[PATCH 0/5] [Karmic] Fix Mute button functionality on Lenovo Thinkpads

[Tim Gardner]

Jerone Young wrote:
> Impact: All recently Lenovo Thinkpads since the T61/X61/R61 have an
> issue under Linux where the Mute key will act independent of the OS at a
> hardware level. The problem though is the user never sees an OSD and
> they also don't realize they are muted as their is no indicator. Also on
> some Lenovo Thinkpads the mute will only work for the speakers and not
> the headphones. 
> 
> LP# 281732
> 
> Lenovo put logic in the bios of all Thinkpads to query, if the OS is
> "Linux", the bios will change the functionality of the mute key to be a
> mute key press.
> 
> It is rather unfortunate Lenovo still doing this today. Though these
> platforms are highly unlikely to get a bios update to better handle how
> the mute hot key should work under Linux. Fortunately the mute key is
> the only area that is affected.
> 
> Fix: The following patches are fixes by exposing the OS as Linux to
> recently released Thinkpads so that the mute key will act as a mute key
> press.
> 
> Testcase: When press mute key you will see on screen display indicating
> that the mute key has been pressed and the sound is muted. 
> 
> 

Have you corresponded with the Thinkpad ACPI folks about these changes?

 From the MAINTAINERS file:

THINKPAD ACPI EXTRAS DRIVER
M:      Henrique de Moraes Holschuh <ibm-acpi at hmh.eng.br>
L:      ibm-acpi-devel at lists.sourceforge.net
W:      http://ibm-acpi.sourceforge.net
W:      http://thinkwiki.org/wiki/Ibm-acpi
T:      git git://repo.or.cz/linux-2.6/linux-acpi-2.6/ibm-acpi-2.6.git
S:      Maintained
F:      drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.c

-- 
Tim Gardner tim.gardner at canonical.com