How do I get my Dell XT or XT2 to work with Magick Rotation?

Created by Favux
Keywords:
dell-wmi dkms wmi
Last updated by:
Favux

The default dell-wmi with the kernel does not report the hinge switch state which Magick Rotation needs in order to work. What we can do is the use the version modified by Rafi Rubin along with dkms.

Open a terminal and copy the dell-wmi-20101214-rafi folder to /usr/src. It is located in the MagickExtras folder in the magick-rotation folder. Either use the path to the MagickExtras folder (assuming you extracted it onto your Desktop):

    sudo cp -a /home/yourusername/Desktop/magick-rotation/MagickExtras/dell-wmi-20101214-rafi /usr/src/

or after you change directories into the MagickExtras folder:

    sudo cp -a dell-wmi-20101214-rafi /usr/src/

Then continue with the following:

    sudo dkms add -m dell-wmi -v 20101214-rafi
    sudo dkms build -m dell-wmi -v 20101214-rafi
    sudo dkms install -m dell-wmi -v 20101214-rafi

When you restart, it should now report the swivel hinge. You should be able to see the information through:

    sudo xxd -g1 /dev/input/dell-wmi

For those of you wondering why we are using dkms for this, dkms will recompile the modified dell-wmi kernel module every time for you when there is a kernel change.

The reason this modified dell-wmi was not accepted into the kernel is that it does not proactively poll the swivel hinge state. If you know how to do that please let us know. We'd love to get reporting of tablet state for the Dells into the kernel.