| Sony Programmable I/O Control Device Driver Readme |
| -------------------------------------------------- |
| Copyright (C) 2001-2004 Stelian Pop <stelian@popies.net> |
| Copyright (C) 2001-2002 AlcĂ´ve <www.alcove.com> |
| Copyright (C) 2001 Michael Ashley <m.ashley@unsw.edu.au> |
| Copyright (C) 2001 Junichi Morita <jun1m@mars.dti.ne.jp> |
| Copyright (C) 2000 Takaya Kinjo <t-kinjo@tc4.so-net.ne.jp> |
| Copyright (C) 2000 Andrew Tridgell <tridge@samba.org> |
| |
| This driver enables access to the Sony Programmable I/O Control Device which |
| can be found in many Sony Vaio laptops. Some newer Sony laptops (seems to be |
| limited to new FX series laptops, at least the FX501 and the FX702) lack a |
| sonypi device and are not supported at all by this driver. |
| |
| It will give access (through a user space utility) to some events those laptops |
| generate, like: |
| - jogdial events (the small wheel on the side of Vaios) |
| - capture button events (only on Vaio Picturebook series) |
| - Fn keys |
| - bluetooth button (only on C1VR model) |
| - programmable keys, back, help, zoom, thumbphrase buttons, etc. |
| (when available) |
| |
| Those events (see linux/sonypi.h) can be polled using the character device node |
| /dev/sonypi (major 10, minor auto allocated or specified as a option). |
| A simple daemon which translates the jogdial movements into mouse wheel events |
| can be downloaded at: <http://popies.net/sonypi/> |
| |
| Another option to intercept the events is to get them directly through the |
| input layer. |
| |
| This driver supports also some ioctl commands for setting the LCD screen |
| brightness and querying the batteries charge information (some more |
| commands may be added in the future). |
| |
| This driver can also be used to set the camera controls on Picturebook series |
| (brightness, contrast etc), and is used by the video4linux driver for the |
| Motion Eye camera. |
| |
| Please note that this driver was created by reverse engineering the Windows |
| driver and the ACPI BIOS, because Sony doesn't agree to release any programming |
| specs for its laptops. If someone convinces them to do so, drop me a note. |
| |
| Driver options: |
| --------------- |
| |
| Several options can be passed to the sonypi driver using the standard |
| module argument syntax (<param>=<value> when passing the option to the |
| module or sonypi.<param>=<value> on the kernel boot line when sonypi is |
| statically linked into the kernel). Those options are: |
| |
| minor: minor number of the misc device /dev/sonypi, |
| default is -1 (automatic allocation, see /proc/misc |
| or kernel logs) |
| |
| camera: if you have a PictureBook series Vaio (with the |
| integrated MotionEye camera), set this parameter to 1 |
| in order to let the driver access to the camera |
| |
| fnkeyinit: on some Vaios (C1VE, C1VR etc), the Fn key events don't |
| get enabled unless you set this parameter to 1. |
| Do not use this option unless it's actually necessary, |
| some Vaio models don't deal well with this option. |
| This option is available only if the kernel is |
| compiled without ACPI support (since it conflicts |
| with it and it shouldn't be required anyway if |
| ACPI is already enabled). |
| |
| verbose: set to 1 to print unknown events received from the |
| sonypi device. |
| set to 2 to print all events received from the |
| sonypi device. |
| |
| compat: uses some compatibility code for enabling the sonypi |
| events. If the driver worked for you in the past |
| (prior to version 1.5) and does not work anymore, |
| add this option and report to the author. |
| |
| mask: event mask telling the driver what events will be |
| reported to the user. This parameter is required for |
| some Vaio models where the hardware reuses values |
| used in other Vaio models (like the FX series who does |
| not have a jogdial but reuses the jogdial events for |
| programmable keys events). The default event mask is |
| set to 0xffffffff, meaning that all possible events |
| will be tried. You can use the following bits to |
| construct your own event mask (from |
| drivers/char/sonypi.h): |
| SONYPI_JOGGER_MASK 0x0001 |
| SONYPI_CAPTURE_MASK 0x0002 |
| SONYPI_FNKEY_MASK 0x0004 |
| SONYPI_BLUETOOTH_MASK 0x0008 |
| SONYPI_PKEY_MASK 0x0010 |
| SONYPI_BACK_MASK 0x0020 |
| SONYPI_HELP_MASK 0x0040 |
| SONYPI_LID_MASK 0x0080 |
| SONYPI_ZOOM_MASK 0x0100 |
| SONYPI_THUMBPHRASE_MASK 0x0200 |
| SONYPI_MEYE_MASK 0x0400 |
| SONYPI_MEMORYSTICK_MASK 0x0800 |
| SONYPI_BATTERY_MASK 0x1000 |
| SONYPI_WIRELESS_MASK 0x2000 |
| |
| useinput: if set (which is the default) two input devices are |
| created, one which interprets the jogdial events as |
| mouse events, the other one which acts like a |
| keyboard reporting the pressing of the special keys. |
| |
| Module use: |
| ----------- |
| |
| In order to automatically load the sonypi module on use, you can put those |
| lines a configuration file in /etc/modprobe.d/: |
| |
| alias char-major-10-250 sonypi |
| options sonypi minor=250 |
| |
| This supposes the use of minor 250 for the sonypi device: |
| |
| # mknod /dev/sonypi c 10 250 |
| |
| Bugs: |
| ----- |
| |
| - several users reported that this driver disables the BIOS-managed |
| Fn-keys which put the laptop in sleeping state, or switch the |
| external monitor on/off. There is no workaround yet, since this |
| driver disables all APM management for those keys, by enabling the |
| ACPI management (and the ACPI core stuff is not complete yet). If |
| you have one of those laptops with working Fn keys and want to |
| continue to use them, don't use this driver. |
| |
| - some users reported that the laptop speed is lower (dhrystone |
| tested) when using the driver with the fnkeyinit parameter. I cannot |
| reproduce it on my laptop and not all users have this problem. |
| This happens because the fnkeyinit parameter enables the ACPI |
| mode (but without additional ACPI control, like processor |
| speed handling etc). Use ACPI instead of APM if it works on your |
| laptop. |
| |
| - sonypi lacks the ability to distinguish between certain key |
| events on some models. |
| |
| - some models with the nvidia card (geforce go 6200 tc) uses a |
| different way to adjust the backlighting of the screen. There |
| is a userspace utility to adjust the brightness on those models, |
| which can be downloaded from |
| http://www.acc.umu.se/~erikw/program/smartdimmer-0.1.tar.bz2 |
| |
| - since all development was done by reverse engineering, there is |
| _absolutely no guarantee_ that this driver will not crash your |
| laptop. Permanently. |