Let's add support to other Samsung netbooks

[voria]

New samsung-backlight on the repository. Changelog:

Code: Select all

samsung-backlight (2.6.31-17~ppa5~nc10~karmic) karmic; urgency=low

  * Add support for Samsung X120 (pci device id 0x2a42).

This should enable the backlight control on X120. Please test it.

[voria]

I installed your latest kernel and udev (actually, I updated everything) and I see some changes:

FN + UP/DOWN finally show the brightness control/notification on the top right of the screen but the screen brightness doesn't change
FN + F5 toggles the backlight, which translates to my x120 in switching off the screen completely.

What about the other FN keys (Fn-F3, Fn-F4, Fn-F7, Fn-F8, Fn-F9)? Please use the 'xev' command line utility to check if they are recognized.
Also, try to use the 'samsung-scripts' from command line to check if they work correctly.
You need to edit the '/etc/default/samsung-scripts' file and change the WIRELESS_MODULE option to 'ath9k' (it's the kernel module used by your wireless card).

[rouggio]

What about the other FN keys (Fn-F3, Fn-F4, Fn-F7, Fn-F8, Fn-F9)? Please use the 'xev' command line utility to check if they are recognized.
Also, try to use the 'samsung-scripts' from command line to check if they work correctly.
You need to edit the '/etc/default/samsung-scripts' file and change the WIRELESS_MODULE option to 'ath9k' (it's the kernel module used by your wireless card).

Fn-F3: recognized by xev, no effect (on the keyboard I have € euro sign, I ignore what it should do). Output on xdev is: ^[[2;3~^[[4~^[[1;3B^[[1;3A
Fn-F4: not recognized
Fn-F7: recognized, toggles bluetooth
Fn-F8: recognized, switch cpu performance level
Fn-F9: recognized, toggles wifi

I tried the samsung-scripts from command line and they all seem to work fine to me. The lcd toggle is switching to screen completely off, I don't know if this is what it is supposed to do.

I updated to the latest packages but I still can't control my screen brightness, I can move the sliders in the brightness applet and I can use Fn+UP/DOWN, I see the updated brigthness level in the on-screen notifications, but no actual change

[voria]

According to this bug report, the only way to fix the backlight control is with a new BIOS from Samsung.
I'm sorry, there is nothing I can do. I'm going to revert the changes to 'samsung-backlight'.

Concerning the FN keys, all of them work as expected (Fn-F3 is not mapped by default but recognized, Fn-F5 does exactly what it's supposed to do, toggle the screen backlight).
The only not working one is Fn-F4, which should be recognized as XF86Launch4. That's odd.

[rouggio]

OK, let me update my BIOS then. I see from the samsung website that the latest BIOS version is 05CX and I found the dos bootable usb image here in the forum. What I need now is to unpack the samsung update executable and load the 05CX version on my bootable usb drive, but unfortunately I cannot seem to be able to unwrap it. Do you have some suggestion on how to unpack it?

cheers,
Dario

[voria]

Take a look at this post.
I don't know if for X120 it works the same as for NC10 (I assume so).
Anyway be sure of what you are doing, because the BIOS update is a risky operation, doing it in unofficial ways is twice risky.

[rouggio]

argh! I have no virtual boxes or windows available on my netbook!

it would be of great help if you could explode this for me!

http://www.samsung.com/uk/consumer/pc-p ... ab=support

thanks!
Dario

[voria]

Just done: the files structure is completely different for the one from NC10 updaters. Also, the updater exits immediately, so I'm not sure all the files are extracted.
I don't think my method for updating the BIOS worths the try, it's definitely too risky.

My suggestion is to contact Samsung support and ask for an official DOS updater (since they offer it for other models on http://www.samsungpc.com) or, alternatively, temporary install windows.

[rouggio]

I guess I will have to wait from Samsung then, thanks for trying! I will let you know if I have news, cheers.

Dario

[voria]

New kernel. Changelog:

Code: Select all

linux (2.6.31-17.55~ppa6~nc10~karmic) karmic; urgency=low
  ...
  * Fix FN keys release on Samsung N120, N130, N140, N310, X120.
  * Apply 'libata-ata_piix-clear-spurious-IRQ.patch' to fix the
    SATA freezing problem on Samsung N130/N140.

[steveperiod]

Thanks for the reports.

@steveperiod:
does the backlight control work out-of-the-box on N310, or have you installed the 'samsung-backlight' package?
I've added support for the N310 in it, but I don't know if it's really needed.

i had the backlight package installed. i removed it just to try it out and the fn keys still worked perfectly.

[voria]

Strange. Another user did the same test on N310 and reported the package is needed to have backlight control.
Did you reboot after the package removal?

[voria]

All the packages moved on the 'Linux On My Samsung' repository.

[Sammy]

Hello,
my Ubuntu Karmic just updated and I got those 'samsung-scripts'.

And it works nearly perfect for me finnaly. Thanks so much.

Fn + F1 = sleep modus works
Fn + F2 = Energie Information works
Fn + F3 = nothing seems to happen. What should it do?
Fn + F4 = nothing seems to happen. What should it do?
Fn + F5 = Black Screen works
Fn + F6 = sound on/off worked from beginning without your scripts
Fn + F7 = Bluetooth works *
Fn + F8 = Processor Information works
Fn + F9 = wlan works
Fn + Arrow Up and Fn + Arrow Down = brightness works finally. *thanks*


Some things i noticed are:

• I have a Samsung N130, and this one doesnt has Bluetooth. But when i use Fn + F7 it tells me that BT is switched on/off now.
  Also when i use sudo samsung-scripts status it shows the BT status.
• When I have turned sound off and I go into sleep modus, after waking up, the sound is turned on

Thanks so much for your scripts and making the Fn-Keys work.

Greetings from Germany

[voria]

Hello,
my Ubuntu Karmic just updated and I got those 'samsung-scripts'.
And it works nearly perfect for me finnaly. Thanks so much.

You're welcome.

Fn + F3 = nothing seems to happen. What should it do?

Nothing by default. This hotkey is not mapped with 'samsung-scripts', you can bind it to whatever you want.

Fn + F4 = nothing seems to happen. What should it do?

Nothing by default. The original function of this key is to switch the LCD/VGA out. You can follow this howto to make it work this way (the howto has not been updated for a while but it's good yet, just make sure to disable compiz prior to try to enable the VGA out, the reason is explained here).

Fn + F7 = Bluetooth works *
I have a Samsung N130, and this one doesnt has Bluetooth. But when i use Fn + F7 it tells me that BT is switched on/off now.
Also when i use sudo samsung-scripts status it shows the BT status.

My scripts just enable/disable the bluetooth service, they don't check if bluetooth is really available. You can simply ignore the output of my scripts. Also, you can rebind the Fn-F7 and use it for something more useful.

When I have turned sound off and I go into sleep modus, after waking up, the sound is turned on.

This does not depend from my scripts, since they don't change the behavior of the Fn-F6 key.
I don't know what it's causing this, I'm sorry.