[tlug] Problem with tpctl on Thinkpad 600X

[Jonathan Byrne <jq@example.com>]

I've googled this problem extensively, tried building the thinkpad modules
from source, have verified that /dev/thinkpad/thinkpad exists and has the
correct major and minor nodes, have recreated it just to make sure, but no
joy.

Machine: Thinkpad 600X
OS: Debian Sid
Kernel: 2.4.25-1-686 from Sid

The problem
-----------

Doing tpctl --(insert CLI option here) will always yield:

tpctl: System error message is: no such device
tpctl: Can't open device file /dev/thinkpad/thinkpad with flags O_RDONLY.
Exiting.

The device exists, but I can't seem to get any modules loaded for it, and
that seems to be the real problem.

The system is Debian Sid on a Thinkpad 600X, and the relevant packages shown
by apt-cache pkgnames are:

thinkpad4-modules
thinkpad-base
thinkpad-source

thinkpad-base and thinkpad-source are installed.  thinkopad4-modules yields
"Package thinkpad4-modules is not avaialble, but is referred to by another
package.  This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source. E: Package thinkpad4-modules has no
installation candidate."

I installed kernel-source-2.4.25 and following the instructions
in /usr/share/doc/thinkpad-source/README.Debian built and installed a
modules package but it didn't help.   If I try to manually insert one of
those modules (which were placed in /lib/modules/thinkpad) it complains
about unresolved symbols and does not load.

This problem of not being able to use tpctl has been with me for a long
time, in fact it never worked ever since I found about it tpctl and
installed it a few months ago (when I got the machine and installed Sid on
it).

Has anyone else had/solved this problem, and if you did, what did you do
(or do differently) that I have not done?

TIA,

Jonathan
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