Hi all.
I've just installed Linux From Scratch v6 on my Thinkpad R32, and I'm slowly bringing it up to a useable level. Eventually got sound working, with volume buttons working thanks to tpb. However, now I need to get some battery monitoring happening, and from what I've read, this is handled by APM, not ACPI. My 2.6.8.1 kernel has both compiled in, so generally ACPI overrides APM.

Now to the problem: As a test, I boot up with grub passing acpi=no to the kernel, so apm runs instead. All goes well up until I log into X and fire up tpb OR asapm, a battery monitor dockapp. If I start either of them, the mouse goes nuts. Any attempt at movement flicks it all around the screen, clicking buttons at random even though I'm not pressing anything. Once I kill the offending app, it calms down again. So even ignoring asapm, running tpb while apm is loaded (though neither have anything to do with each other) kills the mouse.

..Little help? Or possibly just a way to monitor the battery without apm?

Is your laptop new enough to handle ACPI? Because if it is, I'd switch to in from APM. The APM implementation is "deprecated" if you will in the 2.6.x series as development in ACPI is the norm. If you want still use APM, I would try the latest 2.4.x kernel (2.4.30). I don't how old R32s are, but IBM is generally linux-friendly.

I'm experiencing the same problem with XFree86 4.3 (on a different model of laptop). I tried booting with APM=off, and this didn't make any difference. Any ideas anyone?