Re: iwlwifi (4965) regression since 2.6.30

[Johannes Stezenbach <js@sig21.net>]

On Thu, Aug 06, 2009 at 08:07:04PM -0300, Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
> On Fri, 07 Aug 2009, Lukas Hejtmanek wrote:
> > 0x0004 = 238  # KEY_WLAN
> 
> This means any rfkill input handler (be it in kernel or userspace) will
> toggle your WLAN cards when fn+f5 is pressed.  You can just assign a
> different keycode to it (use KEY_RESERVED or KEY_UNKNOWN if you don't want
> the key to do anything).
> 
> If you unmask the key on hotkey_mask, it will revert to BIOS actions, which
> depending on the thinkpad, might cause it to operate on bluetooth, wwan,
> etc...

I have a related question, sorry if I hijack the thread...

When thinkpad-acpi grew rfkill support a few kernel versions back
it forced Bluetooth on at boot time. Since I almost never use
Bluetooth I want it off to save power. The workaround I came up
with was to enable CONFIG_RFKILL and add rfkill.default_state=0
to the kernel cmdline.  Now this workaround also disables WLAN :-(
My workaround for my workaround (heh!) was to add
  pre-up echo 1 > `ls /sys/class/ieee80211/phy0/rfkill*/state`
in /etc/network/interfaces.  It would be nice to have a better
way to select boot-up defaults.


In Documentation/laptops/thinkpad-acpi.txt there is this comment
for FN+F5:

   Should be used to turn on/off all radios (Bluetooth+W-WAN+WLAN), really.

I disagree.  Why would anyone turn off all radios at once?
What I want is to disable the radios I don't need to save power,
so IMHO there should be different keys for Bluetooth and WLAN
(and W-WAN where present).

The BIOS does the right thing for me, it disables Bluetoth by default
until enabled with Fn-F5, and WLAN is always enabled.  For me
the rfkill support is a regression, not progress.


Johannes