Porting code from the Linux ibm-acpi sourceforge package

[Kevin Oberman]

> Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 14:14:05 -0400
> From: Martin Cracauer <cracauer at cons.org>
> 
> > FreeBSD ATA has supported bus detach since ATAng (whenever that was). I
> > have had no problem detaching ATA bus 1 and removing the drive (CD or
> > HD) in the bay and replacing it with another or with a battery. Of
> > course, it MUST be dismounted before the detach or a panic is to be
> > expected.
> > 
> > Also, if you use a second battery, you must have it in the system at
> > boot time or it won't be seen, used, or even charged. If you boot with
> > the battery, you can:
> > atacontrol detach 1
> > remove the battery
> > insert a disk drive
> > atacontrol attach 1
> > use the disk and dismount it.
> > atacontrol detach 1
> > remove the disk
> > insert the battery
> > Battery will be seen and used
> 
> Thank you!
> 
> This works from a detchament/attachment standpoint.
> 
> However, after booting with the secondary battery, the battery is seen
> and it says "charging", but the charge never goes above 0% (output of
> apm(1), not sure how to see than in ACPI).
> 
> Any clues?

Is the primary battery fully charged? The secondary battery  won't start
charging unless the primary is at 100%.

If you are running ACPI, the apm is just a shim on ACPI and the data
seen from the apm command is really from ACPI. or a direct ACPI view,
use "acpiconf -i 1". It will probably tell you a LOT more than you
wanted to know and several important things APM would not tell you.

I can only say that my T30 running current does charge the second
battery and does report it properly. I THINK that 5-stable and current
have the same stuff in this area. I believe that the only real areas of
difference are in CPU performance and support of things like PowerNOW!,
Speedstep and the like and the presence of powerd.
-- 
R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer
Energy Sciences Network (ESnet)
Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab)
E-mail: oberman at es.net			Phone: +1 510 486-8634