[ltp] enumeration of BIOS actions?

[Henrique de Moraes Holschuh]

On Fri, 22 Dec 2006, Paul Fox wrote:
> is there a list somewhere (docs, IBM docs, code, ??) that would
> specifically talk about actions that the BIOS takes on its own,

No.  That information is either nonexistant, or stuff IBM and Lenovo are not
interested into sharing.

> versus actions taken by acpi in response to BIOS events?  i assume
> there _are_ autonomous BIOS actions, correct?

Correct.  ThinkPads do SMIs like crazy, and SMI code runs on sort of a "uber
ring zero" (system management mode), which overrides *EVERYTHING*.

And it does dumbass things while in SMI mode too, which is why you must
never have the NMI watchdog enabled in a SMP ThinkPad, for example.

> 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

If it is an Intel card, just tell the driver to do so.  That's how I run
mine:

/etc/modprobe.d/thinkpad-t43:
options ipw2200 disable=1 led=1 hwcrypto=0 associate=0

> 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.

Most of docking changes are done through ACPI and SMI.

-- 
  "One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
  them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
  where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
  Henrique Holschuh