
>> leds, ... and backlight. There is one such driver for my Asus laptop,
>> which is called "asus-laptop".
>
> When there's a platform interface, a platform driver is indeed the
> correct answer. But in some cases (nvidia-based Sonys, for instance)
> there's no platform interface to use.

I see. How difficult would it be to create a tool for that purpose?
Something like radeontool or nvclock?

Cheers,
  Renato

> --
> Matthew Garrett | mjg59-1xO5oi07KQx4cg9Nei1l7Q@public.gmane.org
>

Re: Put acpi/backlight code into kernel

[Matthew Garrett]

On Sat, Sep 19, 2009 at 10:36:20PM +0100, Renato Caldas wrote:

> I see. How difficult would it be to create a tool for that purpose?
> Something like radeontool or nvclock?

nvclock will do it.

-- 
Matthew Garrett | mjg59-1xO5oi07KQx4cg9Nei1l7Q@public.gmane.org