How to Rotate the Screen for a TX2000 Tablet PC

[Favux]

Hi dranorter,

Cool!

[dranorter]

My garbled screen must by the fglrx driver. Other people are having the same experience here: http://www.uluga.ubuntuforums.org/sh...1304273&page=9 Post #90 states the last working version was 9.10.

[Docaltmed]

Has anyone else tried to make this work? I enabled the accessibility features on startup so that I have a keyboard on the screen at usplash. So far, so good.

But when I try to boot up my TX2500 in rotation, it gets upset. The usplash screen will start in landscape mode. At some point, the rotation kicks in, and the usplash screen appears in the desired portrait mode. Then it disappears for a second and reverts back to landscape mode, where it gets stuck on the login and user input merely makes it recycle.

Any suggestions?

[cak3]

Just an update with what I have found to work well.

I have a tx2500z, and I am using Xubuntu 9.10 with compiz and the proprietary fglrx driver. I am also using Tom Jaeger's wacomrotate daemon. I also have hp-wmi enabled in /etc/modules (no need to compile as I am on karmic)

To get automagic rotation, all I have to do is run a little bash daemon I wrote (based on the automagic-rotation script from this thread and the rotation command that goes with the wacomrotate daemon):

#!/bin/bash
# Daemon to automatically rotate the screen
#
# Traps:
# signal QUIT (3) delete temp files
# signal TERM (15) delete temp files

tempfile=/tmp/ROTATION_$$
touch $tempfile

# set traps
trap 'rm -f $tempfile; exit' 0
trap 'rm -f $tempfile; exit' 3
trap 'rm -f $tempfile; exit' 15

# begin rotation loop

old="0"
while true; do
	if [[ -e /sys/devices/platform/hp-wmi/tablet ]]; then
		new=`cat /sys/devices/platform/hp-wmi/tablet`
		if [[ $new != $old ]]; then
            if [[ $new == "0" ]]; then
                xrandr -o normal
            elif [[ $new == "1" ]]; then
                xrandr -o right
            fi
        fi
		old=$new
		sleep 1s
	fi
done

This is somewhat simpler than some of the other solutions, though required the hp-wmi as well as the wacomrotate daemon. The most interesting bit is that I am using fglrx (from the karmic repos) and compiz, and I have no issues rotating with compiz on. This was true with other rotation scripts as well, not just this one. Not sure if I am a special case, or if the fglrx/compiz version is the repos has been changed to allow rotation.

Edit: updated the script, now it uses the same method of detecting orientation as the original automagic rotation script (by detecting whether it is in tablet mode or not). Essentially, the only real differences are that it relies on the wacomrotate daemon to rotate the input, and that is stores its PID in a fine in /tmp, so that you can get that if you need to kill it, and will clean up that file when it is killed. I will probably add a small configuration file, to allow changing the sleep time and maybe a couple other things, and will update accordingly then.

[Favux]

Hi cak3,

Good to hear from you again. That's clever, thanks for sharing. I'll add a link to it in the automagic rotation HOW TO.

That would be good if fglrx finally works with Compiz and rotation! I don't know if Xubuntu has anything to do with it. For others can you tell us what versions of Xserver, Compiz, Catalyst, and fglrx you have?

[cak3]

yea, sorry should have done that above.

In Xubuntu 9.10, I am using fglrx and have rotation working with compiz.

From "X -version":
X.Org X Server 1.6.4
xorg-server 2:1.6.4-2ubuntu4.1

(the first is xserver version, second the package version)

the fglrx and catalyst version is 8.660
(package version of flgrx-kernel-source is 2:8.660-0ubuntu4)
This is just the current package for this in the karmic repositories, installed through the hardware drivers menu item (jockey-gtk)

Compiz is version 0.8.4.

As I stated before, rotation works without disabling compiz or any effects. There is some screen corruption immediately after rotation, but it quickly disappears and after that everything functions normally.


Hope that helps, maybe flgrx, compiz, and rotation do play nice after all. I am also including my xorg.conf, for reference, though it is mostly just what is autogenerated by aticonfig --initial, plus the changed made when enabling rotation (via sudo aticonfig --set-pcs-str="DDX,EnableRandr12,TRUE").

[KEMATSE2]

When I add hp-wmi to my /etc/modules in Karmic for automagic rotation and reboot, hp-wmi appears as expected in lsmod but my mouse becomes completely unresponsive. Touch still works and when I remove hp-wmi my mouse functionality returns. Does anybody have any thoughts?

[Favux]

Hi KEMATSE2,

Welcome to Ubuntu forums!

That's a new one on me. Try:

sudo depmod -a

before rebooting.

[KEMATSE2]

Thank you Favux for your quick reply! Unfortunately my mouse still doesn't work when hp-wmi is enabled in modules after reboot. I'm confused as to why my mouse goes out but the keyboard and touch functions remain operational. ...

[Favux]

Hi KEMATSE2,

I don't understand it either. What mouse do you have? Which tablet pc do you have? What does the output of:

xinput --list

look like in a terminal without and with hp-wmi?