[ltp] thinkpad-acpi release 0.19-20080213 uploaded to ibm-acpi.sf.net

[Henrique de Moraes Holschuh]

On Fri, 15 Feb 2008, CC.Fan@gmx.de wrote:
> > Yeah, the nVidia drivers aren't good for that.  You will have to either use
> > ACPI video.c, or thinkpad-acpi brightness_enable=1 (don't use both), and
> > the kernel method for xbacklight.
> 
> how do I switch to xbacklight kernel-mode?

I just looked after it. Apparently, it is a function of the X server
selected by a xrandr property, which I suppose to be only available on the
Intel X server...  Good to know, I *was* wondering why I couldn't find a way
to change xbacklight modes in the ATI driver.

xorg-xserver-video-ati seems to support a backlight RandR property... Only,
it doesn't work in the T43 (yet, I hope).  I have no idea about the nVidia
drivers.

> > Really, Lenovo should never have switched from ATI to nVidia.
> 
> I dont agree with you, I have a nvidia gpu in my r61 and it works just fine. I 
> can change brightness by pressing the FN+Home/End keys on the keyboard or by 
> echoing values in the acpi-sysfs file.

Let me put it in another way: we have near zero clue and *zero* support on
nVidia hardware, all that is known is based on reverse engineering.  Intel
gives us GPL drivers *and* full documentation, and ATI gives us partial but
mostly good enough documentation (and they are getting better), at least on
newer adapters.

So, basically, you are in the hands of the nVidia closed source driver, and
out of luck for *any* suport where we'd care if the kernel is tainted or not
(weird crashes, OOPses related to any sort of memory corruption, any sort of
suspend and resume weirdness in the video display, etc).

Add to it that both Intel and ATI are much better at power conservation than
nVidia (at least on the stuff used in thinkpads), and there is no way I'd
ever get a laptop with nVidia inside.  But hey, to each its own.  Not much
more than one year ago, ATI was just as bad as nVidia on free software
support, maybe nVidia will release docs, and the scenario will change again.

> parameters: "thinkpad-acpi.experimental=1 thinkpad-acpi.fan_control=1 
> thinkpad-acpi.hotkey_report_mode=2"

That's the first time I have seen anyone using hotkey_report_mode :-)

-- 
  "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