Business - Justin Foell

Dude… you’re getting a Dell(?)!

The last 4 laptops I’ve owned went like this:

2004 – ThinkPad
2009 – Dell
2014 – ThinkPad
2019 – Dell

Whenever I had the Dells I would tell my wife: “Remind me to get a ThinkPad next time.” I wish I listened to my own advice. They’re well thought out – ThinkPads just get a little more love when it comes to design and build. While they’re not without fault, they are generally better than your average laptop.

The Dell laptops I’ve owned have felt cheap and both have gone in for repairs. The good news is, Dell support is pretty good about fixing things. But I wish I didn’t have to send them in for repairs. Sidenote: my old ThinkPads have made for excellent loaners during repair periods. Dell really should be cheap and cheerful, but the whole experience leaves me feeling a bit “meh.”

Continue reading →

The latest issue on my 2019 XPS 13 is that the keyboard appeared to be getting out of whack. I noticed the control and function keys were sitting at different angles.

Then I realized: my battery is puffed. I confirmed it when the lid wouldn’t close fully.

After reflecting on the situation, I realized my laptop has spent the better part of 1.5 years (since COVID started) operating on AC power. Normally on my ThinkPad I’d use TLP to keep my normal battery charge at around 60-80%. But those features aren’t available on my XPS:

$ sudo tlp-stat
...
+++ Battery Features: Charge Thresholds and Recalibrate
natacpi    = inactive (laptop not supported)
tpacpi-bat = inactive (laptop not supported)
tp-smapi   = inactive (laptop not supported)
...

Other TLP features (like disabling wifi when plugged into the wired network) do work on my XPS, so I leave it installed & enabled. For battery management, you must use Dell’s own Command Configure tool: cctk

There’s a great write-up on the XPS 7390 over in the Arch Linux wiki.

So I set up cctk to keep my (new, now replaced) battery at 80%.
sudo crontab -l

...
@reboot /opt/dell/dcc/cctk --PrimaryBattChargeCfg=Custom:75-80

And I have a shell script that I can run to bring the charge up to 100%:
vi ~/bin/full_charge.sh

#!/bin/sh
sudo /opt/dell/dcc/cctk --PrimaryBattChargeCfg=Standard

Do yourself a favor – next time get a ThinkPad.

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A coworker gave a lunch and learn about mechanical keyboards. I should have known it would be an entrance to a black hole… it all started 25 years ago with my beloved Zeos Keyboard with Alps keygates – which I consequently wrecked after spilling a beer into it 🍺 Then onto my HHKB Lite2 which I still have but need a host of adapters to connect its PS/2 connector.

Now I’m entering the modern mechanical era with a Keychron K6 – a 65% keyboard that closely resembles my HHKB layout. It has Gateron Blue (light and clicky) switches that remind me of my famed Zeos board. Here’s the original layout:

My first issue is I have a bit of OCD when it comes to pairing. I expect insert/del, home/end, and page up/down to be at least near each other, if not next to each other. So I changed the keycaps in the far right row, around the corner to the FN1/2 keys. I used low(ish) profile DSA keys on this edge to mimic the lower arrow keys from the HHKB. Also I got custom colored beige/blue FN1/FN2 keys to quickly remind me that FN1 is for the gold functions and FN2 is for blue.

Now I needed to change what the swapped keys did when I pressed them…

Continue reading →

When it comes to customizing keyboards in Linux, there are at least 10 ways to skin this cat 😼 but for a one-to-one replacement, evdev is the answer. Why? Because it’s low-level enough to work with everything, whether you use Xorg or Wayland. It even works in the console.

Getting information about your keyboard

For our research you’ll probably need to install a couple of things:

sudo apt install evtest evemu-tools

You can use evemu-describe to get information about your keyboard. If you run evemu-describe without any arguments, you’ll be prompted to select the input device. I’ve highlighted my input in bold.

$ sudo evemu-describe
Available devices:
/dev/input/event0:	Lid Switch
...
/dev/input/event19:	Generic USB Audio
/dev/input/event20:	Keychron K6 Keyboard
/dev/input/event21:	Keychron K6 Consumer Control
/dev/input/event22:	Keychron K6 System Control
/dev/input/event23:	BluetoothMouse3600 Mouse
/dev/input/event24:	BluetoothMouse3600 Consumer Control
Select the device event number [0-24]: 20
# EVEMU 1.3
# Kernel: 5.11.0-27-generic
# DMI: dmi:bvnDellInc.:bvr1.7.0:bd10/22/2020:br1.7:svnDellInc.:pnXPS137390:pvr:rvnDellInc.:rn0G2D0W:rvrA00:cvnDellInc.:ct10:cvr:
# Input device name: "Keychron K6 Keyboard"
# Input device ID: bus 0x05 vendor 0x5ac product 0x24f version 0x11b
# Supported events:
#   Event type 0 (EV_SYN)
#     Event code 0 (SYN_REPORT)
...
#     Event code 15 (SYN_MAX)
#   Event type 1 (EV_KEY)
#     Event code 1 (KEY_ESC)
...
# Properties:
N: Keychron K6 Keyboard
I: 0005 05ac 024f 011b
...

Take note of the properties line towards the bottom:
I: 0005 05ac 024f 011b
It is the Bus/Product/Vendor/Version identifier that we’ll use that to identify the keyboard in our hardware DB file.

Gather Keycode & Scancode Information

Along with the Bus/Product/Vendor/Version identifier, you’ll need scancodes and keycodes for our configuration file.

The keys I wanted to replace on the far right are:

Home -> Grave/Tilde
Page Up -> Insert
Page Down -> Delete

To get scancodes, run sudo evtest and select the input device you want to test (same as above), and then press the keys you want to switch out.

$ sudo evtest
No device specified, trying to scan all of /dev/input/event*
Available devices:
/dev/input/event0:	Lid Switch
...
/dev/input/event19:	Generic USB Audio
/dev/input/event20:	Keychron K6 Keyboard
/dev/input/event21:	Keychron K6 Consumer Control
/dev/input/event22:	Keychron K6 System Control
/dev/input/event23:	BluetoothMouse3600 Mouse
/dev/input/event24:	BluetoothMouse3600 Consumer Control
Select the device event number [0-24]: 20
Input driver version is 1.0.1
Input device ID: bus 0x5 vendor 0x5ac product 0x24f version 0x11b
Input device name: "Keychron K6 Keyboard"
Supported events:
  Event type 0 (EV_SYN)
  Event type 1 (EV_KEY)
    Event code 1 (KEY_ESC)
...
Testing ... (interrupt to exit)
Event: time 1629497486.881450, type 4 (EV_MSC), code 4 (MSC_SCAN), value 70028
Event: time 1629497486.881450, type 1 (EV_KEY), code 28 (KEY_ENTER), value 0
Event: time 1629497486.881450, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------
Event: time 1629497489.406440, type 4 (EV_MSC), code 4 (MSC_SCAN), value 7004a
Event: time 1629497489.406440, type 1 (EV_KEY), code 102 (KEY_HOME), value 1
Event: time 1629497489.406440, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------

For example, the scancode for the HOME key is 7004a. The keycodes are printed in all caps, such as KEY_HOME. You can also look up keycodes here, or if you’re trying to add a new key that isn’t on your keyboard, you can find all keycodes in /usr/include/linux/input-event-codes.h

We’re going to put this all into a hardware DB file. The filename is arbitrary, as long as it has a .hwdb extension. I put a number at the beginning because config files like this are loaded in filename order. If something should load before or after, it can use a lower/higher number (respectively).

sudo vi /etc/udev/hwdb.d/50-k6keyboard-bt.hwdb

# Input device ID: bus 0x5 vendor 0x5ac product 0x24f version 0x11b
# evdev:input:b<bus_id>v<vendor_id>p<product_id>e<version_id>-<modalias>
evdev:input:b0005v05ACp024F*
 KEYBOARD_KEY_7004a=grave
 KEYBOARD_KEY_7004b=delete
 KEYBOARD_KEY_7004e=insert

It took several attempts to get this right. I didn’t realize that the format is very particular and it should look something like: b0000v0000p0000e0000*. Don’t include the hex prefix of 0x. Also hex values must be capitalized in udev version 220 and above. Lastly, put a * at the end to capture all the versions. You can verify your version of udev by running:

$ udevadm --version
245

The keycode remapping lines must look like this:
KEYBOARD_KEY_<scancode>=<keycode>
The keycodes must be lowercase on the right side of the .hwdb file.

Build & Test

Once your hardware DB file is saved, you can test out the setup, by running these commands:

$ sudo systemd-hwdb update
$ sudo udevadm trigger
$ udevadm info /dev/input/event20
P: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb1/1-7/1-7:1.0/bluetooth/hci0/hci0:256/0005:05AC:024F.0007/input/input41/event20
N: input/event20
L: 0
E: DEVPATH=/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb1/1-7/1-7:1.0/bluetooth/hci0/hci0:256/0005:05AC:024F.0007/input/input41/event20
E: DEVNAME=/dev/input/event20
E: MAJOR=13
E: MINOR=84
E: SUBSYSTEM=input
E: USEC_INITIALIZED=4366743414
E: KEYBOARD_KEY_7004a=grave
E: KEYBOARD_KEY_7004b=delete
E: KEYBOARD_KEY_7004e=insert
E: ID_INPUT=1
E: ID_INPUT_KEY=1
E: ID_INPUT_KEYBOARD=1
E: ID_BUS=bluetooth
E: XKBMODEL=pc105
E: XKBLAYOUT=us
E: BACKSPACE=guess
E: LIBINPUT_DEVICE_GROUP=5/5ac/24f:90:78:41:ca:1e:02
E: TAGS=:power-switch:

The first command (systemd-hwdb update) reads the hwdb files and rebuilds the binary hardware database from the text files. The second (udevadm trigger) tells udev to (re)scan hardware for matches. The last (udevadm info) helps verify that the configuration – remember to replace event20 with your device ID.

You can see in the output that my KEYBOARD_KEY entries are there and they do indeed work 💪 It will also be there after you reboot.

My next step will be adding home/end and page up/down modifiers to my arrow keys…

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In my other XPS 13 DE Settings post, I linked to an article about mouse lag that helped my Microsoft 3600 mouse behave better.

Last week I noticed it started acting up again 😔 so I revisited the problem. My previous settings had apparently been wiped out with my upgrade to Ubuntu 20.04. But in my search I found some other settings that might help.

Continue reading →

I’m applying both the settings from this post and my previous one, as I feel like the settings in this post additionally help smooth out mouse wheel scrolling.

From this bug report you can also change the latency settings for your bluetooth (BT) mouse. I found it easiest to execute these commands as root so I could use tab completion to navigate the bluetooth mac addresses:

The BT device info file is at /var/lib/bluetooth/<BT adapter MAC>/<BT device MAC>/info.

So I type vi /var/lib/bluetooth/<TAB>EF<TAB>info to get to the right file.

vi /var/lib/bluetooth/90\:78\:41\:CA\:1E\:02/EF\:E5\:F1\:99\:EA\:24/info

My file started out with these default ConnectionParameters:

[ConnectionParameters]
MinInterval=6
MaxInterval=6
Latency=60
Timeout=300

I changed those values to:

[ConnectionParameters]
MinInterval=6
MaxInterval=7
Latency=0
Timeout=216

Then I restarted the BT system with systemctl restart bluetooth

Hopefully this quick tip helps you iron out the kinks with your MS 3600 BT Mouse!

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Configuring E911 support with Skyetel is simple on their side, as it should be. But because it’s an emergency service, I wanted to do a separate post to underscore the importance on making sure it works.

I mostly followed this support article from Skyetel: https://support.skyetel.com/hc/en-us/articles/360041179233-E911 except I went in reverse order…

Continue reading →

Asterisk Settings

I made the Asterisk PBX changes from the bottom of their article first. I also followed this article regarding changes in Asterisk: https://wiki.incrediblepbx.com/Configuring-e911-with-Incredible-PBX

From your Incredible PBX Admin website control panel, navigate to Connectivity -> Outbound Routes.

Skyetel requires that your outbound caller ID is the 11-digit number of your phone. I updated my other Skyetel setup post to reflect this change – it was previously using a 10-digit number.

Edit your main Skyetel route and click Duplicate:

Then you’ll have a copy of your main route that you can edit:

Per the IncrediblePBX E911 Wiki page, set the name to E911 and set Override Extension to Yes. The other change I made was to mark it as an emergency route:

You can see by the help text that it forces the caller ID (CID) to be a specific number (if set). I don’t have any other numbers besides the one I ported from Google Voice, but you’ll be able to see later how it clearly indicates this extension is set up for emergency calling.

Then go to the Dial Patterns tab and remove all of the pre-existing dialplans by clicking the trashcan icons:

Click the Dial patterns wizards button to generate new dialing plans:

Unselect all options except “US Emergency” and then click Generate Routes. You’ll have all of the appropriate 911 and 933 (testing) dialplans added, plus some extras to make sure all bases are covered. There’s a sad story behind Kari’s Law and why these extra dialplans are ultimately unnecessary, but I’ll keep them just in case.

Once those are added click Submit at the bottom and you’ll be brought back to the Outbound Routes list where you can see the emergency icon lit up:

Move your E911 Route up to the top of the list by dragging it by the crosshair icon. Then click “Apply Config” to save all your changes and reload the dialplan.

Skyetel Settings

Over at the Skyetel dashboard, it’s as easy as following their support document. I’ve included screenshots here as additional examples. Head to Phone Numbers -> Local Numbers and click the gear icon on the number you want to edit.

Once editing your number, go to the E911 tab and set it to Enabled. Fill out your name and address so Skyetel can route you to the correct emergency service provider.

Once it’s enabled, the E911 indicator will be bright green:

Enabling E911 will add $1.50/mo to your bill. But for $2.50 per month ($1 for the local number, $1.50 for E911), it’s way cheaper than having a land line. I like that anyone in the house can dial 911, especially kids.

Testing

Testing 911 dialing seems like a nerve-wracking thing to do. Luckily Skyetel understands your anxiety and has set up a test number of 933 that you can dial to make sure everything is set up correctly.

When you dial 933, if everything is set up correctly an automated Skyetel message will tell you it’s working. It will also read back your configured caller ID and address to verify.

One minor hiccup I noticed is that my call didn’t go through until after a 15 second delay. If it were an actual emergency I would be panicking during this time.

The problem was at my RTP-300. You can dial a pound (#) to commit to the dialed number immediately – I like this for dialing my 702 extension. If I want to dial that extension, I dial 702# – because I might otherwise be trying to call a friend in the Las Vegas 702 area code.

I inspected the dialplan for the two lines of my RTP-300:

The default dialplan is:

(*xx|[3469]11|0|00|[2-9]xxxxxx|1xxx[2-9]xxxxxxS0|xxxxxxxxxxxx.)

You can see it includes 911 as part of the [3469]11 pattern – which will also recognize 311, 411, 611. I added a separate 933 entry.

(*xx|[3469]11|933|0|00|[2-9]xxxxxx|1xxx[2-9]xxxxxxS0|xxxxxxxxxxxx.)

I made these changes on both lines. Now my calls to 933 connect within 5 seconds. Glad to know it will also do the same for 911 🚓🚑🚒

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My network topology at home is pretty simple, it looks like this:

After my recent router hardware and OpenWrt 19.07 firmware upgrades, I noticed my access point connected to my cable modem looked like this on the Status Overview page:

Pro-tip: Notice I’m using the cloudflare DNS servers rather than the ISP-provided ones. The Comcast DNS servers have gone down on me before and their performance is generally lacking.

Continue reading →

But over on my bridged router it looked like this:

Further more, when I went to the command line on my bridged router, I couldn’t ping any IPv6 addresses:

root@ap2:~# ping ipv6.google.com
PING ipv6.google.com (2607:f8b0:4009:807::200e): 56 data bytes
ping: sendto: Permission denied

My concern was if the bridged router can’t contact IPv6 addresses, the same is probably true for the devices that are connecting through it.

I found the solution in this thread on the OpenWrt forums. While it’s easy to statically assign an IPv4 address, along with a default gateway and DNS server – for IPv6 it’s easiest to set up another lan interface specifically for IPv6 that gets it’s IPv6 address (and routes) automatically from the upstream router – rather than assigning it statically.

The TL;DR version of this post is to add this to your network config:

config interface 'lan6'
	option ifname '@lan'
	option proto 'dhcpv6'
	option reqprefix 'no'

Configuring IPv6 Bridging through the Web Interface

To do the same thing above via LuCI – the OpenWrt web interface, here’s how. Initially on the Network -> Interfaces page, ou can see my IPv4 lan with the wan ports disabled:

Click “Add new interface…”

Name it “lan6” and choose the DHCPv6 client protocol. For the interface, select the @lan alias. Then click Create Interface. You’ll be brought to a second screen.

All I had to do on this page was change the “Request IPv6-prefix” value to disabled. No need to change anything on the other tabs – the defaults are fine.

Now the Status -> Overview page on my bridged router looks like this:

Now I can ping IPv6 addresses from the command line on my bridged router:

root@ap2:~# ping -c 2 ipv6.google.com
PING ipv6.google.com (2607:f8b0:4009:807::200e): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 2607:f8b0:4009:807::200e: seq=0 ttl=115 time=17.884 ms
64 bytes from 2607:f8b0:4009:807::200e: seq=1 ttl=115 time=17.351 ms

--- ipv6.google.com ping statistics ---
2 packets transmitted, 2 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 17.351/17.617/17.884 ms

One of my 2021 goals is to better understand IPv6 concepts (at least as well as I can understand IPv4). If there’s any *nix configurations I find helpful along the way, I’ll post ’em here.

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Justin Foell

Technology, Bicycling, Hobbies, Kids, Life.

Category Archives: Business

Dell XPS Developer Edition Battery Puffed

Remapping Keyboard Keys in Ubuntu with udev / evdev

Getting information about your keyboard

Gather Keycode & Scancode Information

Build & Test

Microsoft 3600 BT mouse latency in Linux

IncrediblePBX 911 dialing with Skyetel

Asterisk Settings

Skyetel Settings

Testing

OpenWrt Bridging with IPv6 support

Configuring IPv6 Bridging through the Web Interface