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1 | Sony Notebook Control Driver (SNC) Readme |
2 | ----------------------------------------- | |
3 | Copyright (C) 2004- 2005 Stelian Pop <stelian@popies.net> | |
4 | Copyright (C) 2007 Mattia Dongili <malattia@linux.it> | |
5 | ||
3d2b8a9f | 6 | This mini-driver drives the SNC and SPIC device present in the ACPI BIOS of the |
7 | Sony Vaio laptops. This driver mixes both devices functions under the same | |
8 | (hopefully consistent) interface. This also means that the sonypi driver is | |
9 | obsoleted by sony-laptop now. | |
ab5bd206 | 10 | |
3d2b8a9f | 11 | Fn keys (hotkeys): |
12 | ------------------ | |
13 | Some models report hotkeys through the SNC or SPIC devices, such events are | |
14 | reported both through the ACPI subsystem as acpi events and through the INPUT | |
15 | subsystem. See the logs of acpid or /proc/acpi/event and | |
16 | /proc/bus/input/devices to find out what those events are and which input | |
17 | devices are created by the driver. | |
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18 | |
19 | Backlight control: | |
20 | ------------------ | |
21 | If your laptop model supports it, you will find sysfs files in the | |
22 | /sys/class/backlight/sony/ | |
23 | directory. You will be able to query and set the current screen | |
24 | brightness: | |
19f59460 | 25 | brightness get/set screen brightness (an integer |
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26 | between 0 and 7) |
27 | actual_brightness reading from this file will query the HW | |
28 | to get real brightness value | |
29 | max_brightness the maximum brightness value | |
30 | ||
31 | ||
32 | Platform specific: | |
33 | ------------------ | |
34 | Loading the sony-laptop module will create a | |
35 | /sys/devices/platform/sony-laptop/ | |
36 | directory populated with some files. | |
37 | ||
38 | You then read/write integer values from/to those files by using | |
39 | standard UNIX tools. | |
40 | ||
41 | The files are: | |
42 | brightness_default screen brightness which will be set | |
43 | when the laptop will be rebooted | |
44 | cdpower power on/off the internal CD drive | |
45 | audiopower power on/off the internal sound card | |
46 | lanpower power on/off the internal ethernet card | |
47 | (only in debug mode) | |
3d2b8a9f | 48 | bluetoothpower power on/off the internal bluetooth device |
49 | fanspeed get/set the fan speed | |
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50 | |
51 | Note that some files may be missing if they are not supported | |
52 | by your particular laptop model. | |
53 | ||
54 | Example usage: | |
55 | # echo "1" > /sys/devices/platform/sony-laptop/brightness_default | |
56 | sets the lowest screen brightness for the next and later reboots, | |
57 | # echo "8" > /sys/devices/platform/sony-laptop/brightness_default | |
58 | sets the highest screen brightness for the next and later reboots, | |
59 | # cat /sys/devices/platform/sony-laptop/brightness_default | |
60 | retrieves the value. | |
61 | ||
62 | # echo "0" > /sys/devices/platform/sony-laptop/audiopower | |
63 | powers off the sound card, | |
64 | # echo "1" > /sys/devices/platform/sony-laptop/audiopower | |
65 | powers on the sound card. | |
66 | ||
67 | Development: | |
68 | ------------ | |
69 | ||
70 | If you want to help with the development of this driver (and | |
71 | you are not afraid of any side effects doing strange things with | |
72 | your ACPI BIOS could have on your laptop), load the driver and | |
73 | pass the option 'debug=1'. | |
74 | ||
75 | REPEAT: DON'T DO THIS IF YOU DON'T LIKE RISKY BUSINESS. | |
76 | ||
77 | In your kernel logs you will find the list of all ACPI methods | |
78 | the SNC device has on your laptop. You can see the GCDP/GCDP methods | |
79 | used to pwer on/off the CD drive, but there are others. | |
80 | ||
81 | I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THOSE METHODS DO. | |
82 | ||
83 | The sony-laptop driver creates, for some of those methods (the most | |
84 | current ones found on several Vaio models), an entry under | |
85 | /sys/devices/platform/sony-laptop, just like the 'cdpower' one. | |
86 | You can create other entries corresponding to your own laptop methods by | |
3d2b8a9f | 87 | further editing the source (see the 'sony_nc_values' table, and add a new |
ab5bd206 | 88 | entry to this table with your get/set method names using the |
3d2b8a9f | 89 | SNC_HANDLE_NAMES macro). |
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90 | |
91 | Your mission, should you accept it, is to try finding out what | |
92 | those entries are for, by reading/writing random values from/to those | |
93 | files and find out what is the impact on your laptop. | |
94 | ||
95 | Should you find anything interesting, please report it back to me, | |
96 | I will not disavow all knowledge of your actions :) | |
97 | ||
3d2b8a9f | 98 | See also http://www.linux.it/~malattia/wiki/index.php/Sony_drivers for other |
99 | useful info. | |
100 | ||
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101 | Bugs/Limitations: |
102 | ----------------- | |
103 | ||
104 | * This driver is not based on official documentation from Sony | |
105 | (because there is none), so there is no guarantee this driver | |
106 | will work at all, or do the right thing. Although this hasn't | |
107 | happened to me, this driver could do very bad things to your | |
108 | laptop, including permanent damage. | |
109 | ||
110 | * The sony-laptop and sonypi drivers do not interact at all. In the | |
111 | future, sonypi could use sony-laptop to do (part of) its business. | |
112 | ||
113 | * spicctrl, which is the userspace tool used to communicate with the | |
114 | sonypi driver (through /dev/sonypi) does not try to use the | |
115 | sony-laptop driver. In the future, spicctrl could try sonypi first, | |
116 | and if it isn't present, try sony-laptop instead. |