battery status with ACPI

[Jamie Bowden]

On Thu, 23 Oct 2003, Kevin Oberman wrote:

> > Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2003 10:50:43 -0700 (PDT)
> > From: Jamie Bowden <ragnar at sysabend.org>

> > 1:34pm ghast  /home/jamie %sysctl hw.acpi
> > hw.acpi.supported_sleep_state: S1 S3 S4 S5
> > hw.acpi.power_button_state: S5
> > hw.acpi.sleep_button_state: S1
> > hw.acpi.lid_switch_state: S1
> > hw.acpi.standby_state: S1
> > hw.acpi.suspend_state: S3
> > hw.acpi.sleep_delay: 0
> > hw.acpi.s4bios: 1
> > hw.acpi.verbose: 0
> > hw.acpi.disable_on_poweroff: 1
> > hw.acpi.thermal.min_runtime: 0
> > hw.acpi.thermal.polling_rate: 30
> > hw.acpi.thermal.tz0.temperature: 2982
> > hw.acpi.thermal.tz0.active: -1
> > hw.acpi.thermal.tz0.thermal_flags: 0
> > hw.acpi.thermal.tz0._PSV: -1
> > hw.acpi.thermal.tz0._HOT: -1
> > hw.acpi.thermal.tz0._CRT: 3742
> > hw.acpi.thermal.tz0._ACx: -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1
> > hw.acpi.acline: 1
> > hw.acpi.battery.life: -1
> > hw.acpi.battery.time: -1
> > hw.acpi.battery.state: 7
> > hw.acpi.battery.units: 2
> > hw.acpi.battery.info_expire: 5
>
> Unfortunately, you did this while on AC power, so there is no battery
> status information available. (It shows up as -1). Try again when on
> battery and see if you get "real" values.

That's odd, under 4-S I got batter info while charging, I'd think ACPI
would offer better reporting that APM.  Yay, progress.

> I know that Windows can report the battery charge state while charging,
> but I don't know quite where they get the information. It should report
> correctly when off of the AC (hw.acpi.acline: 0).

See above, 4.x can as well, but I went off -S before ACPI was MFC'd.

> If your hardware supports APM, you might want to just use that. See my
> mail to the list earlier this morning for how to do that. This is not
> ideal as ACPI provides far finer grained control, but I still run APM
> most of the time since ACPI suspend still does not work on many laptops.

I'll live without battery status.  ACPI is superior in all other aspects
so far.

Jamie Bowden

-- 
"It was half way to Rivendell when the drugs began to take hold"
Hunter S Tolkien "Fear and Loathing in Barad Dur"
Iain Bowen <alaric at alaric.org.uk>