Hi,

I am using an AMD Geode LX processor board with CS5536 chipset and using Debian etch on it.

During my kernel boot I get these two messages:
Now, I have done quite a research on this (approx 1 hr) and everybody suggest to use acpi=off/on/force parameters and all that.

My system has no problems with booting and everything works fine with those messages. What I am looking for is how do I know if my BIOS supports ACPI or not? Does the message "ACPI: Interpreter disabled." suggest that my BIOS does not support ACPI? DO I need to use APM? Is it required that one should have either APM or ACPI on their system?

I can easily get rid of those messages by passing acpi=off but that;s not my problem. I just want to know the significance of those messages for my system.

Thanks

Hello!

The RSDP is the Root System Description Pointer, a pointer to find the Root System Description Table (RSDT). And the RSDT is a holder from the 1.0 ACPI specs.
If you have these messages in general then your BIOS doesn't have ACPI support.
Another way to check if ACPI is present is with the command acpidump (a packaged than come with many distributions)
How old is your machine? because older systems have only APM support (ACPI standard started in 1997).
Another way is check your BIOS settings, because many system have an ACPI option in order to enable or disable it.

When you are configuring your kernel you can enable APM and/or ACPI
CONFIG_PM : Enable APM
CONFIG_ACPI : Enable ACPI
If you enabled both the kernel will try to use ACPI first, if a compliant hardware isn't found it will use APM.

No, is not required to use APM. Basically APM will turns off the power or set a low power state after a period of inactivity. Is very useful on laptops to prolong battery life.

Good Luck

Aparatey

[QUOTE=aparatey;2859782]Hello!

The RSDP is the Root System Description Pointer, a pointer to find the Root System Description Table (RSDT). And the RSDT is a holder from the 1.0 ACPI specs.
If you have these messages in general then your BIOS doesn't have ACPI support.
Another way to check if ACPI is present is with the command acpidump (a packaged than come with many distributions)
How old is your machine? because older systems have only APM support (ACPI standard started in 1997).
Another way is check your BIOS settings, because many system have an ACPI option in order to enable or disable it.
/QUOTE]

Thanks for your detailed reply. That was helpful. My system is fairly new. say 1-2 years old. But it seems that I do not have ACPI on it. So does that mean it will support APM? And my question is, do we have to use either ACPI or APM on any given system?

Thanks

Mmmmm... your system is very new. Maybe the ACPI is disabled in the BIOS. Please could you check the BIOS configuration? (After power on the computer try to enter the BIOS Setup, in some machine you have to press TAB or the DELETE key twice).
Then in the BIOS menu try to find the ACPI configuration. Maybe you have that option turned off.

No, you can use the computer normally without the APM/ACPI.
But that could be a waste of energy. For example if you let the computer on at night with the APM/ACPI activated it will stand by or shutdown the monitor, an unused hard disk, or low the cpu frequency to save energy, etc. But if you don't have APM/ACPI the computer will consume always the same energy.

Good Luck

Aparatey