Re: [PATCH] Default keyboard LEDs

From: H. Peter Anvin
Date: Sun Jan 13 2008 - 22:51:07 EST


Samuel Thibault wrote:
In many cases, one prefers to have e.g. the NumLock on by default. In
many cases, one doesn't want to have it by default, e.g. on laptops.

Distributions actually have a very hard time trying to set this
correctly after the kernel boot, and that doesn't work for new consoles
that are created via the openvt(1) command anyway. This hence adds a
keyboard.default_leds boot parameter that permits to configure the
default keyboard LEDs.

Signed-off-by: Samuel Thibault <samuel.thibault@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

Actually, what would be perfect would be to use the configuration that
the BIOS sets at boot by default. That is device-dependent, however.


It is, but it can be read out either by INT calls at initialization time, or by reading out the byte at physical address 0x417:

--------K-M00400017--------------------------
MEM 0040h:0017h - KEYBOARD - STATUS FLAGS 1
Size: BYTE
SeeAlso: MEM 0040h:0018h,INT 16/AH=02h,MEM 0040h:0096h

Bitfields for keyboard status flags 1:
Bit(s) Description (Table M0010)
7 INSert active
6 Caps Lock active
5 Num Lock active
4 Scroll Lock active
3 either Alt pressed
2 either Ctrl pressed
1 Left Shift pressed
0 Right Shift pressed
SeeAlso: #M0011,#00587

The same information is available through INT 16h, AH=02h.

-hpa
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