[clue-tech] help with: "fifo: Permission denied" when using acpi_fakekey as non-root

[David L. Anselmi]

Mike Jensen wrote:
> Been lurking around for a while, but never posted before.  Sorry to have
> my first post be a help request.

At least it's not content-free.

> I am trying to get the volume up/down/mute key to work on my Lenovo
> T400.  The distro is Debian Squeeze, fully updated, amd64.  My volume
> keys don't seem to work, so I traced down /etc/acpi/volupbtn.sh (and
> others), and noticed that it was using acpi_fakekey....when I run it as
> such in root, there is no problems, it returns fine.  But when I run the
> same thing as a normal user I get: fifo: Permission denied

For permission problems I would guess that there's a group you add yourself to that will make you 
able to use the buttons.  That's assuming that some piece of relevant software is running as you 
(perhaps as part of your desktop environment) and that this isn't a bug.  But...

Google says other people have seen this too:

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Thinkpad-acpi tells you about the drivers and has some ideas for 
troubleshooting tools.  I think squeeze is keeping up with new kernels.

http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=567645 reports the same bug but doesn't have any 
info.  You could add your findings there, especially if you solve the problem.  (This is the package 
that supplies the script you mention.)

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Install_Ubuntu_8.10_(Intrepid_Ibex)_on_a_Thinkpad_T400 says the volume 
buttons work fine so you could investigate how 8.10 handles this.

http://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Thinkpad/T500 says that volume doesn't work and tells you 
what to do about it, including scripts that you can compare to what you have.

HTH,
Dave