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

[Damyan Ivanov]

-=| Luca Niccoli, Fri, Apr 23, 2010 at 06:28:42PM +0200 |=-
> 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 think that it is highly unlikely that someone uses plain Lenny on 
Eee. I remember various hardware not supported.

> 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.

If this doesn't break things with the squeeze kernl, I'd go with it. 
As for console users, there must be some way to handle this on non-Eee 
too (iow, outside of eeepc-acpi-scripts).