ACPI broken on Acer TravelMate 4200WLMi - call for help

[Nate Lawson]

security at revolutionsp.com wrote:
> Hey list,
> 
> I'm writing to report a but with FreeBSD's ACPI implementation. Recently,
> I've acquired an Acer TravelMate 4200WLMi laptop, on which I've installed
> FreeBSD 5.3-RELEASE.
> 
> I've been struggling with a problem for two days, and can't seem to get
> past it.
> 
> I've been a FreeBSD user for many years now, so I've done everything I
> could remember of. But, as I'm new to FreeBSD on laptops, I thought I
> could have missed something. I no longer think I've missed a step, as I've
> tried pretty much everything I know of.
> 
> The problem is the following: I can't get FreeBSD's ACPI implementation to
> show my battery status! This implies I don't have any power management
> functions available.
> 
> I know ACPI works because the laptop shipped with windows. While I
> promptly sent it away, before doing so, I installed a game (Wolfenstein:
> Enemy Territory) to see 3D performance. The battery icon on windows XP was
> showing correct battery info.

Sorry, this is a lack of support problem.  Modern ACER laptops have a 
different kind of battery system (called "smart battery" in the ACPI 
spec) that is accessed via SMbus.  Both FreeBSD and Linux do not support 
this yet.

I'd be happy if someone picked up the task of implementing it.  It's 
pretty big but is already recorded on the ACPI web page:

http://www.freebsd.org/projects/acpi/

You can use apm for now.

-- 
Nate