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#1 2008-05-05 06:59:24

fivre
Member
Registered: 2007-04-17
Posts: 97

LEDs?

My Acer laptop has an LED on it that's supposed to light up when I have new mail. Any ideas about how I'd get it working?

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#2 2008-05-05 20:23:20

keratos
Member
Registered: 2008-04-27
Posts: 138

Re: LEDs?

That will be driven by a software driver under windows, presumably the laptop was sold with windows installed ?? Unless there is a specific driver under linux, I doubt you will get it working.

Last edited by keratos (2008-05-05 20:23:50)

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#3 2008-05-08 00:36:06

dav7
Member
From: Australia
Registered: 2008-02-08
Posts: 674

Re: LEDs?

In terms of writing a Linux driver yourself, all I can recommend is poking about at the hardware itself... yes, it'd be pretty in-depth, but I THINK you will want to open the laptop up and attempt to trace where that LED goes on the board, or boards. It may be driven by a serial line (simple, but I doubt that), or possibly a tiny USB controller (which sounds reasonable since such a device would be cheap to make - and especially interface - but is a bit of a waste of hardware).

So, in other words... if you want to make a driver yourself, you'd need to know where the signal is coming from, since theoretically tracing every device on your system in realtime is only going to give you a log that will quickly grow to 10TB in a matter of seconds. tongue

Another possibility is locating the winfailure driver, decompiling it, and reading the source code. Yes, equally as involved, but somewhat less likely to cause a *snap* "OOPS!!". xD

You could alternatively hire an assasin to hold the Acer CEO at gunpoint and demand the specifications for you...

-dav7

Last edited by dav7 (2008-05-08 00:37:06)


Windows was made for looking at success from a distance through a wall of oversimplicity. Linux removes the wall, so you can just walk up to success and make it your own.
--
Reinventing the wheel is fun. You get to redefine pi.

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#4 2008-05-08 11:41:53

keratos
Member
Registered: 2008-04-27
Posts: 138

Re: LEDs?

All for a LED to light up when new mail arrives!

Why ?? Is it really that essential!


Other options include notification via:
- A preassigned sound
- System tray notification
- Message window
- Panel applet that checks for mail. This is quite good and together with a system message window, works well for me.

what you have to understand here, is that Acer and many thousands of other manufacturers are locked in with Microsoft in regard to securing the "Windows" logo on their equipment. This lock-in manifests itself in many ways, but typically includes requirements such as providing tech specs to Microsoft, payment of monies, permanent "lease" of equipment to Microsoft engineers for testing purposes !! and so on.

Clearly, this commecial model thankfully doesnt exist in the Open Source world however vendors are much less open to openining their source!!

Last edited by keratos (2008-05-08 12:10:06)

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#5 2008-05-08 13:58:11

brebs
Member
Registered: 2007-04-03
Posts: 3,742

Re: LEDs?

Can probably use xset, e.g.:

xset led 3
xset -led 3

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#6 2008-05-09 14:00:52

mmmasterluke
Member
Registered: 2007-12-07
Posts: 49

Re: LEDs?

if you end up writing your own little script you might want to have a look at setleds (part of the kbd package). I don't know if that works with X though.

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