[wplug] Thinkpad nvram / tpb -d

[Michael H. Semcheski]

Hello,

I recently installed Scientific Linux on my Thinkpad T41, completely wiping
out Windows XP.  For the most part, I'm very happy with my OS.  I'm still
getting used to it, and trying not to stray too far from my base
distribution.  I figure if I stick to the official, supported software, and
don't try to run on the bleeding edge, I'll have a lot fewer problems.

But here I am trying to get tpb to work.  Tpb is a little program that
allows the Thinkpad buttons to function.  It runs as a daemon, and
apparently access the /dev/nvram.  When a button is pressed, it executes a
command of your specification (ie, volume up, volume down, etc.)  It also
works with xosd, to display the status of these things on screen.  Pretty
cool.

I downloaded the source for each of them, got them to compile, everything
worked.  As long as I run tpb as root, because it needs to access
/dev/nvram.  /dev/nvram was root:root rw-rw----.  I changed it to root:users
(I'm a member of users), but tpb still fails saying it can't access
/dev/nvram.

One option would be to add it to /etc/rc.d/rc.local.  I don't know if it
needs x to run, though.  The other would be to make /dev/nvram rw-rw-rw-,
which I'm less fond of.  I've seen documentation that says you can just add
tpb to your gnome --> session --> startup, but that doesn't work for me
(because its an unprivileged user).

Any thoughts?
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