Documentation/admin-guide/laptops/sonypi.rst

Source file repositories/reference/linux-study-clean/Documentation/admin-guide/laptops/sonypi.rst

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==================================================
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 an 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

Annotation

Implementation Notes