Plea for APM/ACPI....

Forum: Laptops
Topic: Plea for APM/ACPI....
started by: Max

Posted by Max on July 23 2005,17:06

Prior to version 0.93 (or was 0.91) APM/ACPI was built into the kernel. But it quietly slipped away without much fanfare (or without a not mentioning it had been removed).

It seems lots of us DSLers use old notebooks to run DSL on (I'm running on 3 different models). APM/ACPI support is really really nice to have because we know what our battery status is, lets us put the machine into suspend or hibernate mode, and maybe more important we can access the functions to step-control the processor. For me, this is the difference between the fan running all the time and it not.

I would just like to make a plea to John / Roberts to at least *think* about including this in future releases. Even if it's not in the full release, maybe just to have a "package" with an alternate kernel and instructions how to install it.

If anyone else out there might find this important to them, please speak up...

Posted by SaidinUnleashed on July 23 2005,17:25

The kernel in the current version is exactly the same as in versions 0.8.0 or newer.

Posted by kopsis on July 23 2005,18:54

I don't know about ACPI, but APM is definitely in the current DSL image. It's loaded and running on the DSL Thinkpad I'm using right now.

If you've done a frugal install with grub, check your /boot/grub/menu.lst ... by default it adds noapm and noacpi to the kernel boot command.

Posted by adraker on July 23 2005,22:31

Kopsis is right, I have a circa 1998
Thinkpad 380xd, APM is running and I can
use wmbattery, others with slightly newer bioses
cannot.
It seems as APM morphed into ACPI (yes, a gross
over-simplification), the newer bioses catered to, or depended
on this instead of the older APM.
I'm happy to stand corrected on this.
But I can see the need for ACPI for lappy fans.
I don't know what the size penalty of ACPI kernel mod
would be.....

Posted by adssse on Aug. 26 2005,01:55

I have been trying to find out if my laptop is using amp or acpi. Is there a simple way to check? I have tried to run wmapm.tar.gz and wmacpi_1.99r7.dsl without any success. The laptop that I am using is a IBM Thinkpad iSeries 1330.

By using google I came up with this result.
< http://www.google.com/search?....=Search >
It is a pdf doc for thinkpads. In the description is says "ACPI ready (APM enabled)", but I cant find it in the pdf so I am not sure if it is speaking of my model for sure. I would like to find out which it uses and if it works with dsl as I would love to get a battery monitor working.

I also believe that I read in another thread that apm is turned off by default in dsl. Is this the case, and if it is how would I enable it? I would sincerely appreciate any help with this as I am kind of lost.

Posted by cbagger01 on Aug. 26 2005,20:26

Is there a way to turn ACPI or APM on or off from within your BIOS?

Posted by adraker on Aug. 26 2005,20:57

Lenovo has lots of IBM info
< here >.If you didn't go down this path already.
As 'bagger says, perhaps you can use the bios setup.
Older bioses could use PS2 or the tpctl progs.
Kopsis made a .dsl of it some time ago, cant seem to find it in a hurry.
I'm not sure, maybe you can add 'apm' to your append/boot line,
since there is a 'noapm' boot code.

Posted by kopsis on Aug. 26 2005,22:25

Most laptops have APM/ACPI built into the BIOS with no way to disable it. You can find out if your kernel has recognized the APM support by looking for "/proc/apm". If it's not there, try loading the APM module (sudo modprobe apm). If that doesn't work, you're probably booting with the "noapm" kernel parameter.

If I remember correctly, a frugal-grub install will have a default boot line that includes the "noapm" param. Mount the partition where you did the frugal install and edit "/boot/grub/menu.lst" to remove the "noapm" param from the boot line.

I'm not sure what the default is for a frugal-LILO install but I seem to remember that it preserves whatever parameters you booted with when you did the install. The file "/etc/lilo.conf" is where you edit the boot command. There are probably lots of posts explaining how to tweak LILO settings if it turns out that's what you need to fix.

Posted by adssse on Aug. 27 2005,04:23

Thank you all very much. I didnt get a chance to look at it tonight because our power has been out, but I will start looking at it tomorrow and see if I can make any progress. I will let you all know how it goes, or if it doesnt I may ask more questions if you dont mind.

Posted by adssse on Aug. 28 2005,03:53

Well I managed to get wmapm.tar.gz working. It will make a huge difference when using my lappy. What I ended up having to do was add 'acpi=off' to lilo.conf. I discovered a message 'apm: overriden by acpi' or something similar. So I believe that acpi must overide apm since it is a newer standard, but acpi was not working for me even though it was in /proc. So after turning off acpi, apm has taken over and now I see apm in /proc. Just thought that I would share some of the details.

My only problem now is I messed something up on my frugal install while I was fiddling with things. My partition which I use for mydsl, home, opt and restore (hda2) is not being mounted automatically upon bootup. It finds my extensions in the partition fine and loads them along with restoring things, but when I go into emelfm or something I have to mount hda2 to do anything. I am not really sure what I did or how to fix it. If anyone has any suggestions for me on this I will gladly except them.

Posted by adssse on Aug. 29 2005,01:38

Ok, I have run into a problem and am in need of some help. I found that adding 'acpi=off' will get my apm working and I can use the battery monitor. The problem is that with this added to my boot options my persistent home and opt do not work on my frugal install. I have tried all day to get this to work and even went as far as to format my whole drive and start over. When I am running the frugal install script I tried putting it in there along with the usual mydsl, home and opt stuff, with no luck. I than ran the script again without adding 'acpi=off' and home and opt worked as normal, either way the mydsl stuff works. So after spending many hours trying different combinations and ways I am left with the conclusion that if I place 'acpi=off' in the bootline the persistent home and opt dont work and if I leave it out they work as normal. I may wrong (and I hope I am), but if anyone can provide any help I would really appreciate it.

Posted by ke4nt1 on Aug. 29 2005,02:33

Hmm... usually the bootcodes are "noapm" and "noacpi" ..

Removing the "noapm" may enable apm for you.

I haven't played with that on my boxen,
but I will try it, and relay my feedback..

73
ke4nt

Posted by adssse on Aug. 29 2005,04:15

Thanks for replying. I forgot to mention, I did try putting 'noacpi' in place of 'acpi=off' but it did not seem to have the same effect (not exactly sure what the difference between the two is) since acpi was still in /proc but no apm. I had also looked at my lilo.conf for 'noapm' but I didnt see it, the only thing I saw was something like apm=power-off.

Posted by Ben Wright on Aug. 31 2005,14:51

I certainly agree that some additional support is needed. My Compaq Evo N610c has no fan activity under DSL, regardless of BIOS setting. Definitely something needed.
Ben Wright

Posted by Jazzy on Sep. 06 2005,20:07

I just put here what I find in my lilo.conf with apm working on a toshiba portege7220:

append="hda=scsi hdb=scsi hdc=scsi hdd=scsi hde=scsi hdf=scsi hdg=scsi hdh=scsi apm=power-off nomce noapic"

this perhaps may help you.
cu
Thomas

Posted by adssse on Sep. 06 2005,22:11

Thanks for the suggestion. I tried again the other day, but with nothing to show for it. I tried various combinations of noacpi, apm=on, apm=force and acpi=off. The only one that helps me at all is acpi=off. If I put this before the mydsl, home & opt stuff in the append line than the apm works but the persistent home & opt dont. Likewise if I put the mydsl, home & opt stuff first followed by the acpi=off than the apm is overridden with acpi. Not sure where to go from here, I guess I will just have to go without.

Posted by Max on Sep. 07 2005,14:20

Thanks for the tip.

apm acpi=off lets me use the wmapm battery monitor on this newish IBM laptop. Before I couldn't get the right combination to work.

Posted by adssse on Sep. 08 2005,04:52

Max, what kind of install are you using?

Posted by Max on Sep. 08 2005,13:04

Frugal

Posted by adssse on Sep. 08 2005,14:29

Ok. So did you just add 'apm acpi=off' to the end (or beginning?) of your append line in ~boot/lilo.conf? I am just trying to figure out where exactly to put it because I have not been able to get anything to work thus far. All the details you can give me would be appreciated.

Posted by Max on Sep. 08 2005,16:21

Here is what I typically boot with:
root=/dev/hda3 quiet vga=791 apm acpi=off noscsi frugal dma toram mydsl=hda4 restore=hda4 host=DSL1

Posted by adssse on Sep. 08 2005,17:00

Thanks for your help, I will try it this weekend.

Posted by adssse on Sep. 12 2005,03:55

Well... I think I finally got it working *fingers crossed*. Thanks for your help Max, I also used 'apm acpi=off'. It seems my problem was with lilo. Not really sure if it was just me or if it is a problem with lilo, but I wasnt able to get it to work until I went to grub (wich I like much better).

Posted by ke4nt1 on Sep. 12 2005,04:04

I'm seeing a different issue with this switch.

If I use the acpi=off switch in my grub setup,
my pendrive in sda1 ( or any other sdXx ) is unaccessible.

Removing this one item makes the pendrive happy again.

Before this, I could not detect it, partition it, or format it.

Strangeness..

73
ke4nt

Posted by adssse on Sep. 12 2005,04:30

hmm... Just tried out my usb drive on my lappy with the new additions to grub and didnt seem to have a problem so far. I was able to access the usb drive (sda1), mount it and browse around my files and folders.

Posted by Max on Sep. 12 2005,12:07

FYI...I'm using grub also. Didn't seem to have any problems downloading songs to my MP3 stick which was sda1.

I wonder if it's different flavors of BIOS causing the issue??

One thing that I had thought I had licked, but apparantly haven't is the screen blanking issue with APM working. I have the BIOS set to customized and have every setting that has anything to do with blanking the screen turned off. But sure enough, the screen will blank and the system becomes unresponsive at that point. (It's not the normal X blanking the screen but the bios).

I read some IBM posts and supposedly this is a known issue with the 2.4 kernel and that kernel 2.6 solves this issue.