Re: [PATCH v10 00/11] HID: asus: Fix ASUS ROG Laptop's Keyboard backlight handling

Antheas Kapenekakis
2025-11-26T15:28:33Z

On Wed, 26 Nov 2025 at 16:24, Ilpo Järvinen
<ilpo.jarvinen@linux.intel.com> wrote:
>
> On Wed, 26 Nov 2025, Antheas Kapenekakis wrote:
>
> > On Sat, 22 Nov 2025 at 12:01, Antheas Kapenekakis <lkml@antheas.dev> 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.
> >
> > Slight bump on this. It addresses both of the remarks Denis made in
> > the previous version.
> >
> > I begrudgingly argued a bit for those because I did not want to resend
> > the series and they were not functional changes, so sorry about that.
> > But they are fixed in this version incl. with the conflict with the
> > armoury patchset. Denis, you omitted a rby on "platform/x86: asus-wmi:
> > Add support for multiple kbd led handlers" even though I addressed
> > your comment, so you may want to add that.
>
> FYI, there's no direct relation that mandates a person to give a rev-by
> even if all his/her comments were addressed.

True, this is just a reminder because I did not hear from him and
since he added a rev-by on the kfree patch. There's no obligation from
my side.

> But generally yes, it would be useful to hear whether Denis is fine with
> v10, especially those patches that had contention earlier but you've
> modified post-v8.
>
> > As for "HID: asus: early return for ROG devices" changing the name of
> > the devices of this driver, I will veto backporting it if it happens,
> > so inputplumber will have the two full months to remove the name
> > match. This is not a breaking change in the sense that software cannot
> > be made to work on both previous and latter versions and there is no
> > other software to my knowledge relying on name matches for Asus
> > keyboards.
>
> Did Hans give some opinion about this rename earlier, at least I don't
> remember nor could find from lore archives?

Hans jumped in on the ayaneo controller patch. I don't think I saw
activity on this series

Antheas

> --
> i.
>
> > Moreover, an early exit is needed to prevent ejecting HID
> > endpoints without an ->input parameter so it is a needed fix anyway.
> > Postponing it will prevent Xbox Ally users from having RGB control
> > through userspace on a stock kernel but it is also not worth arguing
> > about
> >
> > It is also fine for me for this series to merge for 6.20, but I'd
> > rather we handle it now since there will be some turbulence for asus
> > users due to armoury merging so it makes sense to have this transition
> > once.
> >
> > > ---
> > > V9: https://lore.kernel.org/all/20251120094617.11672-1-lkml@antheas.dev/
> > > V8: https://lore.kernel.org/all/20251101104712.8011-1-lkml@antheas.dev/
> > > V7: https://lore.kernel.org/all/20251018101759.4089-1-lkml@antheas.dev/
> > > V6: https://lore.kernel.org/all/20251013201535.6737-1-lkml@antheas.dev/
> > > 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 V9:
> > > - No functional changes
> > > - Rebase to review-ilpo-next
> > > - Fix armoury series conflict by removing the file asus-wmi-leds-ids on
> > > "remove unused keyboard backlight quirk" + imports
> > > Dismiss Luke's review as this patch diverged
> > > - Reword paragraph in "Add support for multiple kbd led handlers" to be
> > > more verbose
> > > - Use kfree in fortify patch
> > > - Fix minor style quirks from --nonstict checkpatch run
> > >
> > > Changes since V8:
> > > - No functional changes
> > > - Move legacy init patch to second, modify first patch so that their
> > > diff is minimized
> > > - Split "prevent binding to all HID devices on ROG" into two patches:
> > > - moving backlight initialization into probe
> > > - early exit to skip ->init check and rename
> > > - Remove skipping vendor fixups for non-vendor devices. It is not possible
> > > to read usages before the report fixups are applied, so it did not work
> > > - In that patch, reword a comment to be single line and make is_vendor a bool
> > > - Dismiss Luke's tags from "Add support for multiple kbd led handlers" as it
> > > has drifted too far since he reviewed/tested it.
> > >
> > > Changes since V7:
> > > - Readd legacy init quirk for Dennis
> > > - Remove HID_QUIRK_INPUT_PER_APP as a courtesy to asusctl
> > > - Fix warning due to enum_backlight receiving negative values
> > >
> > > Changes since V6:
> > > - Split initialization refactor into three patches, update commit text
> > > to be clearer in what it does
> > > - Replace spinlock accesses with guard and scoped guard in all patches
> > > - Add missing includes mentioned by Ilpo
> > > - Reflow, tweak comment in prevent binding to all HID devices on ROG
> > > - Replace asus_ref.asus with local reference in all patches
> > > - Add missing kernel doc comments
> > > - Other minor nits from Ilpo
> > > - User reported warning due to scheduling work while holding a spinlock.
> > > Restructure patch for multiple handlers to limit when spinlock is held to
> > > variable access only. In parallel, setup a workqueue to handle registration
> > > of led device and setting brightness. This is required as registering the
> > > led device triggers kbd_led_get which needs to hold the spinlock to
> > > protect the led_wk value. The workqueue is also required for the hid
> > > event passthrough to avoid scheduling work while holding the spinlock.
> > > Apply the workqueue to wmi brightness buttons as well, as that was
> > > omitted before this series and WMI access was performed.
> > > - On "HID: asus: prevent binding to all HID devices on ROG", rename
> > > quirk HANDLE_GENERIC to SKIP_REPORT_FIXUP and only skip report fixup.
> > > This allows other quirks to apply (applies quirk that fixes keyboard
> > > being named as a pointer device).
> > >
> > > 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 (11):
> > > HID: asus: simplify RGB init sequence
> > > HID: asus: initialize additional endpoints only for legacy devices
> > > HID: asus: use same report_id in response
> > > HID: asus: fortify keyboard handshake
> > > HID: asus: move vendor initialization to probe
> > > HID: asus: early return for ROG devices
> > > platform/x86: asus-wmi: Add support for multiple kbd led 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 | 205 ++++++++--------
> > > drivers/platform/x86/asus-wmi.c | 223 +++++++++++++++---
> > > .../platform_data/x86/asus-wmi-leds-ids.h | 50 ----
> > > include/linux/platform_data/x86/asus-wmi.h | 28 +++
> > > 4 files changed, 322 insertions(+), 184 deletions(-)
> > > delete mode 100644 include/linux/platform_data/x86/asus-wmi-leds-ids.h
> > >
> > >
> > > base-commit: 2643187ccb8628144246ee9d44da5e3ac428f9c3
> > > --
> > > 2.52.0
> > >
> > >
> >
>