Re: Debian Jessie on Thinkpad X220

Bob Proulx <[email protected]> Tue, 28 Feb 2017 14:24:29 -0700
Newsgroups	gmane.linux.debian.user.laptop
Message-ID	<[email protected]>
[email protected] wrote:
> Kirill Shilov wrote: 
> > Very strange, i have X220 and X230 and all functional working correctly out
> > of the box.(not a mic led of course).

I have had other people report the same thing.  But not for me.  This
(so far) is a stock installation of Jessie running Xfce.  However
normally I simply run the 'awesome' tiling window manager.  Here is
some updated information.

When running xfce4-session the mute and volume controls are acted upon
by the window manager.  But they do not work outside of the desktop
environment.  They do not work when running a simple window manager
such as 'awesome' for example.  Nor on the Linux console.  The
keyboard light toggle, sleep to ram, and hibernate to disk keys do
function everywhere.

Here is a sampling of keys that "don't work" but do produce X events.

  keycode 122 XF86AudioLowerVolume
  keycode 123 XF86AudioRaiseVolume
  keycode 198 XF86AudioMicMute
  keycode 156 XF86Launch1
  keycode 232 XF86MonBrightnessDown
  keycode 233 XF86MonBrightnessUp

Xfce apparently catches the mute, volume-up, volume-down keys and
connects them to the mixer.  But not the other keys.  And of course
that doesn't work with other window managers.

> > maybe you have a hardware issue? try to update/reset bios?

The keys all generate key events so I don't think the BIOS is the
problem.  Thinkwiki mentions versions up through 1.29 and I have 1.31
installed so probably okay.  However I know there are many security
upgrades that I should install post 1.31 to get to the current 1.43.
I will contemplate that action today.

> I have had many (fixable)issues with thinkpads and buttons, but not on x220 specifically. First,
> it is advised specifically for the x220 to update to a recent bios, 
> http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/How_to_make_ACPI_work

What I should do is install libreboot which does now support the X220.
But at the moment I am running the stock BIOS version 1.31.  However
again the keys do generate key events and therefore I don't think this
is the problem.  I will contemplate upgrading the BIOS today
regardless because it would be good to get the other fixes available.
And if it is going to brick this system I should do it sooner rather
than later.

> ... and then install a package called tpb (ThinkPadButtons), I
> checked and it is still in stable(jessie) here is some more good
> stuff on the thinkpad x220...
> http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:X220

Yes I have always used 'tpb' thinkpad buttons in the past to provide
for this.  On my T42, T43, T60p, that handled the laptop keys nicely.
But tpb seems non-functional for my X220.  At least it doesn't seem to
have any noticable effect.  Yes I have set myself into the nvram
group.  And yes the Thinkwiki is a wonderful resource!

My preference would be to have tpb handle these keys because then I
get the osd on-screen-display feedback for their actions.

Bob
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