The Final Zone project

With Hans' help, an old bug related to ACPI impacting majority of HP laptops running on any Linux distribution is finally resolved on both kernel 5.4.2 and 5.3.15. Some models may have an odd issue on boot like hp_wmi: query 0xd returned error 0x5 due to a too small buffer passing in for HPWMI_FEATURE2_QUERY. A fix is on the way for the next update and a test kernel from scratch-build is available (make sure to download first as the scratch build gets erased in a few days).

As announced on Fedora Magazine , Design Suite 31 is now available for users like graphic artists and photographers among them. Notable update is the availability of Blender 2.80 featuring a revamped user interface. Other applications are mostly improved stability. Users with touch screen devices will notice an improved performance from the Fedora Workstation from which Design Suite is based. Due to a bug related to desktop environment (Gnome Shell running on Wayland), using a stylus can cause applications to crash so the workaround is to run on Gnome on Xorg until the fix lands on a future update. Full details published on the wiki section .

Ctrl key buttons refused to work on laptop? Tried pressing Ctrl + Alt + Fn? Mixed result. Reboot hardware? No dice. Pressing Ctrl + Left click on Touchpad? Worked I am not sure what exactly caused the problem as the issue surprisingly affects more models than expected.

Following previous topic , testing the build kernel 4.8.0rc4 with the patch related to ACPI EC allow unlocking the functionality of hotkeys. For the first time, ASUS X550ZE has nearly full functionality from keyboard in Linux operating system (Fedora in my case) on par with Microsoft Windows 8.1 and 10.  Hopefully other laptops having similar problem will regain that access. For that learned experience, that bug turned out more complex than expected revealing a different ACPI scheme used in Microsoft Windows 10 and a bad practice from BIOS vendor. It also shows how some vendors ignore standard procedure thus making harder to find the problem. The important lesson is the cooperation between users and developers exchanging knowledge and discovering new elements never seen before. One day, vendors will open themselves approaching the kernel community to improve their products. Now the hotkeys saga comes to the end, the next step is the support of AMD hybrid graphic card. This...

Resuming for the previous topic , with the help of an Arch user and one of kernel maintainers, it turned out the failure of hotkeys functions [Fn] is due to a Linux ACPI bug. Further investigation revealed a bad practice from BIOS vendor and unexpectedly a new challenge in Linux kernel world as quoted: However this report indicates us another gap (except the enumeration order gap): If the namespace EC (DSDT EC in short) is not ready, EC access availability can be kept using the ECDT EC. In Linux, that requres _Qxx control methods to be registered for the ECDT EC. I have never seen a Linux EC driver version doing this before, _Qxx registration is only invoked in acpi_ec_add(). So this bug indicates a gap for Linux. Essentially, what is initially a bug related for non-functional hotkeys for ASUS X550Z laptop revealed a much more deeper issue related Linux ACPI. It is the first time I reached that level of testing in kernel world with the help from upstream kernel. A built kernel...

Stable release of Fedora 23  Design Suite is now available with minimal changes like the inclusion of supplemental wallpapers posted from Nuancier. After installation on ASUS X550ZE laptop , no apparent change of the status is in sight. However, some hotkeys (home,end,pgup,pgdn) are functional. The author of asus-nb-wmi allowing to setup these hotkeys mentioned the inability to reach ASUS developers to address these common issues plaguing many ASUS laptops users and the lack of documentation. Backlight is currently broken due to the controller issues as display on boot so bug is filed : [     7.684288] [drm:radeon_acpi_init [radeon]] *ERROR* Cannot find a backlight controller Battery optimization is still an issue due to the driver choosing to use a powerful GPU rather the power saving mode. AMD is currently working on new driver structure. Dual Radeon is currently unsupported but works are under way .

I upgraded the Asus X550ZE to Fedora 23 Beta Design Suite. So far, the majority of hardware is functional except the Fn hotkeys and the poor power optimization. For Fn hotkeys, after looking at all possible solutions, it turned out majority of Asus X series laptops is affected due to the lack of proper documentation of wapf function found within asus-nb-wmi module from the kernel. The ball is on ASUS to make hotkeys functional and provide needed information. The second case related to poor power optimization is due to radeon driver. In addition, the lack of functional hybrid driver only make the laptop running on R7 265 GPU for performance while the R5 230 is permanently disabled for better power saving. It will be a while before Linux kernel will support hybrid graphics for Dual AMD Radeon.

I updated a status report for aiming a full out of box experience for ASUS X550 family laptop . It is a AMD Kaveri powered laptop featuring Dual Radeon GPU. Known issues are missing functional hotkeys (Fn), broken webcam support and lack of optimized power management.

I recently bought an ASUS X550ZE to replace the venerable Sony VAIO N250E laptop. The reason of choosing an AMD powered laptop is for long term support i.e. the use of Vulkan API in future AMD GPU driver. In summary, here is the ASUS X550ZE specification taken from ASUS website : Processor AMD® APU A10-7400P /A8-7200P/FX-7600P Processor Chipset AMD A76M FCH Memory DDR3L 1600 MHz SDRAM, 8 GB Display 15.6" 16:9 /Full HD (1920x1080) Graphic AMD Radeon® R5 M230 + Radeon® R7 M265 DX Dual Graphics with 2GB DDR3 VRAM Built-in A10-7400P Storage 2.5" 9.5mm SATA 1TB 5400/7200 RPM Optical Drive Super-Multi DVD Card Reader 2 -in-1 card reader ( SD/ SDHC/ MMC) Camera VGA Web Camera Networking Integrated 802.11 b/g/n Built-in Bluetooth™ V4.0 (Optional) 10/100/1000/Gigabits Base T Interface 1 x COMBO audio jack 1 x VGA port/Mini D-sub 15-pin for external monitor 2 x USB 3.0 port(s) 1 x RJ45 LAN Jack for LAN insert 1 x HDMI Audio Built-in ...

Yes, I am currently using XO 1.75 laptop to write this blog which needs more update. I am really busy outside Fedora  world while waiting for the infrastructure for Fedora 21 in order to refine Design Suite.  This XO 1.75 has interesting apparently unavailable on most mobile device, a type of sensor that turns off the back light from the screen in plain sunlight. Surprisingly other device seems lacking that feature.  That will be a useful information for demonstrating the XO Laptop in local cafe as requested by my friends. I guess I will need a touch screen XO 4 laptop because of frequent question of touchscreen support, a trending norm in portable industry.

I recently discovered it is possible to listen to a music from smartphone connected with a laptop via Bluetooth. The test was done using a custom cyanogemod for a discontinued Samsung Galaxy Mini Dart and an updated Fedora 20 beta using BlueZ5 . The sound is jerky probably due to probably the hardware limit.