Re: [PATCH 0/1] platform/x86: dell-wmi: Uncomment events that were

[Renato Soma <renatoys08@gmail.com>]

Hello,

On Sat, Mar 16, 2019 at 10:17:56AM +0100, Pali Rohár wrote:
> 
> Looks like that those keys are not as obvious as you wrote. Look at my
> email with some investigation about Dell Audio With Preset Switch key:
> https://www.spinics.net/lists/platform-driver-x86/msg15593.html
> 
> Also there is another user who wrote about 0xe02c key generated by
> Inspirion 7520: https://ubuntuforum-br.org/index.php?topic=105434.0
> 
> You can a testing machine 5420, can you prove that behavior described in
> my previous email match also your machine?
> 

Thanks for the feedback, I was unaware of this issue.
I've performed some tests in my machine and this is what I've found so far:

=====================================================================

----------------------------------------
Left WMI key: Windows Mobility Center
Press:    'x'
Hold:     -
Release:  -

In my machine (Inspiron 5420), whenever I press this key, the key
outputs the character "x". I've seen nothing on dmesg even if I
keep this key pressed for longer amounts of time. I'm still trying
to understand why this is hapenning.


----------------------------------------
Middle WMI key: Dell Audio With Preset Switch
Press:    Key with type 0x0000 and code 0xe02a pressed
Hold:     -
Release:  Key with type 0x0000 and code 0xe02b pressed

Differently from what you saw on a Inspiron 7520, I could not
reproduce the behavior that you reported on the first link above.
In my case, when I press the key, the code 0xe02a is shown at dmesg
only once. Also, even though I keep it pressed for longer than ~30
seconds or so, I could not see the entry 0xe02c apper. More on that
behavior later on. When releasing the key, I can see the code 0xe02b
show up at dmesg.

----------------------------------------
Right WMI key: Dell Instant Launch
Press:    -
Hold:     -
Release:  -

This key is with a really weird behavior on my machine.
When testing, I would normally press and relase so that the following
messages would pop-up:

[ 2830.499420] atkbd serio0: Unknown key pressed (translated set 2,
code 0x60 on isa0060/serio0).
[ 2830.499422] atkbd serio0: Use 'setkeycodes 60 <keycode>'
to make it known.

But what I realized was that, if I kept this button pressed for about
~3 seconds or so (like when your experiment in the link above), dmesg
would not ouput anything untill those ~3 seconds elapsed. When they
did, then dmesg log would have the following entries:

[ 3058.494003] atkbd serio0: Unknown key pressed (translated set 2,
code 0x60 on isa0060/serio0).
[ 3058.494008] atkbd serio0: Use 'setkeycodes 60 <keycode>'
to make it known.
[ 3058.501494] dell_wmi: Unknown key with type 0x0000 and code
0xe028 pressed

The last message being the weirdest, It would seem that only after
about 3 seconds or so, the driver is being notified of it.

=====================================================================

Anyway, It's clear now that this patch trully makes no sense since the
hardwares (Inspiron 7520 x Inspiron 5420) are behaving somewhat
differently on these keys.

Either way, It seems that at both of them, there are three behaviors
that are strange. I'm still trying to learn kernel development (I'm a
newbie) so could you please point out whether this is worth it to
investigate, or if should I leave this as is?

In the meantime, I'll try to find out why the first button is outputting
an "x" character on my machine.

Thanks!
Renato