Re: [PATCH 0/3] Fix display off hotkey on Asus machines

[Andy Shevchenko <andy.shevchenko@gmail.com>]

On Thu, Nov 1, 2018 at 2:21 AM João Paulo Rechi Vita <jprvita@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Asus laptops have a hotkey function on the F7 key to turn the display
> backlight OFF, labeled with a screen with a X inside, as shown on
> https://dlcdnimgs.asus.com/websites/global/products/Xep1ZcSY8dyWXK11/images/keyboard.png
>
> This hotkey worked on very few Asus models, where the EC acts on the
> backlight and input events are generated only to notify userspace of the
> backlight status. On these machines the first hotkey press turns the
> display backlight OFF and notifies the OS with 0x34, which asus-nb-wmi
> forwards to userspace as KEY_DISPLAY_OFF, and a second press turns it
> back ON and notifies the OS with 0x33, which asus-nb-wmi forwards to
> userspace as KEY_DISPLAYTOGGLE. No other keys turn the display backlight
> back ON, but their input is forwarded normally to the application under
> focus.
>
> But for the majority of models, the EC actually does not act on the
> backlight and we simply get a 0x33 notification every time the key is
> pressed, or alternating values of 0x33 / 0x34. We have confirmed this
> behavior on the following models: E203NAS, GL553VE, X441NC, X441UVK,
> X541UVK, X555DG, X555UB, X555UQ, X560UD, X570ZD and X705FD, and the DSDT
> on these machines and the working one (only confirmed on N552VW) is the
> same for the query involved here.
>
> After trying to get information from Asus for quite some time on how
> this works on Windows, we finally recently got a contact that was able
> to give us a definitive answer and a specification for this feature.
> According this contact the 0x33 / 0x34 is an old behavior and all newer
> machines should only be notifying the OS with 0x35 instead, as newer ECs
> don't control the backlight anymore. When a 0x35 notification is
> received the OS should act on the display backlight. From the spec
> (machine-translated from Chinese):
>
>   1.4 Fn+F7
>   Function introduction
>
>   After the user presses Fn + F7, the screen will be closed through the
>   Windows API. The user will immediately open the screen with the mouse
>   and keyboard.
>   The API used can be found in the Sample URL:
>   https://code.msdn.microsoft.com/windowsdesktop/Coalescable-Timer-Sample-d9da954c
>   BIOS implementation
>   Increase Notify code
>   LCD On: 0x33 (display OSD)
>   LCD Off: 0x34 (display OSD)
>   LCD Switch: 0x35 (using API switch)
>
> The behavior on Windows with the ATKACPI driver from Asus installed
> matches what is described above, with the hotkey turning OFF the
> backlight of all connected displays with a fading effect, and any cursor
> input or key press turning the backlight back ON. The key press or
> cursor input is passed through to the application under focus or under
> the cursor.
>
> With this information from the spec, a simple analysis of the DSDT
> (pasted on the first commit of this series) shows that in order to have
> the firmware notify the OS with 0x35 and have the OS act on the
> backlight, we need to call WMNB(ASUS_WMI_DEVID_BACKLIGHT==0x00050011, 2)
> on the _WDG device. Then we can simply map that scan code to the
> appropriate key code in the driver.
>
> In include/uapi/linux/input-event-codes.h KEY_DISPLAY_OFF is defined as
> "display device to off state", but it is not actually handled by
> userspace on a GNOME+Xorg stack. There are also KEY_SCREENSAVER and
> KEY_SCREENLOCK / KEY_COFFEE. The former seems to be ignored by userspace
> as well (and its value is higher than 255 so it can't be handled by Xorg
> IIUC), and the later is mapped to XF86ScreenSaver by Xorg and triggers
> the lock screen action on GNOME. KEY_SCREENLOCK seems to be what closest
> matches the behavior described above in a Xorg world. I am not sure if
> any of this changes with Wayland, so any clarifications in that regard
> would be greatly appreciated.
>

Pushed to my review and testing queue, thanks!

> João Paulo Rechi Vita (3):
>   asus-wmi: Tell the EC the OS will handle the display off hotkey
>   asus-nb-wmi: Map 0x35 to KEY_SCREENLOCK
>   asus-nb-wmi: Drop mapping of 0x33 and 0x34 scan codes
>
>  drivers/platform/x86/asus-nb-wmi.c | 3 +--
>  drivers/platform/x86/asus-wmi.c    | 3 ++-
>  2 files changed, 3 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)
>
> --
> 2.19.1
>


-- 
With Best Regards,
Andy Shevchenko