[Debian-eeepc-devel] Bluetooth: how it won't mess older models

[Damyan Ivanov]

-=| Iván Sánchez Ortega, Wed, Sep 03, 2008 at 09:45:12PM +0200 |=-
> I was able to do a bit of research into the innards of the eeepc 
> acpi module.  It looks like, when the module is loaded, it queries 
> the BIOS for capabilities.
> 
> If you run "dmesg | grep -i eee" you'll see something like this:
> 
> [   13.468662] Asus EeePC Hotkey Driver
> [   13.472634] [eeepc hotk] Hotkey init flags 0x41.
> [   13.481527] [eeepc hotk] Get control methods supported: 0x101713
> 
> 
> The control methods is actually a bitmap of things that the BIOS is able to 
> do. The source code for the eeepc acpi module (either 2.6.25's eeepc-acpi or 
> 2.6.26's eeepc-laptop) contains the meaning of that "control methods 
> supported" bitmap. For example, the last "3" (0011) in the output of my 901 
> means "firewire: no, irda: no, bluetooth: yes, wlan: yes").

Cool! Thank you for that analysis.

> The module actually checks this bitmap before creating any control files. So, 
> models with no BT won't have the BT control file in /proc (or /sys).
> 
> 
> However, I'd like to confirm this. Could some owners of 701s and 900s publish 
> the following data? (reply here, and/or publish in the wiki, section about 
> models)
> - Output of "dmesg | grep eee"
> - Model number (output of "cat /sys/class/dmi/id/product_name")
> - Just in case, BIOS version (output of "cat /sys/class/dmi/id/bios_version")

I can add to this that particularly on model 901, the "Enable 
Bloetooth" setting in the BIOS is not controllable at runtime. This is 
contrary to the wlan one, which can be disabled in the BIOS and later 
enabled via the control interface (and that would enable wlan in the 
BIOS too).


Back a bit to the thread about bluetooth-toggling hotkey, I think that 
this hotkey may safely assume that if the control file is not present, 
either there is no internal bluetooth devide, or it is disabled in the 
BIOS and not controllable. In this situation (missing control file) 
the script better say something like "Bluetooth not available" instead 
of "Bluetooth Off", which it does now. "Bluetooth Off" sounds like 
there is a way to bring it "On", which is misleading.

There was the idea that the hotkey could be used for controlling a 
plugged in USB Bluetooth dongle, but I it now seems more natural to me 
if this is done by, well, plugging/unplugging the dongle :)

Also, the idea of controlling the functions of the hotkeys (i.e.  
softkey#4 does bluetooth or something else that is more relevant on 
models without internal bluetooth device) raises its merit in my mind 
(and it is the next feature I'll implement).


-- 
dam            JabberID: dam at jabber.minus273.org
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