[fm-discuss] improved platform control

[Garrett D'Amore]

(Posting here at the recommendation of David Bustos.)

I'm working on improving support for Tadpole's platforms in
Solaris/OpenSolaris.

We have a number of sensors and control elements on these platforms that
are unique to our platform (temperature sensors, lid switches, fans,
extra buttons, etc.)

Right now we have our own closed-source solution to this that involves a
daemon which can either receive events (interrupts) from things like lid
switches and battery alarms, or can poll certain devices if they can't
interrupt.  Then in response, it can take a variety of actions, using an
extensible Tcl framework.

It seems like _events_ can be handled with the existing sysevent
framework, but it also seems like we need more than that.  Especially
nice would be some common API for platform control, like being able to
adjust backlight brightness when the external DC power is removed (i.e.
going wireless).

I've been poking around, and come across PICL, but unfortunately it
seems like there aren't really any good references for how to best use
PICL -- and there doesn't seem to be any common commands other than
"locator" and "prtpicl" to use any of libpicl.

David Bustos indicated that there was some idea to start a new sensor
framework, and I should post here to indicate my interest.  Obviously,
I'm interested in both sensors (both active interrupting and passive
polling) and control.

I'm not on this list at the moment, but can join it if that is appropriate.

Thanks.

-- 
Garrett D'Amore, Principal Software Engineer
Tadpole Computer / Computing Technologies Division,
General Dynamics C4 Systems
http://www.tadpolecomputer.com/
Phone: 951 325-2134  Fax: 951 325-2191