[ltp] [ANN] tp_smapi 0.25

[Shem Multinymous]

Hi,

A new version of tp_smapi is out.

Compared to 0.24-test1, this brings back "make patch" and fixes a few
compile bugs. It also adds a couple of new sysfs attributes.

A few words about the future of tp_smapi:
I'm soon going to start work on submitting the hdaps patches and
tp_base module (renamed to thinkpad_ec) for eventual inclusion in
mainline. The tp_smapi module will be renamed and submitted at a later
stage.

So please test this version and report any suspected bugs. It will be
much messier to make changes once I've started preparing a split-up
patch series for submission.

  Shem


https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=1212&package_id=171579
http://thinkwiki.org/wiki/tp_smapi

0.25 2006-08-03
---------------------
- Added new attribute:
  /sys/devices/platform/smapi/enable_pci_power_saving_on_boot
  This controls the "PCI bus power saving" option in the BIOS (takes
  effect at the next boot).
- Added new attribute:
  /sys/devices/platform/smapi/smapi_request
  This performs raw SMAPI calls. It uses a bad interface that cannot handle
  multiple simultaneous accesses. Don't touch it, it's for development only.
- "make patch" works again. If needed, the resulting patch will include
  the dmi-decode-and-save-oem-string-information patch.
- "make load" now gives an informative error if ran as non-root.
- Makefile: Give nicer error message on kernel <= 2.6.16.
- Makefile: Verify that /usr/sbin/dmidecode works.

0.24-test3 2006-08-01
---------------------
- tp_base: fix compilation error on unpatched kernels.

0.24-test1 2006-07-31
---------------------
This is an experimental version with a few quirks necessary for testing new
code. It's OK to run it yourself to try the new features, but it's not
suitable for packaging in distributions. The stable version remains 0.22.

Changes to loading, whitelisting and building:
- Detection of the embedded controller (needed for all our modules) is now
  done according to OEM Strings in the DMI information. If the EC is not
  mentioned there (you can check it in 'dmidecode' too) you'll get a
  "tp_base: no ThinkPad embedded controller!" message in dmesg and the
  modules won't load. If tp_smapi used to work and was broken by this,
  please report. A few known exceptions are already
- The above wants the following kernel patch (soon to be included in -mm):
  diff/dmi-decode-and-save-oem-string-information.patch
  If this patch is not already applied to the current kernel, the Makefile
  and tp_base.c default to an ugly kludge where the DMI information is
  hardcoded into your driver instead of being read in runtime. You'll get
  a warning about it, but it will work nicely. Just don't run the compiled
  modules on a different machine.
  Sorry for the mess, but we need to exercise the DMI check code.
- "make patch" is temporarily broken, due to the above.
- hdaps: Ignore the "initial mode latch" during init, we're not using it and
  Lenovo keeps adding new ones.

Changes to hdaps functionality:
- hdaps: New attribute /sys/devices/platform/hdaps/sampling_rate.
  This determines how frequently of accelerometer state refresh, independently
  of userspace polling (i.e., reading the position attribute more frequently
  than this will yield duplicate readouts). Default=50.
- Multiple hdaps applications can now run without stealing each other's data.
  Set /sys/devices/platform/hdaps/sampling_rate to the highest rate required
  by any app.
- hdaps: New attribute /sys/devices/platform/hdaps/oversampling_ratio.
  When set to X, the embedded controller is told to do physical accelerometer
  measurements at a rate that is X times higher than the rate at which
  the driver reads those measurements (i.e., X*sampling_rate). This
  reduces sample phase difference is, and useful for the running average
  filter (see next). Default=5.
- hdaps: New attribute  /sys/devices/platform/hdaps/running_avg_filter_order.
  When set to X, reported readouts will be the average of the last X physical
  accelerometer measurements. Current firmware allows 1<=X<=8. Setting to a
  high value decreases readout fluctuations. The averaging is handled
  by the embedded controller, so no CPU resources are used.
  Default=2 (this implicit in previous versions).
- hdaps: New attribute  /sys/devices/platform/hdaps/fake_data_mode (write only).
  If set to 1, enables a test mode where the physical accelerometer readouts
  are replaced with an incrementing counter. This is useful for checking the
  regularity of the sampling interval and driver<->userspace communication.

Changes to tp_smapi functionality:
- tp_smapi: Removed the units ("mV", "mWh" etc.) from all /sys readouts, to
  follow kernel convention.
- tp_smapi: /sys/devices/platform/smapi/BAT?/dump now contains additional
  data lines (but we don't know what they mean). Default=0.
- tp_smapi: /sys/devices/platform/smapi/BAT?/dump contains some unused values;
  they're now omitted (replaced by "--") instead of showing semi-random junk.

Other changes:
- tp_smapi: fixed signness bug in current_now and current_avg when
  discharging (thanks to Pavel Machek!).
- hdaps: Turn off power and EC polling upon suspend or module unload.
- hdaps: Check more EC function return values.
- hdaps: Refactored some functions.
- tp_base: Test EC on module load and refuse loading if EC not found.
- tp_base, hdaps, tp_smapi: changed args passing and made it more concise.
- tp_smapi: cleaned up attribute macros.
- tp_smapi: cleaned up smapi retry loop.
- tp_smapi: removed smapi_write and dropped outAX param from smapi_request.
- tp_smapi: improved comments.
- tp_base: moved comments from tp_base.h to tp_base.c.

Many of the above changes were suggested or contributed by
Henrique de Moraes Holschuh.