[ltp] Any reason why the recommended hotkey mask is 0x008c7fff on X60s

Henrique de Moraes Holschuh linux-thinkpad@linux-thinkpad.org
Sat, 18 Oct 2008 10:25:52 -0300


On Sat, 18 Oct 2008, Richard Neill wrote:
>> The reason why volume key reporting is not enabled by default in ANY
>> thinkpad is because they really would work only as an OSD hint, but people
>> in userspace started doing deranged things like route them to active
>> KEY_VOLUME_UP, KEY_VOLUME_DOWN.  That caused mixers to change the AC97
>> volume, while the firmware would *ALSO* change the speaker volume.  You can
>> guess how *nicely* fuckup-shaped the dynamic response curve of the volume
>> control gets when you do that, no?
>
> Insane though it may seem, I actually have a use for almost this very  
> thing. I purchased an old X20 as a silent (boot off CF card/IDE adapter)  
> media centre. I use an external USB sound card, for much improved  
> quality (and reduced interference between CPU <-> audio). So I want to  
> connect the inbuilt volume keys with the USB card's mixer (/dev/dsp1),  
> and the OSD.

Nothing insane about it, that is a sane use case for the volume keys being
remapped (there are others: people who use only the port-replicator line out
for example, which is NOT subject to the internal speaker/headphone volume
control mixer).

I am fully aware of these use cases, that's why I didn't outright remove the
volume key control when some distros known for playing fast and loose with
such stuff started doing stupid things.

But you can't argue for that use cases be the default config :-)

-- 
  "One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
  them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
  where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
  Henrique Holschuh