i compiled the new kernel 2.4.22 with ACPI enabled and APM disabled. reboot went fine and then i installed the acpi daemon. Acpid ran w/o complaint. But when i entered X, the Laptop Battery Panel said
"Your computer seems to have a partial ACPI installation. ACPI was probably enabled, but some of the sub-options were not - you need to enable at least 'AC Adapter' and 'Control Method Battery' and then rebuild your kernel."
I 'm very sure that i enabled all ACPI options when i configured the kernel. What else do i need to do?

did you compile them as Modules or directly into the kernel?

if they are modules you will have to load them in, i am not sure what they are called but i guess they start with acpi the modules will be in the /lib/modules/{kernel version}/kernel/ directory

and you can use either insmod or modprobe to load them in

Dude, how did you compile it into the kernel? Mabye thats what Im doing wrong. Can someone give me a step-by-step on this. Ive tried before, but it always fails when I tried to complie before. I think Im about to give up on the ACPI support anyway

don't give up ... that's what I did until I retried it yesterday and it simply rocks ...

start with getting the latest patch for ACPI from http://acpi.sourceforge.net

also get the latest daemon from http://acpid.sourceforge.net

install the daemon, and patch the kernel with the acpi patch like this:

cp acpi-patch /usr/src/yourkernelsource
cd /usr/src/yourkernelsource
patch -p1 < acpi-patch

make mrproper
make menuconfig
(load an old configuration file if you kept one, that's always advisable)
go to the General Setup menu
all the way on the bottom of that one you see Power Management. Make sure you say N to APM and Y on all the ACPI ones you want. Note that some of those features may not work as of yet on your system. ACPI is for some reason still experimental. anyway, say Y and not M.

make some other adaptions if you want

save the configuration to a separate file (Save to Alternate File or something, at the bottom) and then exit and save

make dep
make clean
make bzImage
make install
make modules
make modules_install

reboot

And that worked for me (I made too much adaptions the first time I recompiled for acpi, so it wouldn't boot ... best idea seems to just compile ACPI in and if it works you have a winning combination and you can start adapting more and more

at least that's how I did it and how I feel about it. But don't give up, I'm sure that if I can do it, anyone can(given the hardware works with ACPI of course )

EDIT: by the way, I use GKrellm to monitor my battery, it's ok, but if someone could name something better than that, I'd be happy to try it

If you'd started out by using Suse 8.1, 8.2 or Mandrake 9.1, you'd already have acpi No recompile, no fuss.

Ive got Mandrake 9.1, and it says no ACPI support in kernel.