Re: [PATCH] Dell laptop backlight driver

From: Pavel Machek
Date: Thu Nov 01 2007 - 10:34:18 EST


Hi!

> > this driver implements backlight control on Dell laptops
> > which use SMI for changing brightness levels.
> >
> > The driver is INCOMPLETE since it is unable to probe some required
> > parameters
> > in order to perform backlight control. Such parameters are found in a Dell
> > proprietary DMI table which should be parsed. For now external tools may be
> > used to find these parameters by hand. So if you intend to try this out,
> > FIRST write your laptop model parameters correctly inside the source code
> > as explained in Documentation/dell-laptop.txt.
> >
> > Parts of this driver may also be used to provide additional functionalities
> > similarly to the drivers/misc/*-laptop.c drivers.
>
> Why is this better done in the kernel rather than in userspace with
> libsmbios as you've noted?

Well, keeping the same interface as other notebooks has some
advantages... and means that kernel does its job - hw abstraction.
Pavel
--
(english) http://www.livejournal.com/~pavelmachek
(cesky, pictures) http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~pavel/picture/horses/blog.html
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