[ltp] x41 volume, mute buttons, and acpi

[Paul Fox]

thank you, henrique, for a very complete explanation of the source
of my frustration.  :-)

 > These keys are equivalent to a small dial in the side that sets the volume
 > of the speakers and earphone output of your thinkpad.  They are not the "do
 > nothing in hardware. O.S., please map it to something that mess with the
 > soundcard" keys in multimedia keyboards.

i understand this better now.  i think the solution for me is to put
some black tape across those keys, and find some other keys i can
map to do what i really want.

 > 
 > > sorry for my tone, but when i bought this notebook, i did so
 > > because of the great reputation ibm has, or at least had, for
 > > both their hardware and their linux support.  i've been
 > > disappointed.  
 > 
 > 1. IBM never helps Linux support in ThinkPads, unless you count the fact

for some reason i thought they had.  my mistake.  thanks for persevering
anyway, without their help!

 > 4. The thinkpad user community is the *best* Linux laptop community
 > currently in existence: it is helpful, it knows a damn great deal, it has
 > great forums, great mailinglists, and an outstanding wiki.  Make use of it
 > :-) and be one of us.

i'm trying, i'm trying!

 > > developers that are to blame.  i think the hardware tries quite
 > > hard to make their life difficult.  case in point:  last night
 > 
 > Yeah, it does.  The SMBIOS and its SMM and SMI handling is *hell*.  But
 > until you get a laptop supported by LinuxBIOS (there is none), this won't
 > change.  All laptops have SMBIOS, do SMIs, and screw up royally while at it.

whew.  at least it's not just me that thinks so.  it's
unfortunate that there's no way to fully disengage the bios from
the special keys, when appropriate.  the monitor switching key is a
case in point:  as i recall, the bios wants to just flip between
the (internal and external) displays.  the X server wants to turn
on one, then the other, then both.  so there's a relatively
complicated state machine which makes this happen, by
second-guessing what the bios has done, and undoing it.  (at
least as i recall.)

paul
=---------------------
 paul fox, pgf@foxharp.boston.ma.us (arlington, ma, where it's 74.3 degrees)