ACPI Flakiness / Loader

[Jason C. Wells]

--On Friday, October 01, 2004 9:24 AM +0200 Dag-Erling Smørgrav 
<des at des.no> wrote:

> I hope you realize that 5.2.1 is a nine months old development
> preview.

Actually, I didn't realize.  I had been avoiding 5X.    It has been easy to 
simply stick with -stable so I haven't paid attention.  I selected 5.2.1 as 
the most current non-beta.  The new development branch tagging paradigm 
still has me scratching my head when I try to determine the maturity of the 
code.

> If only things were so simple!  The plain fact is that most computers
> manufactured today, especially laptops and high-end servers, won't
> work properly without ACPI.

Ah!  I didn't realize that as many or more computers won't boot without 
ACPI, as won't boot with ACPI.  The docs read like ACPI is just not ready.

> As for your troubles with disabling ACPI: the procedure to do so is
> clearly described in the documentation, and on a stock 5.2.1 install,
> it's as simple as pressing 2 at the boot menu.

I was aware of this.  The selection doesn't persist across reboots though.

As far as documentation goes, what I didn't see documented in the man pages 
or the handbook is how that boot menu interacts with device.hints, 
loader.conf and what settings have precedence.  I don't see where the 
documents say that the device.hints override the menu selection or vice 
versa.  I wasn't sure if I had to tweak Forth code to prevent the enabling 
of ACPI.

I do see that Matt Olander has shown me to edit device.hints.  I'll do that 
and be happy.

Nice to see you again!  I was wondering who might still be active.

Later,
Jason