No hardware button recognition on tc1100

thurse93 · 2013-05-25 18:31:40

Hi forum!

I recently installed arch linux on the HP TC1100 tablet. Everything works fine except the hardware buttons "Q, Esc, Tab, Jogdial" etc. on the top of the tablet. Xev and showkey gave me nothing. The recognition of those buttons never was a problem in the various setup guides on the internet, so I'm a litte nervous right now. What can be done? I'm using kernel 3.9.3-1.

Greetings

WonderWoofy · 2013-05-25 19:24:19

Is the hp-wmi module loaded? This should be what controls those buttons. It is included in the stock Arch kernel.

ewaller · 2013-05-25 19:39:33

Take a look at the output od dmesg as well. Punch the keys a a couple times. See if the tail of dmesg output indicates anything about unknown keys.

thurse93 · 2013-05-25 19:53:25

The hp-wmi module's not loaded, however if i try to do so, i'll get the following:

modprobe: ERROR: could not insert 'hp_wmi': No such device

Checking lsmod theres a certain tc1100_wmi. (These are the modules currently active: (http://pastie.org/7958851 )

Unfortunately dmesg doesn't show me anything.

Greetings

Last edited by thurse93 (2013-05-25 19:54:36)

WonderWoofy · 2013-05-25 20:15:53

Oh my bad, you are runnning this on an old tc1100 tablet. In that case, I have no idea what would control the buttons. In fact, my kernel doesn't have a tc1100_wmi module. Where did this come from? Are you using plain old Arch Linux with the plain old kernel?

thurse93 · 2013-05-25 20:51:00

I don't know, it was just there^^. There's also a directory in /sys/devices/platform called "tc1100-wmi" with a bunch of config files such as "wireless" or "jogdial", so i think at least parts of the module do their job. But somehow the buttons are excluded... I've tested it with WinXP Tablet Edition (they work there), so it's no mechanical defect.
It's stock arch linux with stock kernel, yeah . Because of https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=1266979 I installed it via an older arch linux image (2012-10-06 I think), but since it was a net install, the latest kernel was automatically downloaded and configured.

Last edited by thurse93 (2013-05-25 20:51:50)

WonderWoofy · 2013-05-25 21:53:59

Well, the "*-wmi" modules are typically the vendor specific hardware features. So if anything is going to make it work, it is going to be that module.

Okay, I have figured it out. That tablet is a 32-bit tablet isn't it? Because the i686 kernel has this tc1100-wmi module, while the x86_64 kernel does not.

Maybe use "modinfo tc1100-wmi" to see if there are options you might need to turn on or specify in order for those functions to work. I would imagine that this module *should* take care of it somehow, since it is not only a vendor specific module, but actually a model specific module. So if it doens't work right for that device, I don't know what the hell else it is going to work for.

thurse93 · 2013-05-26 11:37:08

Yes, it's a 32-bit tablet. modinfo doesn't give me much information / I don't see the important things:

filename:       /lib/modules/3.9.3-1-ARCH/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/tc1100-wmi.ko.gz
alias:          wmi:C364AC71-36DB-495A-8494-B439D472A505
license:        GPL
description:    HP Compaq TC1100 Tablet WMI Extras
author:         Jamey Hicks, Carlos Corbacho
depends:        wmi
intree:         Y
vermagic:       3.9.3-1-ARCH SMP preempt mod_unload modversions 686

I found a hp eMail address of this Jamey Hicks guy, but it seemed to be outdated.

WonderWoofy · 2013-05-26 15:19:32

I wonder if you could find more info my installing the linux-docs package and then searching for included documentation. So install linux-docs, then do

$ pacman -Ql linux-docs | grep tc1100

If you come up with something, read it. If not... keep seaching I guess.

BTW, what happens if you use the linux-lts package. Do things work then? I want to get an idea of whether or not these hardware functions ever worked, or if it truly is a regression. I mean, you would think that since it is a module for one single device that it should work fantastically for that device, but... yeah.

ewaller · 2013-05-26 17:58:09

thurse93 wrote:

Unfortunately dmesg doesn't show me anything.

Indeed. The kernel is not aware of the key presses, so none of the higher level solutions will work. You will need a kernel driver that understands that hardware. Sadly, I do not know of any.

Could you post the output of lshw ??

thurse93 · 2013-05-26 19:57:09

The linux-docs didn't give me any hint, but linux-lts works! Thanks! The buttons are producing keycodes and are mapped as if there never war a problem... Is there a big disadvantage using the lts kernel on this device (don't think so, i mean it is over 8 years old...)?

Greetings

WonderWoofy · 2013-05-26 20:04:47

IMO the repo's lts kernel is getting pretty far out of date. But if things work, then they work. Systemd is said to function with even the later 2.* kernels, so that shouldn't be a problem. But stay away from btrfs, as the development and features are highly dependent on the kernel being up to date. There are probably other disadvantages, but overall it should be fine. You can always try to compile and use linux-lts34 for the AUR (it is just the 3.4.* LIT kernel series).

ewaller · 2013-05-27 02:36:38

It would appear that some critical module is not being built in the stock Arch kernel that is being included in the lts kernel.

For the two kernels, compare the outputs of lsmod and see what is in the lts kernel that is not in the stock kernel.

Now, the lts kernel could have the module you need built in, in which case you will need to unpack the /proc/config.gz files for each kernel, write them to some persistent files and compare them using diff. (/proc/config.gz is a gz file that reflects the .config file used to build the running kernel)

Arch Linux

#1 2013-05-25 18:31:40

No hardware button recognition on tc1100

#2 2013-05-25 19:24:19

Re: No hardware button recognition on tc1100

#3 2013-05-25 19:39:33

Re: No hardware button recognition on tc1100

#4 2013-05-25 19:53:25

Re: No hardware button recognition on tc1100

#5 2013-05-25 20:15:53

Re: No hardware button recognition on tc1100

#6 2013-05-25 20:51:00

Re: No hardware button recognition on tc1100

#7 2013-05-25 21:53:59

Re: No hardware button recognition on tc1100

#8 2013-05-26 11:37:08

Re: No hardware button recognition on tc1100

#9 2013-05-26 15:19:32

Re: No hardware button recognition on tc1100

#10 2013-05-26 17:58:09

Re: No hardware button recognition on tc1100

#11 2013-05-26 19:57:09

Re: No hardware button recognition on tc1100

#12 2013-05-26 20:04:47

Re: No hardware button recognition on tc1100

#13 2013-05-27 02:36:38

Re: No hardware button recognition on tc1100

Board footer