Re: [PATCH v5 0/1] platform/x86: Add wmi driver for Casper Excalibur laptops

[Stella Bloom <windowz414@gnuweeb.org>]

> Am 08.04.24 um 18:13 schrieb Stella Bloom:
>
>> On Mon, 2024-04-08 at 18:23 +0300, Mustafa Ekşi wrote:
>>> On 7.04.2024 03:57, Stella Bloom wrote:
>>>>> From: Mustafa Ekşi <mustafa.eskieksi@gmail.com>
>>>>>
>>>>> Hi,
>>>>> I want to note that moving mutex_init to the bottom of the function
>>>>> crashes the driver when mutex_lock is called. I didn't investigate it
>>>>> further but I wanted to say that since Ai Chao also did it like that.
>>>>>
>>>>> Driver sets all leds to white on start. Before that, when a led's
>>>>> brightness is changed, that led's color gets set to white but others
>>>>> keep their old colors which creates a bad user experience (at least for
>>>>> me). Please inform me if this is a bad approach.
>>>>> Also, this driver still lacks support for changing modes and I seek
>>>>> advise for that.
>>>>>
>>>>> Mustafa Ekşi (1):
>>>>>     platform/x86: Add wmi driver for Casper Excalibur laptops
>>>>>
>>>>>    MAINTAINERS                       |   6 +
>>>>>    drivers/platform/x86/Kconfig      |  14 +
>>>>>    drivers/platform/x86/Makefile     |   1 +
>>>>>    drivers/platform/x86/casper-wmi.c | 641 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>>>>>    4 files changed, 662 insertions(+)
>>>>>    create mode 100644 drivers/platform/x86/casper-wmi.c
>>>>>
>>>> Hi there,
>>>>
>>>> I just wanted to pitch in by testing the driver on the kernel I use
>>>> on my Arch install on an Excalibur G770.1245, namely xdevs23's
>>>> linux-nitrous (https://gitlab.com/xdevs23/linux-nitrous), but trying to
>>>> compile the driver using LLVM, which is the default compilation behavior
>>>> in this kernel's AUR package, spits out the following error;
>>>> ```
>>>> drivers/platform/x86/casper-wmi.c:633:3: error: field designator 'no_singleton' does not refer to any field in type 'struct wmi_driver'
>>>>    633 |         .no_singleton = true,
>>>>        |         ~^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>>>> 1 error generated.
>>>> make[5]: *** [scripts/Makefile.build:243: drivers/platform/x86/casper-wmi.o] Error 1
>>>> make[4]: *** [scripts/Makefile.build:481: drivers/platform/x86] Error 2
>>>> make[3]: *** [scripts/Makefile.build:481: drivers/platform] Error 2
>>>> make[2]: *** [scripts/Makefile.build:481: drivers] Error 2
>>>> make[1]: *** [/home/stella/.cache/yay/linux-nitrous/src/linux-nitrous/Makefile:1919: .] Error 2
>>>> make: *** [Makefile:240: __sub-make] Error 2
>>>> ```
>>>>
>>>> I want to help debug this somehow, but I'm more of an Android custom
>>>> ROM developer than a Linux kernel maintainer, so my knowledge on the
>>>> programming and build system languages other than Java, Makefile, Bash,
>>>> etc is pretty much limited if not outright non-existent.
>>> Hi,
>>> This is because of a newly merged patch from Armin Wolf:
>>> https://lore.kernel.org/platform-driver-x86/20240226193557.2888-2-W_Armin@gmx.de/
>>> You can comment that line or apply that patch to your tree to make it
>>> compile. Also, you'll probablyneed to change the call to wmidev_block_set in
>>> casper_query function with wmi_set_block (which is now deprecated).
>> Well, I prefer not to touch the driver itself, so I already resorted to
>> picking the patch over the latest RC, which is v6.9-rc2 as of now, and
>> got onto compiling `linux-mainline` AUR package with it. It will be
>> kind of a hassle considering how I have to write systemd-boot entries
>> after the installation to get the kernel to appear (one for normal
>> initramfs and the other for fallback one) and sign the kernel image
>> using `sbctl` so I don't fail secure boot, but I'm willing to go
>> through it just for the sake of seeing this driver in action without
>> bugs related to the "backport" modifications I would do to it.
>
> Hi,
>
> if you use kernel 6.9-rc2, then wmidev_block_set() is already available, so you do not
> have to change that.
>
> You just have to comment out the line with the no_singleton flag, then the driver should
> work.

Hi,

Thanks for letting me know of that. I'm doing the change locally right away.

> Thanks,
> Armin Wolf
>
>>>> I would *love* to see this driver actually hit mainline repos, and
>>>> eventually the upcoming kernel releases, given how much I need to use
>>>> this laptop of mine as a computer engineering student.
>>>>
>>>> Asking just for the case I manage to get this driver up and going on
>>>> my end somehow: Is there a tool made for controlling the LED colors yet?
>>>> I can still use CLI tools much like on ASUS ROG series laptops, but it
>>>> would be much easier and more appreciated to have a GUI provided
>>>> Excalibur series laptops' LED lights can virtually take any color in
>>>> the RGB space - At least that's how I interpreted with the
>>>> configurations I used to do on mine using Excalibur Control Center
>>>> on Windows 10/11.
>>> No, there isn't a tool yet but controlling leds via sysfs ispretty easy.
>>> For example, if you wanted to change the left led zone's color to red:
>>> ```
>>> # echo 0xff0000 > /sys/class/leds/casper\:\:kbd_zoned_backlight-left/multi_intensity
>>> ```
>> Oh so the LED zones are in different sysfs directories, that's pretty
>> good. I might code a simple Bash script to make things easier later
>> down the road.
>>> And don't forget that all leds' initial brightnesses are 0.
>> Yeah I think I read that somewhere in the initial message. Can't I
>> change the brightness of the LEDs using Fn+Space anyway if I can't find
>> the sysfs entries for that? At least it works just fine on the latest
>> stable release - v6.8.4.
>>> Also, I'm planning to add support for this API in OpenRGB.
>> That's pretty nice to hear! If you need someone to test it out on a
>> 12th gen G770, I'm more than willing to do so!
>>>> And as for the profiles, let me make sure we're talking about the same
>>>> thing in this term: You're talking about the "Office", "Gaming" and
>>>> "High Performance" modes as seen in Excalibur Control Center, right?
>>> For laptops with 11th gen processors or newer: yes.
>>> For laptops with 10th gen processors or older: no, there are 4 power
>>> profiles for these laptops (High Performance, Gaming, Text Mode andPower
>>> save).
>> Oh so that's a yes in my case as my laptop has a 12th gen processor.
>> Glad to know.
>>>> If so, can this be somehow integrated into `power-profiles-daemon`
>>>> SystemD service for easier controlling with GNOME and other DEs that
>>>> use it? It's fine if it can't be, this was just a thought struck on my
>>>> mind for whatever reason.
>>> Yes, power-profiles-daemon is already integrated with platform_profile.
>> Now that's exciting to hear. I haven't seen a laptop that has its power
>> profiles integrated into the system with a driver in terms of Linux...
>> At least on the Monster and ASUS laptops I've tried Ubuntu on IIRC.
>>>> Please do CC me and the people I've added to the CC list with this email
>>>> of mine on the upcoming revisions, if any. We would love to keep track
>>>> of this driver and I personally would love to contribute into testing
>>>> as a power user.
>>>>
>>>> Cc: Alviro Iskandar Setiawan <alviro.iskandar@gnuweeb.org>
>>>> Cc: Ammar Faizi <ammarfaizi2@gnuweeb.org>
>>>> Cc: GNU/Weeb Mailing List <gwml@vger.gnuweeb.org>
>>>>
>>>> Also adding my organizational and school email addresses to the CC list
>>>> so I can still be notified while I stay offline on this email address.
>>>> GNOME Evolution doesn't run in the background and periodically check
>>>> for emails sadly, and I switch ROMs every now and then on my phone as a
>>>> source maintainer of 3 different custom ROMs. :/
>>>>
>>>> Cc: Stella Bloom <stelbl@elrant.team>
>>>> Cc: Bedirhan KURT <bedirhan_kurt22@erdogan.edu.tr>
>>>>
>>>> -- 
>>>> Stella Bloom
>>> Thanks for your interest,
>>> Mustafa Ekşi
>> Also I apologize for the previous (empty) email. I forgot to put one
>> newline after the "Subject" line, which caused git-send-email to not
>> pick up the email content.
>>
>> -- 
>> Stella Bloom

--
Stella Bloom