Re: [PATCH] i8k: Add support for temperature sensor labels

Guenter Roeck
2014-12-03T19:15:06Z

On Wed, Dec 03, 2014 at 10:09:28AM +0100, Jean Delvare wrote:
> Hi Guenter,
>
> On Tue, 02 Dec 2014 06:26:29 -0800, Guenter Roeck wrote:
> > On 12/02/2014 05:23 AM, Jean Delvare wrote:
> > > Ultimately /proc/i8k should be killed altogether and every function
> > > should use the appropriate standard interface. But I don't have any Dell
> > > laptop around so I won't go into that myself.
> >
> > The only function not covered by hwmon, as far as I can see, is reading
> > the "Fn key" status, whatever that is, and reporting the power status
> > (AC or battery).
> >
> > The first seems to be covered by the already existing dell drivers in
> > platform/x86. The latter must be covered as well; Linux does
> > display the correct power status on all my Dell laptops.
>
> How old are they? The i8k driver is ancestral, so I could imagine that
> i8k is the only way to report power status on very old Dell laptop
> models. Or maybe not, I just don't know.
>
> > Changing the ABI is not supposed to happen, so I am not sure if we can
> > just drop the /proc interface.
>
> Dropping deprecated interfaces after a transition period is not so
> uncommon. AFAIK the proc interface of i8k is only used by the i8kutils
> user-space package, which FWIW is no longer part of openSUSE. The

It is still in Ubuntu 14.04.

> dell-laptop and dell-wmi drivers are almost 6 years old, that looks
> like an already very comfortable transition period to me.
>
Hi Jean,

Fine with me. My oldest laptop is about 10 years old.

> That being said, that's only my opinion and I'm not going to fight for
> this. If the hwmon interface is moved to dell-laptop and i8k is killed,
> I'm happy. If the i8k driver is moved to drivers/hwmon and stripped
> down, I'm happy. But if none of this happens, I don't really care, to
> be honest.
>
I am all for getting rid of it, question is only how to do it,
and if it really can be done.

A quick glance into Lauchpad shows that i8kutils is still maintained
and used, including the sometimes dirty tricks it provides.

Guenter