Re: sonypc with Sony Vaio VGN-SZ1VP

[Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>]

On Thu, 4 Jan 2007 20:15:12 +0100
Mattia Dongili <malattia@linux.it> wrote:

> On Thu, Jan 04, 2007 at 11:09:44AM +0100, Stelian Pop wrote:
> > Le jeudi 04 janvier 2007 __ 00:24 -0500, Len Brown a __crit :
> > 
> > > > > I'd like to keep this driver out-of-tree
> > > > > until we prove that we can't enhance the
> > > > > generic code to handle this hardware
> > > > > without the addition of a new driver.
> > > > 
> > > > How long is this going to take ?
> > > 
> > > How about 2.6.21?
> > 
> > Good news !
> > 
> > > What needs to happen is
> > > 1. a maintainer for sony_acpi.c needs to step forward
> > >     I can't do this, I'm not allowed to be in the reverse engineering business.
> > 
> > Well, I can't do this either, because I just don't have the required
> > hardware anymore.
> > 
> > If someone want to step forward now it is a great time !
> 
> I have the hw and I'd be happy to do some basic working on the code

Neato, thanks.

> but:
> - I'll probably need some help;
> - I'll have an almost-blackout between the end of February and the end
>   of April as I'm moving to a different country and I'll need some time
>   before I can be active again (I hope I'll have at least easy mail
>   access for all the time though).
> Anyway if it is still ok I can maintain the thing, to months seems
> enough to give the driver a shape.
> 
> > > 2. /proc/acpi/sony API needs to be deleted
> > > 
> > > 3. source needs to move out of drivers/acpi, and into drivers/misc along with msi.
> 
> And turn extra-backlight features into platform_device stuff? So 2 and 3
> can come together.
> 
> Moreover, I own an SZ72B and an older GR7 and have come to the same
> findings of Cacy, plus a patch to allow a smarter "debug" mode.
> So, how to proceed? (I've just cloned the linux-acpi-2.6 tree)
> 

I have a VGN-something-or-other notebook and I use this driver regularly.

The place to start (please) is the patches in -mm:

2.6-sony_acpi4.patch
sony_apci-resume.patch
sony_apci-resume-fix.patch
acpi-add-backlight-support-to-the-sony_acpi.patch
acpi-add-backlight-support-to-the-sony_acpi-v2.patch
video-sysfs-support-take-2-add-dev-argument-for-backlight_device_register-sony_acpi-fix.patch

It presently has both the /proc and /sys/.../backlight/.. interfaces, so the first
job would be to chop out the /proc stuff.