this is getting weirder.[was:Re: xorg and thinkpad x40]

[Jaime Davila]

I just have to share this, to see if anyone can give me a coherent
explanation.

As of late yesterday, I was able to get my x40 laptop to mirror the lcd
into the crt, by using i855. So, now I think, let me bind the fn-f7 keys
to the process I'm doing manually. So I modify the event in the acpi
directory, restart acpi and it doesn't work. I look at the acpi log
file, and the event is not being detected, so the script doesn't run.

So I look in /etc/modprobe.d/ibm_acpi.modprobe, as suggested by Thomas
Olsen, and I notice that the hotkeys mask is set to 0xff9f, and I change
that to 0xffff. Now the acpi event gets detected, and the script runs,
BUT IT DOESN'T WORK! I get a fairly poor image on the CRT.

After hours of experimenting, I notice that stuff that used to be
showing up in the xorg log yesterday is not showing up today. Eventually
I change the hotkeys sequence back to ff9f, reboot, and stuff work, if I
do it manually.

I've read somewhere online that if fn-f7 is let through by the mask, an
acpi event is generated. Otherwise, the switching of the screen is done
"by someone," the bios, I suppose.

So, it seems like the bios is doing something that i855crt needs to have
in memory. And that i810switch doesn't work, regardless. So I'll just
turn the crt output on and fix the image with i855 manually. But I'm
perplexed, and curious.

Anyone seen anything like this?


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******************************************************
Jaime J. Davila
Assistant Professor of Computer Science
Hampshire College
School of Cognitive Science
jdavila at hampshire dot edu
http://helios.hampshire.edu/jdavila
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