Re: [PATCH v4 1/1] asus-wmi: Add support for custom fan curves

[Bastien Nocera]

On Sat, 2021-08-21 at 09:30 +1200, Luke Jones wrote:
> 
> 
> On Fri, Aug 20 2021 at 13:39:02 +0200, Bastien Nocera 
> <hadess@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > On Fri, 2021-08-20 at 23:00 +1200, Luke Jones wrote:
> > > 
> > > 
> > >  On Fri, Aug 20 2021 at 12:51:08 +0200, Bastien Nocera
> > >  <hadess@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > >  > On Fri, 2021-08-20 at 12:43 +0200, Bastien Nocera wrote:
> > >  > >  On Fri, 2021-08-20 at 22:33 +1200, Luke Jones wrote:
> > >  > >  > > Am I going to get bug reports from Asus users that will
> > >  > > complain
> > >  > >  > > that
> > >  > >  > > power-profiles-daemon doesn't work correctly, where I
> > > will
> > >  > > have
> > >  > >  > > to
> > >  > >  > > wearily ask if they're using an Asus Rog laptop?
> > >  > >  >
> > >  > >  > No. Definitely not. The changes to fan curves per-profile
> > > need
> > >  > > to
> > >  > >  > be
> > >  > >  > explicitly enabled and set. So a new user will be unaware
> > > that
> > >  > > this
> > >  > >  > control exists (until they look for it) and their laptop
> > > will
> > >  > >  > behave
> > >  > >  > exactly as default.
> > >  > >
> > >  > >  "The user will need to change the fan curves manually so
> > > will
> > >  > >  definitely remember to mention it in bug reports" is a very
> > >  > > different
> > >  > >  thing to "the user can't change the fan curves to be 
> > > nonsensical
> > >  > > and
> > >  > >  mean opposite things".
> > >  > >
> > >  > >  I can assure you that I will eventually get bug reports
> > > from
> > >  > > "power
> > >  > >  users" who break their setup and wonder why things don't
> > > work
> > >  > >  properly,
> > >  > >  without ever mentioning the changes they made changes to
> > > the 
> > > fan
> > >  > >  curves, or anything else they might have changed.
> > >  >
> > >  > A way to taint the settings that power-profiles-daemon could
> > > catch
> > >  > would be fine by me. I absolutely don't want to have to
> > > support
> > >  > somebody's tweaks until they undo them.
> > > 
> > >  Definitely understood. Do you have something in mind?
> > 
> > A sysfs attribute with boolean data that shows whether custom fan
> > curves are used would be enough.
> 
> The path /sys/devices/platform/asus-nb-wmi/active_fan_curve_profiles 
> should be usable like this? I added this as the method for
> controlling 
> which fan curves for which profiles are active.
> 
> If empty, then no custom fan curves are active at all. If it contains
> any combination of strings "quiet, balanced, performance" then those 
> associated (named) platform_profiles have an active fan curve and you
> can throw up a general warning, maybe add the contents of that file
> too?

That works for me, although I would probably have preferred a way that
wasn't specific to the asus-wmi module, I'm sure I can made do with
that.

Thanks