Is rfkill class really appropriate for eeepc-laptop?

[Alan Jenkins <alan-jenkins@tuffmail.co.uk>]

Woody Suwalski wrote:
> Alan Jenkins wrote:
>> Woody Suwalski wrote:
>>
>>> > I have found one of the earliest source code snippets we have got
>>> from
>>> > Asus (eeepc_hotkey.tar.gz), and the current one we are using on new
>>> > models (P901 an later - hopefully back compatible?).
<>
>>> > And also - how far is now kernel eeepc support from this acpi
>>> module? 
<>
>> The main difference in eeepc-laptop is the shiny new interface.  The
>> files are created in /sys/bus/platform/devices/eeepc, instead of
>> /proc/acpi/asus.  It uses a recently added generic backlight interface
>> (/sys/class/backlight/eeepc) - so it's the same as all the other "laptop
>> extras" modules.  In 2.6.27 it will implements the new generic "rfkill"
>> interface for the wireless toggle.  Plus it will generate real input
>> events (as opposed to acpi events) for hotkeys.
<>
> About the rfkill switch - be careful.
> The current /proc/acpi/asus/wlan implementation is actually killing
> the power from wireless chip - as  a result we had to do a lot of
> hooplas with pciehp or fakephp to bring the chip up "pci-wise" after
> the sleep.

Hmm, so it does.  I guess that makes it unsuitable for a straight port
to the rfkill interface.

    The rfkill switch subsystem exists to add a generic interface to
    circuitry that
    can enable or disable the signal output of a wireless *transmitter*
    of any
    type.  By far, the most common use is to disable radio-frequency
    transmitters.

Both the pre-installed OS and the community scripts play these games; I
think you have to reload the pciehp module with a "force" parameter.

I was wrong to say that rfkill support was already in mainline.  But it
is introduced by Matthew's patch "eeepc-laptop: Use standard
interfaces", as posted and reviewed on the linux-acpi list.  I think
this is a bad idea.  Surely the whole point of rfkill is to let
NetworkManager do power management *without* having to do different
things for different laptops?

> Luckily the newest model (e.g. S101) is now using "normal" kill of the
> antenna, which is easy to work with.

Sounds good in theory.  Maybe not so good if it does something different
in response to the exact same acpi method :-(.

Alan