blink (blinkd for keyboard LEDs) doesn't work in 8.10

[stinkinrich88]

Binary package hint: blinkd

Hello,

I used to be able to use blink with no problems at all in Hardy. Now I have a clean install of Intrepid and blink (0.4.8-0.1) no longer works. No output is given, even as root, and no LEDs flash. I emailed the dude that made blink and he didn't have much to say but he wanted to know what was in my /var/log/syslog file, so here's an extract:

Nov 7 10:55:39 ubunrich blinkd: Received appropriate blink rate 0x80 (pid 6766)
Nov 7 10:55:39 ubunrich blinkd: current_led: 2 (pid 6766)
Nov 7 10:55:39 ubunrich blinkd: new_rate: 0 (pid 6766)

The above is repeated many times at the end of the log.

Not sure if this is related, but Intrepid did not map my scrolllock key properly by default. I had to configure it manually using the following solution:

http://linuxtechie.wordpress.com/2008/04/07/getting-scroll-lock-to-work-in-ubuntu/

[billnomates (billygotmail)]

Yeah, this happens to me too, and my scroll-lock key also didn't work on first install.

I get an output though, it say something like "Connection refused". I'll double check later as I am at work right now.

[Kyle Rankin (greenfly-greenfly)]

This bug is also affecting me. Blinkd functioned fine with Hardy and stopped working after the Intrepid upgrade. I notice that when I resume my laptop that the LEDs will blink for a moment up until I see the locked screen login prompt. I haven't had a chance to test yet, but I'm wondering whether it might work if I boot without X altogether.

[Kyle Rankin (greenfly-greenfly)]

To add extra data points, if I shift to VT1 (Ctrl-Alt-F1) then the blinking works. It only stops the moment I change back to X. I tried starting X by itself to see if that affected it and it didn't. In fact the blinking only stopped once gdm started and continued through the rest of the desktop initialization process.

[jenom (jenom)]

I stumbled across the same same thing and ended up here but when I configured a second keyboard layout I discovered something. There is an option which lets you feedback the sate of your keyboard (i.e. the current layout) by switching the scroll lock led and this works fine.