Re: [PATCH v6 0/7] HID: asus: Fix ASUS ROG Laptop's Keyboard backlight handling

Denis Benato
2025-10-16T14:32:18Z

On 10/16/25 14:51, Antheas Kapenekakis wrote:
> On Thu, 16 Oct 2025 at 14:46, Denis Benato <benato.denis96@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On 10/16/25 14:28, Antheas Kapenekakis wrote:
>>> On Thu, 16 Oct 2025 at 14:19, Denis Benato <benato.denis96@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> On 10/16/25 14:14, Antheas Kapenekakis wrote:
>>>>> On Thu, 16 Oct 2025 at 13:57, Denis Benato <benato.denis96@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>> On 10/13/25 22:15, Antheas Kapenekakis wrote:
>>>>>>> This is a two part series which does the following:
>>>>>>> - Clean-up init sequence
>>>>>>> - Unify backlight handling to happen under asus-wmi so that all Aura
>>>>>>> devices have synced brightness controls and the backlight button works
>>>>>>> properly when it is on a USB laptop keyboard instead of one w/ WMI.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> For more context, see cover letter of V1. Since V5, I removed some patches
>>>>>>> to make this easier to merge.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> All comments with these patches had been addressed since V4.
>>>>>> I have loaded this patchset for users of asus-linux project to try out.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> One of them opened a bug report about a kernel bug that happens
>>>>>> consistently when closing the lid of his laptop [1].
>>>>>>
>>>>>> He also sent another piece of kernel log, but didn't specify anything more
>>>>>> about this [2].
>>>>>>
>>>>>> [1] https://pastebin.com/akZx1w10
>>>>>> [2] https://pastebin.com/sKdczPgf
>>>>> Can you provide a link to the bug report? [2] seems unrelated.
>>>> The log in [2] was posted without additional context in the same
>>>> discord message as [1].
>>> Link me the kernel sources. Is it linux-g14 in the AUR?
>> Someone has replicated it on the AUR but it's just an out-of-sync replica.
>>
>> The true source code is here:
>> https://gitlab.com/asus-linux/linux-g14 branch 6.17
> Ok, lets wait for the user to replicate on a stock kernel
>
User said "yes I just confirmed it: it is only on the asus kernel, mainline doesn't have this issue".

With "asus kernel" he is referring to -g14.

I added him in CC.

>>>> I think I will tell the user to open a proper bug report because
>>>> I do agree on the fact that it's looking unrelated.
>>>>> As for [1], it looks like a trace that stems from a sysfs write to
>>>>> brightness stemming from userspace that follows the same chain it
>>>>> would on a stock kernel and times out. Is it present on a stock
>>>>> kernel?
>>>> I have asked more details to the user. The user is not online ATM
>>>> so I will get to you with more details when I can.
>>>>> Ilpo should know more about this, could the spinlock be interfering?
>>>>> My testing on devices that have WMI led controls is a bit limited
>>>>> unfortunately. However, most of our asus users have been happy with
>>>>> this series for around half a year now.
>>>> Unless they have looked to kernel logs they won't be able to tell
>>>> since apparently there are no visible consequences.
>>>>> Antheas
>>>>>
>>>>>>> ---
>>>>>>> V5: https://lore.kernel.org/all/20250325184601.10990-1-lkml@antheas.dev/
>>>>>>> V4: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20250324210151.6042-1-lkml@antheas.dev/
>>>>>>> V3: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20250322102804.418000-1-lkml@antheas.dev/
>>>>>>> V2: https://lore.kernel.org/all/20250320220924.5023-1-lkml@antheas.dev/
>>>>>>> V1: https://lore.kernel.org/all/20250319191320.10092-1-lkml@antheas.dev/
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Changes since V5:
>>>>>>> - It's been a long time
>>>>>>> - Remove addition of RGB as that had some comments I need to work on
>>>>>>> - Remove folio patch (already merged)
>>>>>>> - Remove legacy fix patch 11 from V4. There is a small chance that
>>>>>>> without this patch, some old NKEY keyboards might not respond to
>>>>>>> RGB commands according to Luke, but the kernel driver does not do
>>>>>>> RGB currently. The 0x5d init is done by Armoury crate software in
>>>>>>> Windows. If an issue is found, we can re-add it or just remove patches
>>>>>>> 1/2 before merging. However, init could use the cleanup.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Changes since V4:
>>>>>>> - Fix KConfig (reported by kernel robot)
>>>>>>> - Fix Ilpo's nits, if I missed anything lmk
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Changes since V3:
>>>>>>> - Add initializer for 0x5d for old NKEY keyboards until it is verified
>>>>>>> that it is not needed for their media keys to function.
>>>>>>> - Cover init in asus-wmi with spinlock as per Hans
>>>>>>> - If asus-wmi registers WMI handler with brightness, init the brightness
>>>>>>> in USB Asus keyboards, per Hans.
>>>>>>> - Change hid handler name to asus-UNIQ:rgb:peripheral to match led class
>>>>>>> - Fix oops when unregistering asus-wmi by moving unregister outside of
>>>>>>> the spin lock (but after the asus reference is set to null)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Changes since V2:
>>>>>>> - Check lazy init succeds in asus-wmi before setting register variable
>>>>>>> - make explicit check in asus_hid_register_listener for listener existing
>>>>>>> to avoid re-init
>>>>>>> - rename asus_brt to asus_hid in most places and harmonize everything
>>>>>>> - switch to a spinlock instead of a mutex to avoid kernel ooops
>>>>>>> - fixup hid device quirks to avoid multiple RGB devices while still exposing
>>>>>>> all input vendor devices. This includes moving rgb init to probe
>>>>>>> instead of the input_configured callbacks.
>>>>>>> - Remove fan key (during retest it appears to be 0xae that is already
>>>>>>> supported by hid-asus)
>>>>>>> - Never unregister asus::kbd_backlight while asus-wmi is active, as that
>>>>>>> - removes fds from userspace and breaks backlight functionality. All
>>>>>>> - current mainline drivers do not support backlight hotplugging, so most
>>>>>>> userspace software (e.g., KDE, UPower) is built with that assumption.
>>>>>>> For the Ally, since it disconnects its controller during sleep, this
>>>>>>> caused the backlight slider to not work in KDE.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Changes since V1:
>>>>>>> - Add basic RGB support on hid-asus, (Z13/Ally) tested in KDE/Z13
>>>>>>> - Fix ifdef else having an invalid signature (reported by kernel robot)
>>>>>>> - Restore input arguments to init and keyboard function so they can
>>>>>>> be re-used for RGB controls.
>>>>>>> - Remove Z13 delay (it did not work to fix the touchpad) and replace it
>>>>>>> with a HID_GROUP_GENERIC quirk to allow hid-multitouch to load. Squash
>>>>>>> keyboard rename into it.
>>>>>>> - Unregister brightness listener before removing work queue to avoid
>>>>>>> a race condition causing corruption
>>>>>>> - Remove spurious mutex unlock in asus_brt_event
>>>>>>> - Place mutex lock in kbd_led_set after LED_UNREGISTERING check to avoid
>>>>>>> relocking the mutex and causing a deadlock when unregistering leds
>>>>>>> - Add extra check during unregistering to avoid calling unregister when
>>>>>>> no led device is registered.
>>>>>>> - Temporarily HID_QUIRK_INPUT_PER_APP from the ROG endpoint as it causes
>>>>>>> the driver to create 4 RGB handlers per device. I also suspect some
>>>>>>> extra events sneak through (KDE had the @@@@@@).
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Antheas Kapenekakis (7):
>>>>>>> HID: asus: refactor init sequence per spec
>>>>>>> HID: asus: prevent binding to all HID devices on ROG
>>>>>>> platform/x86: asus-wmi: Add support for multiple kbd RGB handlers
>>>>>>> HID: asus: listen to the asus-wmi brightness device instead of
>>>>>>> creating one
>>>>>>> platform/x86: asus-wmi: remove unused keyboard backlight quirk
>>>>>>> platform/x86: asus-wmi: add keyboard brightness event handler
>>>>>>> HID: asus: add support for the asus-wmi brightness handler
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> drivers/hid/hid-asus.c | 235 +++++++++++----------
>>>>>>> drivers/platform/x86/asus-wmi.c | 157 ++++++++++++--
>>>>>>> include/linux/platform_data/x86/asus-wmi.h | 69 +++---
>>>>>>> 3 files changed, 291 insertions(+), 170 deletions(-)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> base-commit: 3a8660878839faadb4f1a6dd72c3179c1df56787