some specs:
os : kubuntu 18.04
driver : thinkapad_acpi 0.26
laptop : thinkpad x1 yoga gen4
I got a new laptop. It's a 2 in 1, I want to be able to use the keyboard in tablet as I'm plugged into an external monitor. In xinput there is a device called 'ThinkPad Extra Buttons' that is tied to the event /dev/input/event13 (this boot, it changes). I tracked that down using acpi_listen and libinput debug-events. Anyways I'm looking for a way to remove that event. Before I dug in this far I tried several things.
{en,dis}abling inputs via xinput
blocking the device with xorg.conf (it did prevent 'thinkpad extra buttons' from showing up but did not stop the behaviour of keyboard disable
disabling thinkpad_acpi and thinkpad_hwmon via sysfs(it's possible I did this wrong and it may be a valid solution)
finding a way to remove that event is what I'm trying now. if that doesn't work I'll move on to trying to identify the actual tablet switch hardware device and somehow blacklisting it. So far I think the best way to do that is via sysfs but I could be wrong.
when I did the above listed step 3. I ran
echo thinkpad_acpi > /sys/devices/platform/thinkpad_acpi/unbind
Is there somewhere some other driver I can try and unbind, I've tried a few but havn't gotten anything yet. I'm having trouble finding information about what all the paths and files mean. Is there some driver that is specifically responsible for tablet mode switch, if so how can I find it among the crazy circular sys tree and how can I verify that my unbind commands are going through?
Most of this was derived from the commments on the first answer to this question:
How to completely inhibit lid switch events?
I have a better lead up to what I've done thus far here:
