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Date:      Fri, 30 Jan 2009 08:52:27 +0100
From:      Alexander Leidinger <Alexander@Leidinger.net>
To:        Ed Schouten <ed@80386.nl>
Cc:        FreeBSD Hackers <freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org>, Daniel Lannstrom <op@trekdanne.se>
Subject:   Re: Mackbook pro nvidia based video backlight
Message-ID:  <20090130085227.957230z897u8viww@webmail.leidinger.net>
In-Reply-To: <20090129143606.GC17198@hoeg.nl>
References:  <20090127124137.46fcfac5@baby-jane.lamaiziere.net> <20090127150040.GA4333@haruhi> <20090128134309.GN17198@hoeg.nl> <20090129151021.14131so3ozumpfj4@webmail.leidinger.net> <20090129143606.GC17198@hoeg.nl>

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Quoting Ed Schouten <ed@80386.nl> (from Thu, 29 Jan 2009 15:36:06 +0100):

> * Alexander Leidinger <Alexander@Leidinger.net> wrote:
>> So you want that either
>>  - a daemon running as root is written which listens to user
>>    requests to set the backlight via sysctl
>> or
>>  - a SUID root program is written that sets the backlight
>>    via sysctl
>> instead of
>>  - a character device with appropriate filesystem permissions
>>    which allows to not go the SUID root or daemon running as
>>    root way
>> ?
>
> Yes. The primary reason is that it is more consistent with the rest of
> the operating system. powerd also uses sysctl's instead of a character
> device, for example.

Powerd does not interact with the user, it is doing automatic power =20
management. A backlight on the other hand needs to be adjustable by =20
the user.

Normally I would expect some keys on the keyboard to handle this, so =20
there should be no need to have some userland stuff, but as I don't =20
know about how Apple is doing this, I assume there's some valid reason =20
to handle it from userland. But then there needs to be some easy way =20
to let an user handle it, even if you are on the console. A separate =20
daemon or a SUID root program to control the backlight sounds like =20
overkill to me.

> The ideal solution would be to integrate it into vidcontrol, calling
> some kind of ioctl on the TTY/consolectl, but syscons is too brainless
> to know anything about hardware specific features.

Here we are back to what was proposed instead of sysctl. I have to =20
admin that I'm confused now about what you propose as a good solution.

Bye,
Alexander.

--=20
If I had any humility I would be perfect.
=09=09-- Ted Turner

http://www.Leidinger.net    Alexander @ Leidinger.net: PGP ID =3D B0063FE7
http://www.FreeBSD.org       netchild @ FreeBSD.org  : PGP ID =3D 72077137



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