Compatibility with Fedora (Gnome 47)

[Sajeg]

Well it sure sounds interesting and I would love to try it, but my Gnome version is incompatible with the version of the extension. Do you plan on updating it to the most recent gnome version?

[juanmagdev]

Hi! I think the extension should work fine on Gnome 47. I have tested it on a VM with Fedora and Gnome 47. The UI looks fine, but since I'm running it in a VM, the LED doesn't change on my laptop.

You can try the extension on your ThinkPad by following the manual installation steps:

1. Download the latest .zip file from the release.
2. Extract it and move the folder to ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/.
3. Restart GNOME Shell (log out and log back in).
4. Enable the extension via gnome-extensions.
5. Restart GNOME Shell again (log out and log back in).

You must update the metadata.json file to:

{
    "name": "ThinkPad Red Led Control",
    "description": "A GNOME Shell extension to control and customize the ThinkPad red LED directly from the top panel. It allows you to turn on/off the LED, blink it and send morse code messages.",
    "uuid": "thinkpad-red-led@juanmagd.dev",
    "shell-version": [
      "47"
    ],
    "gettext-domain": "juanmagd.dev",
    "url": "https://github.com/juanmagdev/ThinkPad-Red-Led-Control",
    "version": 3
  }

The only difference is the shell version field.

If you try it and it works fine, I would really appreciate it! I could make a release for Gnome 47 users, but I need a real test.

[Sajeg]

Alright thank you for your reply. I was able to install it, but I was not able to control the LED. First of all I was always prompted to enter my Password, like show on the image, but even when I entered it, the LED didn't change. I tried morsing "Hey", turning it off and blinking, but it always stayed on.

By the way I use an AMD Thinkpad T14 with Fedora 41 and Gnome 47.4. Let me know if I can help you further.

[juanmagdev]

Ok, entering the password is normal. To change the LED state, you need to modify a register, and this can only be done with superuser privileges.

It looks like the way to control the LED on your laptop is different. I don't think this is an issue related to the Gnome version.

Can you run:

sudo modprobe -r ec_sys
sudo modprobe ec_sys write_support=1

And to disable the LED:

echo -n -e "\x0a" | sudo dd of="/sys/kernel/debug/ec/ec0/io" bs=1 seek=12 count=1 conv=notrunc 2> /dev/null

Is the LED off now?

Additionally, can you send me the output of the following command?

sudo hexdump -C /sys/kernel/debug/ec/ec0/io

[Sajeg]

So the first command already failed:

user@Comet:~$ sudo modprobe -r ec_sys
modprobe: FATAL: Module ec_sys not found.

and no the LED did not turn off. Here is the output of the command:

user@Comet:~$ sudo hexdump -C /sys/kernel/debug/ec/ec0/io
hexdump: /sys/kernel/debug/ec/ec0/io: No such file or directory
hexdump: all input file arguments failed

Hope it helped you. If you have anything else, I'm happy to help you.

[juanmagdev]

I'm investigating the issue, and it looks like the problem is Fedora, as it does not include the ec_sys module.

Here are some details about the same bug.

I'm waiting for a Reddit user to test it on Ubuntu with Gnome 47. If it works well for them, the solution will be to install the missing module on Fedora or explore another way to control the LED.

I'm working on it.

[Gelias212]

I was able to get it somewhat working on my T14 gen 1 by editing the extension.js and changing the code for the commands to echo 10 off > /proc/acpi/ibm/led for OFF for example, if you echo that file in terminal with either on, off or blinking it does it, the only problem is that it keeps asking for root password

[juanmagdev]

Hi @Gelias212 ,

Thanks for the tip. Writing to /proc/acpi/ibm/led works on some ThinkPads, but it still needs root. Unless you edit sudoers or adds a custom polkit rule, the password prompt can’t be skipped, and GNOME extension policy doesn’t let us ship those changes.

Could you post the exact commands you used for each state (OFF, ON, BLINK)? With that, I can add a check in the code: if /proc/acpi/ibm/led exists, use your method; otherwise fall back to the ec_sys approach.

[Gelias212]

Sure! here are the commands extracted from my extension.js

const OFF_COMAND = "echo 10 off > /proc/acpi/ibm/led";
const ON_COMAND = "echo 10 on > /proc/acpi/ibm/led";
const BLINK_COMAND = "echo 10 blink > /proc/acpi/ibm/led";

hopefully you find a way to integrate the morse code functionality with these machines 🙏

[juanmagdev]

Hi @Sajeg @Gelias212

I have a tested version in the develop branch. The extension now detects whether it can use ACPI to change the LED status. If not, it falls back to the EC method.

To test it, you can replace the contents of the branch inside/home/<yourUser>/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/thinkpad-red-led@juanmagd.dev. Remember doing log out after the change.