Debian 12: Failure to build ALPS kernel module

[Loris Bennett]

Hi,

I have a 10 year-old Dell E6230 laptop which I have updated regularly,
starting from Squeeze and have now updated to Bookworm. Everything
seems to work except for the fact that a module fails to build for the
new kernel:

Error! Bad return status for module build on kernel: 6.1.0-10-amd64 (x86_64)
Consult /var/lib/dkms/psmouse/alps-1.3/build/make.log for more information.

In the log file it says

/var/lib/dkms/psmouse/alps-1.3/build/src/alps.c:1821:9: error: implicit declaration of function ‘setup_timer’; did you mean ‘del_timer’? [-Werror=implicit-function-declaration]
1821 | setup_timer(&priv->timer, alps_flush_packet, (unsigned long)psmouse);
| ^~~~~~~~~~~
| del_timer

and a bit of peering around on the internet reveals that the function
'setup_timer' is called 'time_setup' for newer kernels.

The sources seem to be the ones being used since I got the laptop

# ll -d /usr/src/psmouse-alps-1.3/
drwxr-xr-x 3 loris loris 4096 Feb 11 2013 /usr/src/psmouse-alps-1.3/

So do I need a patched version of alps.c?

Cheers,

Loris

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[didier gaumet]

Le 04/08/2023 à 11:44, Loris Bennett a écrit :
> Hi,
>
> I have a 10 year-old Dell E6230 laptop which I have updated regularly,
> starting from Squeeze and have now updated to Bookworm. Everything
> seems to work except for the fact that a module fails to build for the
> new kernel:
>
> Error! Bad return status for module build on kernel: 6.1.0-10-amd64 (x86_64)
> Consult /var/lib/dkms/psmouse/alps-1.3/build/make.log for more information.

[...]

Hello,

I would say that in a distant past one needed to build this driver from
external sources but nowadays it is included in the linux kernel source
tree?
https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/v6.1/drivers/input/mouse/alps.c

and it seems that in Debian Bookworm this driver is present directly
in-kernel (not as a module):
didier@hp-notebook14:~$ find /lib/modules -name *alps*
/lib/modules/6.1.0-10-amd64/kernel/drivers/hid/hid-alps.ko
didier@hp-notebook14:~$ grep -i alps /boot/config*
CONFIG_MOUSE_PS2_ALPS=y
CONFIG_HID_ALPS=m

Perhaps am I wrong, but with Debian Bookworm, your alps device should
work without a DKMS module, out of the box?

[Loris Bennett]

Salut Didier!

You are not wrong :-)

Simply moving the module out of /var/lib/dkms/ allowed the new kernel
package to be installed properly and that is what is running now.

I do in fact have a vague memory of having to fiddle around with
something to do with the touchpad when I got the laptop, but that is
over 10 years ago ...

Thanks for the help!