[Debian-eeepc-devel] RFC: default volume keys to do nothing (at least on new kernels)

Luca Niccoli lultimouomo at gmail.com
Fri Apr 23 16:28:42 UTC 2010


While experimenting with some changes I'm doing to eeepc-acpi-scripts,
I purged and reinstalled eeepc-acpi-scripts.
This made me notice that if the volume keys are handled both by
eeepc-acpi-scripts and by the desktop environment (or a shortcut
manager), pressing Fn_FMUTE actually does nothing (since mute it's
toggled twice), and Fn_VOLUMEUP and Fn_VOLUMEDOWN change the volume
more then they're supposed to.
Since I suspect that using a desktop environment that manages
XF86Audio* symbols is very common, this will mean that in squeeze
volume keys behaviour will be broken by default.
OTOH in lenny the kernel doesn't synthesize XF86Audio symbols, so
setting it off by default would be a (minor) hindrance to backports.

I see the following possible solutions:
1) Simply turn it off by default. Either modify this manually in the
backport, or let the users do it themselves (it's easy)

2) Remove the mixer funcitonality; synthesize an XF86Audio symbol on
older kernels instead. This would thecnically be the most correct
thing to do IMHO: volume is not something specific to the Eee, so once
we have made sure that the volume keys a reported in a standard way,
we're done. OTOH it leaves console users out in the cold, since I
don't think there's a way to monitor these X symbols from the console.

3) Sensible thing but most complicated:
try to push the volume handling routine in acpi-support (disabled by
default); then hook into it. This would provide a useful functionality
to other people who have hotkeys and use the console, while not
disrupting the most common scenario.

I propose to do 1) now, while trying 3).

Cheers,

Luca



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