Blog backlog, Post 4, Headset fixes for Dell machines

At the bottom of the release notes for GNOME 3.20, you might have seen the line:

If you plug in an audio device (such as a headset, headphones or microphone) and it cannot be identified, you will now be asked what kind of device it is. This addresses an issue that prevented headsets and microphones being used on many Dell computers.

Before I start explaining what this does, as a picture is worth a thousand words:

This selection dialogue is one you will get on some laptops and desktop machines when the hardware is not able to detect whether the plugged in device is headphones, a microphone, or a combination of both, probably because it doesn't have an impedance detection circuit to figure that out.

This functionality was integrated into Unity's gnome-settings-daemon version a couple of years ago, written by David Henningsson.

The code that existed for this functionality was completely independent, not using any of the facilities available in the media-keys plugin to volume keys, and it could probably have been split as an external binary with very little effort.

After a bit of to and fro, most of the sound backend functionality was merged into libgnome-volume-control, leaving just 2 entry points, one to signal that something was plugged into the jack, and another to select which type of device was plugged in, in response to the user selection. This means that the functionality should be easily implementable in other desktop environments that use libgnome-volume-control to interact with PulseAudio.

Many thanks to David Henningsson for the original code, and his help integrating the functionality into GNOME, Bednet for providing hardware to test and maintain this functionality, and Allan, Florian and Rui for working on the UI notification part of the functionality, and wiring it all up after I abandoned them to go on holidays ;)

Blog backlog, Post 3, DisplayLink-based USB3 graphics support for Fedora

Last year, after DisplayLink released the first version of the supporting tools for their USB3 chipsets, I tried it out on my Dell S2340T.

As I wanted a clean way to test new versions, I took Eric Nothen's RPMs, and updated them along with newer versions, automating the creation of 32- and 64-bit x86 versions.

The RPM contains 3 parts, evdi, a GPLv2 kernel module that creates a virtual display, the LGPL library to access it, and a proprietary service which comes with "firmware" files.

Eric's initial RPMs used the precompiled libevdi.so, and proprietary bits, compiling only the kernel module with dkms when needed. I changed this, compiling the library from the upstream repository, using the minimal amount of pre-compiled binaries.

This package supports quite a few OEM devices, but does not work correctly with Wayland, so you'll need to disable Wayland support in /etc/gdm/custom.conf if you want it to work at the login screen, and without having to restart the displaylink.service systemd service after logging in.

 Plugged in via DisplayPort and USB (but I can only see one at a time)

The source for the RPM are on GitHub. Simply clone and run make in the repository to create 32-bit and 64-bit RPMs. The proprietary parts are redistributable, so if somebody wants to host and maintain those RPMs, I'd be glad to pass this on.

Gadget reviews

Not that I'm really running after more gadgets, but sometimes, there is a need that could only be soothed through new hardware.

Bluetooth UE roll

Got this for my wife, to play music when staying out on the quays of the Rhône, playing music in the kitchen (from a phone or computer), or when she's at the photo lab.

It works well with iOS, MacOS X and Linux. It's very easy to use, with whether it's paired, connected completely obvious, and the charging doesn't need specific cables (USB!).

I'll need to borrow it to add battery reporting for those devices though. You can find a full review on Ars Technica.

Sugru (!)

Not a gadget per se, but I bought some, used it to fix up a bunch of cables, repair some knickknacks, and do some DIY. Highly recommended, especially given the current price of their starter packs.

15-pin to USB Joystick adapter

It's apparently from Ckeyin, but you'll find the exact same box from other vendors. Made my old Gravis joystick work, in the hope that I can make it work with DOSBox and my 20-year old copy of X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter.

Microsoft Surface ARC Mouse

That one was given to me, for testing, works well with Linux. Again, we'll need to do some work to report the battery. I only ever use it when travelling, as the batteries last for absolute ages.

Logitech K750 keyboard

Bought this nearly two years ago, and this is one of my best buys. My desk is close to a window, so it's wireless but I never need to change the batteries or think about charging it. GNOME also supports showing the battery status in the Power panel.

Logitech T650 touchpad

Got this one in sale (17€), to replace my Logitech trackball (one of its buttons broke...). It works great, and can even get you shell gestures when run in Wayland. I'm certainly happy to have one less cable running across my desk, and reuses the same dongle as the keyboard above.

If you use more than one devices, you might be interested in this bug to make it easier to support multiple Logitech "Unifying" devices.

ClicLite charger

Got this from a design shop in Berlin. It should probably have been cheaper than what I paid for it, but it's certainly pretty useful. Charges up my phone by about 20%, it's small, and charges up at the same time as my keyboard (above).

Dell S2340T

Bought about 2 years ago, to replace the monitor I had in an all-in-one (Lenovo all-in-ones, never buy that junk).

Nowadays, the resolution would probably be considered a bit on the low side, and the touchscreen mesh would show for hardcore photography work. It's good enough for videos though and the speaker reaches my sitting position.

It's only been possible to use the USB cable for graphics for a couple of months, and it's probably not what you want to lower CPU usage on your machine, but it works for Fedora with this RPM I made. Talk to me if you can help get it into RPMFusion.

Shame about the huge power brick, but a little bonus for the builtin Ethernet adapter.

Surface 3

This is probably the biggest ticket item. Again, I didn't pay full price for it, thanks to coupons, rewards, and all. The work to getting Linux and GNOME to play well with it is still ongoing, and rather slow.

I won't comment too much on Windows either, but rather as what it should be like once Linux runs on it.

I really enjoy the industrial design, maybe even the slanted edges, but one as to wonder why they made the USB power adapter not sit flush with the edge when plugged in.

I've used it a couple of times (under Windows, sigh) to read Pocket as I do on my iPad 1 (yes, the first one), or stream videos to the TV using Flash, without the tablet getting hot, or too slow either. I also like the fact that there's a real USB(-A) port that's separate from the charging port. The micro SD card port is nicely placed under the kickstand, hard enough to reach to avoid it escaping the tablet when lugged around.

The keyboard, given the thickness of it, and the constraints of using it as a cover, is good enough for light use, when travelling for example, and the layout isn't as awful as on, say, a Thinkpad Carbon X1 2nd generation. The touchpad is a bit on the small side though it would have been hard to make it any bigger given the cover's dimensions.

I would however recommend getting a Surface Pro if you want things to work right now (or at least soon). The one-before-last version, the Surface Pro 3, is probably a good target.

Dell Mini 10, gah

A couple of months ago, I received a loaded Dell Mini 10, running a version of Ubuntu from last year, loaded up with proprietary and custom drivers.

If you look at it without giving a second thought at the kit inside, it's quite nice: nice 10" glossy screen, integrated webcam, 3G modem with GPS-A, dual-DVB-T tuner, Bluetooth, WLAN/Ethernet, HDMI output, SD card reader.

Try to run anything other than the shipped Ubuntu (and that even goes for a newer version of Ubuntu), and you'll be in the mud.

The graphics card is the PR problem that's Poulsbo. The wireless card is a Broadcom 4322, with no free drivers, the modem gives Dan Williams nightmares (see the Swedish Invasion part), and the touchpad's driver never got upstreamed.

Adam had a bit of luck getting the Poulsbo going on Fedora 10. I haven't been so lucky under F11 yet, and the wireless card could apparently work with the kmod-wl package from RPMFusion. As for the 3G modem, I'm sure we'll be able to work something out to make it work as expected with a bit of work.

I'll leave others to complain about the «Poulsbong» (as it's been nicknamed) graphics card, and focus on the touchpad. The Elantech touchpad is the kind of touchpad that would make me want not to buy this laptop. No separate buttons, you instead need to click at the bottom of the touchpad area, and that gets awfully tricky for drag'n'drops. Right, this laptop didn't cost me much.

The real problem with the touchpad is that it work to its full capabilities with the stock kernel's drivers (it will even stop working when psmouse can't resync with it). But the shipped Ubuntu could, and the kernel logs seem to point at a modified psmouse. So I drop a mail to Jorge Castro, who passes me on to the manager responsible for the Dell OEM stuff.

After many attempts at getting the source code for that obviously GPL driver, I get the answer:

I believe you're mistaken in assuming that the code we have is merely a
modified version of the psmouse driver, e.g. there's a user space
component as well.

Arjan's code appears to be different.

Arjan is the kernel maintainer for the Elantech driver, on CC: at the time. Well, I was pretty certain it was a modified psmouse, and strings on the driver proved that. Thanks to Jorge not wanting to let me down, we finally found the sources for the Elantech driver in 2 separate commits.

Why did it take 3 weeks of arguing with some middle manager as to whether the code was GPL or not to find out that it was 1) freely available but unfindable 2) it had Arjan's name in the copyright, but apparently wasn't open source, 3) never upstreamed.

We were not amused.

To sum this up:

• Dell, stop putting Broadcom crap in your Linux laptops (that also goes for the fingerprint readers)
  
• Intel, please get Poulsbo drivers up-to-scratch upstream
• Broadcom, don't put crap in Dell's laptop unless you want to start doing real Open Source
• Canonical, apply a clue-bat to your middle management to stop lying
• Jorge, thanks for being patient with me
• And thank you unnamed provider of laptops, you gave me a reason to rant
  

A step closer to World Domination

Same as. But more times.

Guess what I did this week-end? (with stripes)

I watched another nerve-wrecking performance from United. I didn't yell that much though, as I was watching the game with Everton fan Gareth. I'm not one to rub it in.

We also went to said Gareth's girlfriend's birthday party, and had very little luck getting the Kärcher going. The hose keeps popping out under the pressure from the tap (ar, ar).

I've also spent some time trying to get both my laptop and my desktop to suspend. The laptop was fairly straight forward. No hacks, no quirks, just echo mem > /sys/power/state, and you're done. But I'm still hitting a weird bug when using gnome-power-manager to do it.
The desktop (a Dell Optiplex GX620) is a bit more problematic, as pm-suspend doesn't seem to use vbetool at all (despite having an Intel video card in there, but being an older FC6 install...), and the video is completely screwed up (yellow lines, and a lot of flashing blue and red) when resuming under X.

Watched Filles perdues cheveux gras (stopped after 20 minutes, French variété is only below some of their TV shows in things I hate about France), 300 (stopped after about 30 minutes, and finished some weeks later, why would Spartans behave like they were Gulf War I vets), and a Journey Through Porn (stopped 10 minutes near the end to watch Match Of The Day, not great, but still the best docu about pr0n I've seen).


PS: What on earth is going on with them stripes? The window of the local JJB Sports shop. Could it be the metrosexual influence of David Beckham?