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I've been able to set up Linux on it (Debian) but to be able to boot I have to disable acpi. If I don't, I get a "Edge Level set to Trigger" error, which I found no documentation on.
Windows runs ACPI just fine. So my question is this: Can it be that the BIOS supports ACPI for Windows exclusively and I won't be able to use it on Linux?
The laptop is kind of useless to me running Linux when I have around four times the battary life on Windows. So I would appreciate any comments on this.
I am running a debian on a dell inspiron 1150, and acpi works only partially, but still my battery life is pretty good. But I cannot use klaptop to monitor the battery life. I have heard about the possibility to compile a .dsdt patch onto the kernel, that would fix the acpi support.
try knoppix on your system, the knoppix on my system did fully work with acpi. if knoppix does acpi with your machine, at least you know its possible. --> downright klaptop symbol. if not, then it's not that good.
perhaps some more advanced users can give us the info about how to do the kernel patching...
I forgot to mention that APM doesn't work. It doesn' prevent the computer from booting... it just doesn't work.
I'll give Knoppix a try, then. Thanks for that idea. If that doesn't work I'll do some research on the dsdt thing you mentioned.
A crazy thought that just occured to me... Do you think this could be distribution dependant? I've been trying to use Debian 3.1. Should I give Gentoo or something a try and see if that works? I don't know why it should and I don't think it should... any thoughts on this, though? I'm pretty desperate.
Unfortunately, ACPI is still a little shakey in Linux. The problem is that laptop manufacturers (and desktop?) have buggy implementation of ACPI in their BIOS. Since Windows has the big mass, they can afford to create special workarounds for specific BIOSs.
My recommendation to you would be:
1. Try APM. Pass the kernel parameters "acpi=off apm=on" in your bootloader (Lilo or Grub). Make sure you have apmd installed. If you can't run APM, or if it doesn't run satisfactory, or if you just want to try different things, read on...
2. Upgrade to latest BIOS. You would have to get this from the manufacturer. Maybe they have updated the ACPI code...
3. Download the latest kernel and apply the latest ACPI patch from http://acpi.sourceforge.net. Depending on how distro-specific your kernel-source is, it may be easier to just go for a vanilla kernel (I can't apply the patch to Debian's kernel souce).
4. Compile the kernel without any APM in it.
5. If you can boot now, you are on your way... Make sure you have acpid installed and running. You may want to look into CPUFreq too. Expect some problems with S3 suspend mode (suspend-to-ram), they are probably fixable...
Quote:
A crazy thought that just occured to me... Do you think this could be distribution dependant?
/var/log/dmesg contains the bootmessages, it would be very useful to se the messages you get during the failed ACPI-boot. The same (similar?!) information can be found in /var/log/kern.log or /var/log/messages. Please post the info.
Are you using your own compiled kernel or a distro stock kernel? What about the latest Knoppix, does it work with ACPI?
It could also be that the IRQs have some conflict. Perhaps you can twiddle with them in BIOS. I'd assume that 99% of the time you can go with BIOS default (automatic assignment?), but sometimes you may have to change them yourself.
There are a couple of things I would try, all with the intent of being able to at least boot with ACPI and then work from there:
1) Check what devices corresponds to what addresses. lspci will give you a list of the addresses (e.g., 0000:02:04.0) and their corresponding devices. Chances are that it's the device 0000:02:04.0 that is causing the freeze.
1a) Try another kernel.
1b) See if the IRQs can be reassigned in BIOS
2) Boot with Knoppix (and ACPI). Does it work? Try other LiveCDs, there are quite a few of them... :-/
3) Compile a kernel with minimal bells and whistles as far as devices go (no USB, PCMCIA) etc. but with ACPI.
4) Check http://tuxmobil.org/acer.html to see if someone else is running Linux on the same or similar computer, and try to extract some experience from them.
5) Keep on searching Google using some of the messages generated...
I would still investigate what devices that are on IRQ7. SCI stands for "Serial Communication Interfaces", it may have something to do with USB.
If no Live-CD with ACPI is working and if there's nothing to do in BIOS, I would try to recompile a kernel and just keeping the bare essentials (no sound, no network, no APM, no ACPI, etc. Definetly no USB nor serial port support), and then try to add ACPI and see what happens.
But, I think I have emptied my pool of suggestions here... Sorry.
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