sonypi.rst (6515B)
1================================================== 2Sony Programmable I/O Control Device Driver Readme 3================================================== 4 5 - Copyright (C) 2001-2004 Stelian Pop <stelian@popies.net> 6 - Copyright (C) 2001-2002 Alcôve <www.alcove.com> 7 - Copyright (C) 2001 Michael Ashley <m.ashley@unsw.edu.au> 8 - Copyright (C) 2001 Junichi Morita <jun1m@mars.dti.ne.jp> 9 - Copyright (C) 2000 Takaya Kinjo <t-kinjo@tc4.so-net.ne.jp> 10 - Copyright (C) 2000 Andrew Tridgell <tridge@samba.org> 11 12This driver enables access to the Sony Programmable I/O Control Device which 13can be found in many Sony Vaio laptops. Some newer Sony laptops (seems to be 14limited to new FX series laptops, at least the FX501 and the FX702) lack a 15sonypi device and are not supported at all by this driver. 16 17It will give access (through a user space utility) to some events those laptops 18generate, like: 19 20 - jogdial events (the small wheel on the side of Vaios) 21 - capture button events (only on Vaio Picturebook series) 22 - Fn keys 23 - bluetooth button (only on C1VR model) 24 - programmable keys, back, help, zoom, thumbphrase buttons, etc. 25 (when available) 26 27Those events (see linux/sonypi.h) can be polled using the character device node 28/dev/sonypi (major 10, minor auto allocated or specified as a option). 29A simple daemon which translates the jogdial movements into mouse wheel events 30can be downloaded at: <http://popies.net/sonypi/> 31 32Another option to intercept the events is to get them directly through the 33input layer. 34 35This driver supports also some ioctl commands for setting the LCD screen 36brightness and querying the batteries charge information (some more 37commands may be added in the future). 38 39This driver can also be used to set the camera controls on Picturebook series 40(brightness, contrast etc), and is used by the video4linux driver for the 41Motion Eye camera. 42 43Please note that this driver was created by reverse engineering the Windows 44driver and the ACPI BIOS, because Sony doesn't agree to release any programming 45specs for its laptops. If someone convinces them to do so, drop me a note. 46 47Driver options: 48--------------- 49 50Several options can be passed to the sonypi driver using the standard 51module argument syntax (<param>=<value> when passing the option to the 52module or sonypi.<param>=<value> on the kernel boot line when sonypi is 53statically linked into the kernel). Those options are: 54 55 =============== ======================================================= 56 minor: minor number of the misc device /dev/sonypi, 57 default is -1 (automatic allocation, see /proc/misc 58 or kernel logs) 59 60 camera: if you have a PictureBook series Vaio (with the 61 integrated MotionEye camera), set this parameter to 1 62 in order to let the driver access to the camera 63 64 fnkeyinit: on some Vaios (C1VE, C1VR etc), the Fn key events don't 65 get enabled unless you set this parameter to 1. 66 Do not use this option unless it's actually necessary, 67 some Vaio models don't deal well with this option. 68 This option is available only if the kernel is 69 compiled without ACPI support (since it conflicts 70 with it and it shouldn't be required anyway if 71 ACPI is already enabled). 72 73 verbose: set to 1 to print unknown events received from the 74 sonypi device. 75 set to 2 to print all events received from the 76 sonypi device. 77 78 compat: uses some compatibility code for enabling the sonypi 79 events. If the driver worked for you in the past 80 (prior to version 1.5) and does not work anymore, 81 add this option and report to the author. 82 83 mask: event mask telling the driver what events will be 84 reported to the user. This parameter is required for 85 some Vaio models where the hardware reuses values 86 used in other Vaio models (like the FX series who does 87 not have a jogdial but reuses the jogdial events for 88 programmable keys events). The default event mask is 89 set to 0xffffffff, meaning that all possible events 90 will be tried. You can use the following bits to 91 construct your own event mask (from 92 drivers/char/sonypi.h):: 93 94 SONYPI_JOGGER_MASK 0x0001 95 SONYPI_CAPTURE_MASK 0x0002 96 SONYPI_FNKEY_MASK 0x0004 97 SONYPI_BLUETOOTH_MASK 0x0008 98 SONYPI_PKEY_MASK 0x0010 99 SONYPI_BACK_MASK 0x0020 100 SONYPI_HELP_MASK 0x0040 101 SONYPI_LID_MASK 0x0080 102 SONYPI_ZOOM_MASK 0x0100 103 SONYPI_THUMBPHRASE_MASK 0x0200 104 SONYPI_MEYE_MASK 0x0400 105 SONYPI_MEMORYSTICK_MASK 0x0800 106 SONYPI_BATTERY_MASK 0x1000 107 SONYPI_WIRELESS_MASK 0x2000 108 109 useinput: if set (which is the default) two input devices are 110 created, one which interprets the jogdial events as 111 mouse events, the other one which acts like a 112 keyboard reporting the pressing of the special keys. 113 =============== ======================================================= 114 115Module use: 116----------- 117 118In order to automatically load the sonypi module on use, you can put those 119lines a configuration file in /etc/modprobe.d/:: 120 121 alias char-major-10-250 sonypi 122 options sonypi minor=250 123 124This supposes the use of minor 250 for the sonypi device:: 125 126 # mknod /dev/sonypi c 10 250 127 128Bugs: 129----- 130 131 - several users reported that this driver disables the BIOS-managed 132 Fn-keys which put the laptop in sleeping state, or switch the 133 external monitor on/off. There is no workaround yet, since this 134 driver disables all APM management for those keys, by enabling the 135 ACPI management (and the ACPI core stuff is not complete yet). If 136 you have one of those laptops with working Fn keys and want to 137 continue to use them, don't use this driver. 138 139 - some users reported that the laptop speed is lower (dhrystone 140 tested) when using the driver with the fnkeyinit parameter. I cannot 141 reproduce it on my laptop and not all users have this problem. 142 This happens because the fnkeyinit parameter enables the ACPI 143 mode (but without additional ACPI control, like processor 144 speed handling etc). Use ACPI instead of APM if it works on your 145 laptop. 146 147 - sonypi lacks the ability to distinguish between certain key 148 events on some models. 149 150 - some models with the nvidia card (geforce go 6200 tc) uses a 151 different way to adjust the backlighting of the screen. There 152 is a userspace utility to adjust the brightness on those models, 153 which can be downloaded from 154 https://www.acc.umu.se/~erikw/program/smartdimmer-0.1.tar.bz2 155 156 - since all development was done by reverse engineering, there is 157 *absolutely no guarantee* that this driver will not crash your 158 laptop. Permanently.