Dell Inspiron 1090 (Duo) Accelerometer Magnetometer Driver

[DFarmerTX]

I'm hoping that by starting this thread, we can gather information and solve the issues associated with getting auto-rotation working on the Dell Duo convertible laptop.

There are minor issues with other devices on the system, but so far, everything is pretty much solved. However, the netbook has a chip to detect orientation and location that works in Windows to (among other things) automatically change the rotation of the screen (4 ways) and orientation of the touch screen to match the orientation of the system.

The part is listed by Dell as "ST Microelectronics ST DL303DLH Sensor". I can't find this on my system in Ubuntu. I suspect it is hidden in WMI or something.

Also, I can't find any reference to this chip from anywhere except the Dell site.

So, what do we have to do to get this working?

[garwal]

If you get any information on this please let me know. I have done a lot of looking and can not find any information on this sensor. I spent some time searching the companies site trying to find information on the 3 axis sensor but could find no reference to this device. I know we can do it but first we need to find information on Linux and these types of devices, I will be happy to help.
garwal

[DFarmerTX]

If you get any information on this please let me know. I have done a lot of looking and can not find any information on this sensor. I spent some time searching the companies site trying to find information on the 3 axis sensor but could find no reference to this device. I know we can do it but first we need to find information on Linux and these types of devices, I will be happy to help.
garwal

Found this:
http://code.google.com/p/ldd6410-2-6-28/source/browse/trunk/linux-2.6.28-samsung/...


Which I think is the chip.

Also, looks like someone has proposed adding support to Linux for it here:

http://groups.google.com/group/linux.kernel/...

So, maybe it's just a matter of time. Does anyone know if we can do anything with the above information now?

I feel like such a n00b!

[DFarmerTX]

delete duplicate

[lukeross]

I run Fedora on my Inspiron Duo, and after a fair bit of fiddling have got the Accelerometer working. I've got some hastily-written notes here: http://lukeross.name/dell/#accelerometer - but in a nutshell I took the driver mentioned, patched it a bit further and then it can be poked into the kernel and the values read out.

I've since put together a perl script which reads the accelerometer and uses it to xrandr the display along with some xinput to rotate the touchscreen - it's under the heading "Screen and touchpad rotation".

It'll probably need some amendment for Ubuntu, but I mention it here in the hope it proves useful.

[w1ll1am]

I run Fedora on my Inspiron Duo, and after a fair bit of fiddling have got the Accelerometer working. I've got some hastily-written notes here: http://lukeross.name/dell/#accelerometer - but in a nutshell I took the driver mentioned, patched it a bit further and then it can be poked into the kernel and the values read out.

I've since put together a perl script which reads the accelerometer and uses it to xrandr the display along with some xinput to rotate the touchscreen - it's under the heading "Screen and touchpad rotation".

It'll probably need some amendment for Ubuntu, but I mention it here in the hope it proves useful.

Great job. Do you think there is anyway you could try to get it to work in ubuntu or talk me threw trying to set it up?

[lukeross]

I'll see if I can bodge together the kernel module on 10.10 this weekend. If that works the perl rotation script should work unaided. I'll report back as to how things go once done.

Regarding my work-in-progress mock-DuoStage UI, I'm having fun with the virtual keyboard. The UI comes up when I flip the screen, and I can web browse on it (thanks Webkit), but all the gnome virtual keyboard (eg. Florence) get hidden because the UI is always on top (to hide the panels and other such things). I think I'll have to roll my own within the app, irritatingly.

[w1ll1am]

I'll see if I can bodge together the kernel module on 10.10 this weekend. If that works the perl rotation script should work unaided. I'll report back as to how things go once done.

Regarding my work-in-progress mock-DuoStage UI, I'm having fun with the virtual keyboard. The UI comes up when I flip the screen, and I can web browse on it (thanks Webkit), but all the gnome virtual keyboard (eg. Florence) get hidden because the UI is always on top (to hide the panels and other such things). I think I'll have to roll my own within the app, irritatingly.

alright sounds awesome and again great work!

Also I tried to get the flipping screen to run a command and it is not working? I did everything you said to and still nothing happens? any ideas why?

I checked the kernel log and it says the same thing as yours.

[lukeross]

OK, I've built the kernel modules under 10.10 32-bit and they're available here:

http://lukeross.name/dell/ubuntu-accel.tar.bz2

There's a version for 2.6.35-22-generic-i686 (the kernel that is on the distribution CD) and 2.6.35-28-generic-i686 (which is the kernel that apt installed when I asked for an upgrade). You can find your kernel version with the command "uname -r".

Change into the right directory as root, and then load the module with:

insmod lsm303dlh_a.ko

Then follow that up with the following commands:

modprobe i2c_i801
echo lsm303dlh_a 25 > /sys/bus/i2c/devices/i2c-2/new_device
echo 1 > /sys/bus/i2c/devices/i2c-2/2-0019/mode

Check the module's working with this command:

cat /sys/bus/i2c/devices/i2c-2/2-0019/data

You should get 3 values (which are in hexadecimal) separated with colons. If so, all is good. If not, the bottom few lines of the "dmesg" command may explain what went wrong.

Then as a normal user, you can download my autorotate script and run it with "perl autorotate.pl". It'll print something like "Z up" (depending on orientation). Turn the whole netbook sharp to the right and it should say that it is turning the screen, which should rotate shortly after. You should be able to turn the it to the left and upside down too.

[lukeross]

I tried the run-on-flip bit on 10.10 and it did work, but you do need to make sure you've run setkeycodes prior, and set both the "run_command_1" and "command_1" entries in gconf. Make sure the command is valid - if the command isn't runnable metacity silently does nothing. And of course, if Metacity isn't your window manager it won't work.

apps/metacity/global_keybindings/run_command_1 should be set to the value "XF86Launch1" and apps/metacity/keybinding_commands/command_1 I set to "/usr/bin/gedit" for testing.