ALPS stop worked between 2.6.13 and 2.6.16

ALPS stop worked between 2.6.13 and 2.6.16

[Romano Giannetti]

Hi all. I upgraded kernel from 2.6.13-rc3 to 2.6.16 and ALPS touchpad
stopped worked. I have latest release of synaptics drivers, and can confirm
that  exactly the same config results in a working ALPS on old kernel and no
ALPS on newer (same config).
Details here:

http://www.dea.icai.upco.es/romano/linux/vaio-conf/config-2.6.16-ck1-after-boot/laptop-config.html

and

http://www.dea.icai.upco.es/romano/linux/vaio-conf/config-2.6.13-rc3-rg-after-a-bit/




-- 
Romano Giannetti             -  Univ. Pontificia Comillas (Madrid, Spain)
Electronic Engineer - phone +34 915 422 800 ext 2416  fax +34 915 596 569
http://www.dea.icai.upcomillas.es/romano/

--
La presente comunicación tiene carácter confidencial y es para el exclusivo uso del destinatario indicado en la misma. Si Ud. no es el destinatario indicado, le informamos que cualquier forma de distribución, reproducción o uso de esta comunicación y/o de la información contenida en la misma están estrictamente prohibidos por la ley. Si Ud. ha recibido esta comunicación por error, por favor, notifíquelo inmediatamente al remitente contestando a este mensaje y proceda a continuación a destruirlo. Gracias por su colaboración.

This communication contains confidential information. It is for the exclusive use of the intended addressee. If you are not the intended addressee, please note that any form of distribution, copying or use of this communication or the information in it is strictly prohibited by law. If you have received this communication in error, please immediately notify the sender by reply e-mail and destroy this message. Thank you for your cooperation. 

Re: ALPS stop worked between 2.6.13 and 2.6.16

[Dmitry Torokhov]

On 3/27/06, Romano Giannetti <romanol@upcomillas.es> wrote:
>
> Hi all. I upgraded kernel from 2.6.13-rc3 to 2.6.16 and ALPS touchpad
> stopped worked. I have latest release of synaptics drivers, and can confirm
> that  exactly the same config results in a working ALPS on old kernel and no
> ALPS on newer (same config).
> Details here:
>
> http://www.dea.icai.upco.es/romano/linux/vaio-conf/config-2.6.16-ck1-after-boot/laptop-config.html
>
> and
>
> http://www.dea.icai.upco.es/romano/linux/vaio-conf/config-2.6.13-rc3-rg-after-a-bit/
>

Hi,

According to your dmesg your ALPS touchpas awas successfully detected
by the kernel. Please make sure that you have updated udev package.

--
Dmitry

Re: ALPS stop worked between 2.6.13 and 2.6.16

[Romano Giannetti]

On Mon, Mar 27, 2006 at 11:05:26AM -0500, Dmitry Torokhov wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> According to your dmesg your ALPS touchpas awas successfully detected
> by the kernel. Please make sure that you have updated udev package.
> 

Udev is 054 (as per Mandriva 2005). Is that the culprit?
Thanks,

    Romano

-- 
Romano Giannetti             -  Univ. Pontificia Comillas (Madrid, Spain)
Electronic Engineer - phone +34 915 422 800 ext 2416  fax +34 915 596 569
http://www.dea.icai.upcomillas.es/romano/

--
La presente comunicación tiene carácter confidencial y es para el exclusivo uso del destinatario indicado en la misma. Si Ud. no es el destinatario indicado, le informamos que cualquier forma de distribución, reproducción o uso de esta comunicación y/o de la información contenida en la misma están estrictamente prohibidos por la ley. Si Ud. ha recibido esta comunicación por error, por favor, notifíquelo inmediatamente al remitente contestando a este mensaje y proceda a continuación a destruirlo. Gracias por su colaboración.

This communication contains confidential information. It is for the exclusive use of the intended addressee. If you are not the intended addressee, please note that any form of distribution, copying or use of this communication or the information in it is strictly prohibited by law. If you have received this communication in error, please immediately notify the sender by reply e-mail and destroy this message. Thank you for your cooperation. 

Re: ALPS stop worked between 2.6.13 and 2.6.16

[Dmitry Torokhov]

On 3/27/06, Romano Giannetti <romanol@upcomillas.es> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Mar 27, 2006 at 11:05:26AM -0500, Dmitry Torokhov wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > According to your dmesg your ALPS touchpas awas successfully detected
> > by the kernel. Please make sure that you have updated udev package.
> >
>
> Udev is 054 (as per Mandriva 2005). Is that the culprit?

[~/linux] grep udev Documentation/Changes
o  udev                   071                     # udevinfo -V
...


--
Dmitry

Re: ALPS stop worked between 2.6.13 and 2.6.16

[Romano Giannetti]

On Mon, Mar 27, 2006 at 02:12:26PM -0500, Dmitry Torokhov wrote:
> On 3/27/06, Romano Giannetti <romanol@upcomillas.es> wrote:
> >
> > Udev is 054 (as per Mandriva 2005). Is that the culprit?
> 
> [~/linux] grep udev Documentation/Changes
> o  udev                   071                     # udevinfo -V
> ...

Bad news... I tried to upgrade udev to 088, but evidently this is not a
trivial task. I had to reinstall back 054 to have the system working ok (I
had a bunch of 

SYS: Mar 29 18:20:11 rukbat udevsend[17819]: unable to connect to event
daemon, try to call udev directly

but then nothing happened, no devices etc. So evidently the new udev is
unable to cope with the old and maybe buggy Mandriva 2005 configuration[1]. 
I unfortunately have no time to desentangle the dependency mess, so it's
time to stop testing new kernels... unless anyone can point me to a "howto".

Thanks again for your time, 

       Romano 

[1] I have to say that udev README explixitely tell "The upstream udev
project does not support or recomend to replace a distro's udev
installation with the upstream version." So I deduce that if kernel require
udev 071, and udev do not reccomend upgrade, I am locked wiht 2.6.13 unless
I decide to upgrade to an unstable distro (current Mandriva has udev 068). 

Well, while I understand the goodness of moving things to userspace, I have
to say that this "double lock" that we have recently is mostly unfortunate. 



-- 
Romano Giannetti             -  Univ. Pontificia Comillas (Madrid, Spain)
Electronic Engineer - phone +34 915 422 800 ext 2416  fax +34 915 596 569
http://www.dea.icai.upcomillas.es/romano/

--
La presente comunicación tiene carácter confidencial y es para el exclusivo uso del destinatario indicado en la misma. Si Ud. no es el destinatario indicado, le informamos que cualquier forma de distribución, reproducción o uso de esta comunicación y/o de la información contenida en la misma están estrictamente prohibidos por la ley. Si Ud. ha recibido esta comunicación por error, por favor, notifíquelo inmediatamente al remitente contestando a este mensaje y proceda a continuación a destruirlo. Gracias por su colaboración.

This communication contains confidential information. It is for the exclusive use of the intended addressee. If you are not the intended addressee, please note that any form of distribution, copying or use of this communication or the information in it is strictly prohibited by law. If you have received this communication in error, please immediately notify the sender by reply e-mail and destroy this message. Thank you for your cooperation. 

Re: ALPS stop worked between 2.6.13 and 2.6.16

[Dmitry Torokhov]

On 3/29/06, Romano Giannetti <romanol@upcomillas.es> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Mar 27, 2006 at 02:12:26PM -0500, Dmitry Torokhov wrote:
> > On 3/27/06, Romano Giannetti <romanol@upcomillas.es> wrote:
> > >
> > > Udev is 054 (as per Mandriva 2005). Is that the culprit?
> >
> > [~/linux] grep udev Documentation/Changes
> > o  udev                   071                     # udevinfo -V
> > ...
>
> Bad news... I tried to upgrade udev to 088, but evidently this is not a
> trivial task. I had to reinstall back 054 to have the system working ok (I
> had a bunch of
>
> SYS: Mar 29 18:20:11 rukbat udevsend[17819]: unable to connect to event
> daemon, try to call udev directly
>
> but then nothing happened, no devices etc. So evidently the new udev is
> unable to cope with the old and maybe buggy Mandriva 2005 configuration[1].
> I unfortunately have no time to desentangle the dependency mess, so it's
> time to stop testing new kernels... unless anyone can point me to a "howto".
>

I am sorry to hear that. You might want to check on the hotplug list,
maybe someone there could offer you some guidance. To tell you the
truth I am still running with static /dev...

--
Dmitry

Re: ALPS stop worked between 2.6.13 and 2.6.16

[Romano Giannetti]

On Wed, Mar 29, 2006 at 11:55:03AM -0500, Dmitry Torokhov wrote:
> On 3/29/06, Romano Giannetti <romanol@upcomillas.es> wrote:
> >
> > but then nothing happened, no devices etc. So evidently the new udev is
> > unable to cope with the old and maybe buggy Mandriva 2005 configuration[1].
> > I unfortunately have no time to desentangle the dependency mess, so it's
> > time to stop testing new kernels... unless anyone can point me to a "howto".
> >
> 
> I am sorry to hear that. You might want to check on the hotplug list,
> maybe someone there could offer you some guidance. To tell you the
> truth I am still running with static /dev...
> 

Well, if you can hint a "mknod" I can add to my rc scripts to have the ALPS
touchpad working with the old udev, I wouldn't mind sticking it in my
system. I have /dev/psaux created ok, but then it seems that the synapctics
drivers seraches for a /dev/input/event? which do not exists. It is possible
to have a static entry "working everytime" (I mean, booting with/without
external mouse, with/withour external keypad etc.)? If so I paint myself
happy. 

Romano 

PD: totally unrelated. I was toying with the idea of trasforming a IR remote
control in a "keyboard". I think there is a way to create a userspace input
device and then feeding back the "keypresses" to the kernel... can you point
me to more info on this? Thanks!


-- 
Romano Giannetti             -  Univ. Pontificia Comillas (Madrid, Spain)
Electronic Engineer - phone +34 915 422 800 ext 2416  fax +34 915 596 569
http://www.dea.icai.upcomillas.es/romano/

--
La presente comunicación tiene carácter confidencial y es para el exclusivo uso del destinatario indicado en la misma. Si Ud. no es el destinatario indicado, le informamos que cualquier forma de distribución, reproducción o uso de esta comunicación y/o de la información contenida en la misma están estrictamente prohibidos por la ley. Si Ud. ha recibido esta comunicación por error, por favor, notifíquelo inmediatamente al remitente contestando a este mensaje y proceda a continuación a destruirlo. Gracias por su colaboración.

This communication contains confidential information. It is for the exclusive use of the intended addressee. If you are not the intended addressee, please note that any form of distribution, copying or use of this communication or the information in it is strictly prohibited by law. If you have received this communication in error, please immediately notify the sender by reply e-mail and destroy this message. Thank you for your cooperation. 

Re: ALPS stop worked between 2.6.13 and 2.6.16

[Dmitry Torokhov]

On 3/30/06, Romano Giannetti <romanol@upcomillas.es> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Mar 29, 2006 at 11:55:03AM -0500, Dmitry Torokhov wrote:
> > On 3/29/06, Romano Giannetti <romanol@upcomillas.es> wrote:
> > >
> > > but then nothing happened, no devices etc. So evidently the new udev is
> > > unable to cope with the old and maybe buggy Mandriva 2005 configuration[1].
> > > I unfortunately have no time to desentangle the dependency mess, so it's
> > > time to stop testing new kernels... unless anyone can point me to a "howto".
> > >
> >
> > I am sorry to hear that. You might want to check on the hotplug list,
> > maybe someone there could offer you some guidance. To tell you the
> > truth I am still running with static /dev...
> >
>
> Well, if you can hint a "mknod" I can add to my rc scripts to have the ALPS
> touchpad working with the old udev, I wouldn't mind sticking it in my
> system. I have /dev/psaux created ok, but then it seems that the synapctics
> drivers seraches for a /dev/input/event? which do not exists. It is possible
> to have a static entry "working everytime" (I mean, booting with/without
> external mouse, with/withour external keypad etc.)? If so I paint myself
> happy.

Yes, you need to create /dev/input/event0 to /dev/input/event31:

mknod /dev/input/event0 c 13 64
mknod /dev/input/event1 c 13 65
mknod /dev/input/event2 c 13 66
mknod /dev/input/event3 c 13 67
...
mknod /dev/input/event31 c 13 95

>
> Romano
>
> PD: totally unrelated. I was toying with the idea of trasforming a IR remote
> control in a "keyboard". I think there is a way to create a userspace input
> device and then feeding back the "keypresses" to the kernel... can you point
> me to more info on this? Thanks!
>

You need uinput driver (drivers/input/misc/uinput.c). Alternatively
you might want to change your IR driver to be able to change keycodes
it emits (you need to properly set up dev->keytable and
dev->keytablesize) abnd then you can use EVIOCSKEYCODE ioctl on
corresponding even device to change mapping.

--
Dmitry

Re: ALPS stop worked between 2.6.13 and 2.6.16

[Tomasz Torcz]

On Wed, Mar 29, 2006 at 06:43:30PM +0200, Romano Giannetti wrote:
> 
> On Mon, Mar 27, 2006 at 02:12:26PM -0500, Dmitry Torokhov wrote:
> > On 3/27/06, Romano Giannetti <romanol@upcomillas.es> wrote:
> > >
> > > Udev is 054 (as per Mandriva 2005). Is that the culprit?
> > 
> > [~/linux] grep udev Documentation/Changes
> > o  udev                   071                     # udevinfo -V
> > ...
> 
> Bad news... I tried to upgrade udev to 088, but evidently this is not a
> trivial task.

  It's not so easy.  You have to carefully read release notes for every
udev release between 054 and 088, and spot every incompatibile change.
And accommodate.

-- 
Tomasz Torcz               "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station
zdzichu@irc.-nie.spam-.pl    wagon filled with backup tapes." -- Jim Gray