Bug 371019 – Upgrading from gentoo-sources 2.6.36 to 2.6.37 or .38 breaks FN-F8 on Dell machines

• Status: RESOLVED TEST-REQUEST
• Product: Gentoo Linux

[Description Stefano 2011-06-10 12:00:09 UTC]

After upgrading to 2.6.37 (and tested also 2.6.38), the FN-F8 hotkey to switch to the external VGA output does not work anymore. As booting with 2.6.36 with the same configuration restores functionality, I guess something was changed in the kernel. It doesn't seem documented or I have been unable to find any documentation.

Debugging help would be welcome.

Reproducible: Always

[Comment 1 Mike Pagano 2011-06-14 18:01:58 UTC]

emerge --info, please

[Comment 2 Stefano 2011-06-14 19:54:29 UTC]

$ sudo emerge --info 
Portage 2.1.9.42 (default/linux/x86/10.0/desktop/kde, gcc-4.4.5, libc-0-r0, 2.6.38-gentoo-r6 i686)
=================================================================
System uname: Linux-2.6.38-gentoo-r6-i686-Intel-R-_Core-TM-_i7_CPU_M_620_@_2.67GHz-with-gentoo-2.0.2
Timestamp of tree: Mon, 13 Jun 2011 10:45:01 +0000
ccache version 2.4 [disabled]
app-shells/bash:     4.1_p9
dev-java/java-config: 2.1.11-r3
dev-lang/python:     2.6.6-r2, 2.7.1-r1, 3.1.3-r1
dev-util/ccache:     2.4-r9
dev-util/cmake:      2.8.4-r1
sys-apps/baselayout: 2.0.2
sys-apps/openrc:     0.8.2-r1
sys-apps/sandbox:    2.4
sys-devel/autoconf:  2.13, 2.65-r1
sys-devel/automake:  1.8.5-r4, 1.9.6-r3, 1.10.3, 1.11.1
sys-devel/binutils:  2.20.1-r1
sys-devel/gcc:       4.3.4, 4.4.5
sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.4.1-r1
sys-devel/libtool:   2.2.10
sys-devel/make:      3.82
sys-kernel/linux-headers: 2.6.36.1
sys-libs/glibc:      2.12.2
virtual/os-headers:  0
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86"
ACCEPT_LICENSE="*"
CBUILD="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-march=native -O2 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer -msse4 -mcx16 -mpopcnt -msahf"
CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/share/config /usr/share/gnupg/qualified.txt /usr/share/openvpn/easy-rsa"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/ca-certificates.conf /etc/env.d /etc/env.d/java/ /etc/fonts/fonts.conf /etc/gconf /etc/gentoo-release /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/sandbox.d /etc/terminfo /etc/texmf/language.dat.d /etc/texmf/language.def.d /etc/texmf/updmap.d /etc/texmf/web2c"
CXXFLAGS="-march=native -O2 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer -msse4 -mcx16 -mpopcnt -msahf"
DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"
FEATURES="assume-digests binpkg-logs distlocks fixlafiles fixpackages news parallel-fetch protect-owned sandbox sfperms strict unknown-features-warn unmerge-logs unmerge-orphans userfetch"
FFLAGS=""
GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://mirror.switch.ch/ftp/mirror/gentoo/ http://gentoo.mirror.solnet.ch http://gentoo.intergenia.de ftp://ftp.solnet.ch/mirror/Gentoo"
LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1 -Wl,--as-needed"
MAKEOPTS="-j5"
PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"
PORTAGE_CONFIGROOT="/"
PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --stats --timeout=180 --exclude=/distfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"
PORTDIR="/usr/portage"
PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage"
SYNC="rsync://rsync.europe.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"
USE="X a52 aac acl acpi alsa archive arts async bash-completion berkdb bindist bluetooth branding bzip2 cairo cardbus cdparanoia cdr cli consolekit cracklib crypt css cups curlwrappers cxx dbus declarative dell dga dhcp directfb djbfft dri dts dvb dvd dvdr emboss encode exif fat fbcon fbsplash fftw firefox flac foomaticdb fortran fpx ftp gdbm gdu gif glibc-omitfp gnutls gphoto2 gpm gs gtk gzip handbook hpn iconv icq idea imagemagick imap ipod ipv6 irda jabber java javascript john jpeg jpeg2k kde kipi kpathsea lapack libnotify lilo mbox messages mime mmap mmx mmxext mng modules mozilla mp3 mp4 mpeg mplayer msn mudflap mysqli nagios-dns ncurses nls nocd nptl nptlonly nsplugin ntfs ntlm nvidia octave ogg opengl optimization optimized-qmake oscar pam pango pcapnav pcmcia pcntl pcre pda pdf perl phonon plasma pmu png policykit posix ppds pppd python qt3support qt4 radius rdesktop readline replytolist samba scanner semantic-desktop session sharedmem silc slp sms sockets sox spell sse sse2 sse3 ssl startup-notification svg svga sysfs sysvipc tcpd threads tiff truetype udev unicode usb userlocales v4l v4l2 vcd vorbis wifi winbind x264 x86 xcb xcomposite xine xinerama xml xmlrpc xorg xscreensaver xulrunner xvid xvmc yahoo zlib" ALSA_CARDS="ali5451 als4000 atiixp atiixp-modem bt87x ca0106 cmipci emu10k1 emu10k1x ens1370 ens1371 es1938 es1968 fm801 hda-intel intel8x0 intel8x0m maestro3 trident usb-audio via82xx via82xx-modem ymfpci" ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS="adpcm alaw asym copy dmix dshare dsnoop empty extplug file hooks iec958 ioplug ladspa lfloat linear meter mmap_emul mulaw multi null plug rate route share shm softvol" APACHE2_MODULES="actions alias auth_basic authn_alias authn_anon authn_dbm authn_default authn_file authz_dbm authz_default authz_groupfile authz_host authz_owner authz_user autoindex cache cgi cgid dav dav_fs dav_lock deflate dir disk_cache env expires ext_filter file_cache filter headers include info log_config logio mem_cache mime mime_magic negotiation rewrite setenvif speling status unique_id userdir usertrack vhost_alias" CALLIGRA_FEATURES="braindump flow karbon kexi kpresenter krita tables words" CAMERAS="ptp2" COLLECTD_PLUGINS="df interface irq load memory rrdtool swap syslog" ELIBC="glibc" GPSD_PROTOCOLS="ashtech aivdm earthmate evermore fv18 garmin garmintxt gpsclock itrax mtk3301 nmea ntrip navcom oceanserver oldstyle oncore rtcm104v2 rtcm104v3 sirf superstar2 timing tsip tripmate tnt ubx" INPUT_DEVICES="keyboard mouse synaptics evdev" KERNEL="linux" LCD_DEVICES="bayrad cfontz cfontz633 glk hd44780 lb216 lcdm001 mtxorb ncurses text" PHP_TARGETS="php5-3" RUBY_TARGETS="ruby18" USERLAND="GNU" VIDEO_CARDS="nvidia" XTABLES_ADDONS="quota2 psd pknock lscan length2 ipv4options ipset ipp2p iface geoip fuzzy condition tee tarpit sysrq steal rawnat logmark ipmark dhcpmac delude chaos account" 
Unset:  CPPFLAGS, CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, INSTALL_MASK, LANG, LC_ALL, LINGUAS, PORTAGE_BUNZIP2_COMMAND, PORTAGE_COMPRESS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS_FLAGS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS

[Comment 3 Stratos Psomadakis (RETIRED) 2011-06-16 22:44:23 UTC]

Just in case, does booting a newer kernel, i.e. 2.6.39 or 3.0-rcs, fix your problem?

If it doesn't (imho you should at least try a 2.6.39 kernel), can you post a full dmesg output?

I'll try to search through the lkml threads for any related issues tomorrow. 

Thanks.

[Comment 4 Stefano 2011-06-19 11:17:20 UTC]

Created attachment 277513 [details]
dmesg output with 2.6.38-r6

[Comment 5 Mike Pagano 2011-10-13 15:19:32 UTC]

Can you try adding 

acpi_osi=Linux

as a kernel boot parameter? 

Apparently, Newer Dell and HP systems have broken BIOS which causes FN+F8 to not send the proper KEY_VIDEOMODE scan code. 

Is there a bios update for your laptop?

[Comment 6 Stefano 2011-11-01 15:19:03 UTC]

> Can you try adding 
> 
> acpi_osi=Linux
> 
> as a kernel boot parameter? 


No change

> Apparently, Newer Dell and HP systems have broken BIOS which causes FN+F8 to
> not send the proper KEY_VIDEOMODE scan code. 

It may very well be. But why did it work up to a couple of kernel versions ago?

> Is there a bios update for your laptop?

This is the latest bios that I'm running.

Oh, and in the meantime I also tested out kernel-3.0.6, no difference.

[Comment 7 Mike Pagano 2011-12-11 19:00:30 UTC]

Can you try adding this kernel parameter:

acpi_osi=\\\"!Windows 2009\\\"