matebook-applet

matebook-applet

System tray applet for Huawei Matebook

This simple applet is designed to make some of the proptietary Huawei PC Manager's functionality available via GUI on Linux.

• Installation and setup
  • Huawei-WMI driver - for those running Linux kernel 5.0 or later
  • EC scripts - for those with older kernel
  • Compiling
• Usage
• Development
• Credits

Installation and setup

The applet requires no installation as such (although you may want to add it to autorun so that it gets started automatically when you load your DE). However, it depends on libappindicator to be installed on your system (sudo apt install libappindicator3-1 for Debian), and it relies on underlying pieces of software to be installed so that it is user-accessible:

Huawei-WMI driver

Starting with version 1.2 the best way to get the matebook-applet working is to install Huawei-WMI driver by Ayman Bagabas. You'll need at least version 3.0 of his driver. Be advised that the driver is only compatible with Linux kernel 5.0 or later.

After installing the driver you may start using the matebook-applet right away. However, it will only be able to display the current settings, not change them. In order to do that you either need to run the applet as root (absolutely not recommended), or make sure all the necessary files (the hooks in /sys/devices/platform/huawei-wmi as well as /etc/default/huawei-wmi/ directory) are user-writable. A good way to set everything up is to make use of Rouven Spreckels' awesome project:

$ git clone https://github.com/qu1x/huawei-wmi.git

$ cd huawei-wmi/generic
 or
$ cd huawei-wmi/debian

$ sudo make install

You may need to re-login for adding your user to group to take effect.

Debian users may download .deb package from releases page.

Embedded controller scripts

On Linux kernels earlier than 5.0 you can make this matebook-applet work using the two scripts as explained below. Any one of them is enough, but you need both for full functionality. You may download them both in one archive here. Please note that these scripts are for MateBook 13 and will not work on other MateBooks (you can still get them to work by changing them to address EC registers proper for your particular model, but make sure you know exactly what you're doing, you've been warned).

Both scripts depend on ioport to work, so make sure to install it first. Debian packages are available in main repository, and there is a way to get it on Arch, too.

• To get battery protection functionality:

  1. Download the batpro script, make it executable and copy to root executables path, i.e.:

     # mv batpro /usr/sbin/
     

  2. Allow your user to execute the script without providing sudo credentials. One way to do this would be to explicitly add sudoers permission (please be aware of possible security implications):

     # echo "your_username ALL = NOPASSWD: /usr/sbin/batpro" >> /etc/sudoers.d/batpro
     # chmod 0440 /etc/sudoers.d/batpro
     

  3. Double check that you can successfully run the script without providing additional authentication (i.e. password):

     $ sudo batpro status
     

• To get Fn-Lock functionality:

  1. Download the fnlock script, make it executable and copy to root executables path, i.e.:

     # mv fnlock /usr/sbin/
     

  2. Allow your user to execute the script without providing sudo credentials. One way to do this would be to explicitly add sudoers permission (please be aware of possible security implications):

      # echo "your_username ALL = NOPASSWD: /usr/sbin/fnlock" >> /etc/sudoers.d/fnlock
      # chmod 0440 /etc/sudoers.d/fnlock
     

  3. Double check that you can successfully run the script without providing additional authentication (i.e. password):

      $ sudo fnlock status
     

Compiling matebook-applet

You can always download precompiled amd64 binary from releases page, but it's also perfectly OK to compile matebook-applet yourself:

    $ git clone https://github.com/nekr0z/matebook-applet.git
    $ cd matebook-applet
    $ go run build.go

Usage

The user interface is intentionally as simple as they get. You get an icon in system tray that you can click and get a menu. The menu consists of current status, options to change it, and an option to quit the applet. Please be aware that the applet does not probe for current status on its own (this is intentional), so if you change your battery protection settings by other means it will not reflect the change. Clicking on the status line (top of the menu) updates it.

The entry that shows current Fn-Lock status is clickable, too, that toggles Fn-Lock (from ON to OFF or vice versa). Again, no probing here, so if you change Fn-Lock status by other means it will not reflect the change until clicked, but then it will toggle Fn-Lock again.

Command line options can be found on the included manpage:

$ man -l matebook-applet.1
  or, if you installed applet from .deb package,
$ man matebook-applet

Development

PRs are most welcome!

Credits

This software includes the following software or parts thereof:

• getlantern/systray
• slurcooL/vfsgen Copyright © 2015 Dmitri Shuralyov
• The Go Programming Language Copyright © 2009 The Go Authors
• Enkel Icons by FroyoShark

Packages are built using fpm.

Big THANK YOU to Ayman Bagabas for all his work and support. Without him, there would be no matebook-applet.

Kudos to Rouven Spreckels for sorting out udev and systemd.