[ltp] enumeration of BIOS actions?

[Alex Deucher]

On 12/22/06, Paul Fox <pgf@foxharp.boston.ma.us> wrote:
> is there a list somewhere (docs, IBM docs, code, ??) that would
> specifically talk about actions that the BIOS takes on its own,
> versus actions taken by acpi in response to BIOS events?  i assume
> there _are_ autonomous BIOS actions, correct?
>
> for instance -- i'd like to keep the wireless card powered down
> all the time, unless i explicitly turn it on (with F5), and then,
> of course, i'd like it to stay on.  on my X41, running ubuntu
> edgy, wireless seems to be turned on anytime the notebook comes
> out of suspend.  i suspect this is a BIOS thing, but it's a
> little hard to be sure i haven't just missed some bit of faulty
> script somewhere.
>
> hrmmm.  actually, i just discovered that it's likely that the wireless
> driver is being unloaded/reloaded across a suspend, which probably
> explains it.  i'll investigate that some more.
>
> but in any case, there are also other examples that i'd like to
> understand better:  there are state changes that occur when i
> connect to my ultrabay dock -- external monitor, etc.  since i
> see nothing under acpi for "docked/undocked", again, i assume
> these changes are caused by the BIOS, but again, i'm not sure.
>
> any tips?

The bios does what it does on boot.  there may be some scratch regs
that save some state, but I suspect it varies from bios to bios.  the
acpi methods handled by ibm_acpi call bios methods that mess with the
actual hardware.  what you probably want is to call the appropriate
ibm acpi hooks in a resume script to call the appropriate acpi methods
to get you hardware into the state you want it on resume.

Alex

>
> paul
> =---------------------
>  paul fox, pgf@foxharp.boston.ma.us (arlington, ma, where it's 39.2 degrees)