Derek Broughton wrote:
From: "Brian Kendig" <brian@enchanter.net>It looks like 'acpi' is just for compatibility with the old 'apm' stuff?Everything I've seen makes it quite clear that acpi is the replacement for apm, so I'm not sure where you'd get that idea.
I got this idea from the description of the acpi package, which says 'Attempts to replicate the functionality of the old apm command on ACPI sysems.' Sorry for having misunderstood; thanks for setting me straight!
But, that said, I've still got some confusion about apm/acpi that a web search hasn't cleared up, so more guidance would be appreciated. :) Specifically...
- apm was the 'old' interface for handling power management, and acpi is the 'new' interface, right? Does the PC's BIOS determine which one of these the PC supports, and it won't support the other? I ask because I searched for info on my Dell Latitude CPi D266XT, and I've found reference to people using apm and/or acpi on it, and I'm not sure how that is. My laptop's BIOS setup screen makes reference to power conservation features which 'have no effect under ACPI operating systems.'
- Or is the choice between apm and acpi handled entirely by whether support for it is compiled into the kernel? I'm using the standard Debian kernel 2.4.19 package, and when I run 'acpi' it tells me 'No ACPI support in kernel, or incorrect acpi_path ("/proc/acpi").' I'm not familiar with building kernels, so I'm hesitant to do it for fear of making something else stop working. Why wouldn't acpi support be compiled into the distribution kernel?
I had the apm packages and the acpi packages installed -- thinking there might be a conflict, I tried uninstalling the apm packages, but that hasn't changed the message I get when I run 'acpi'.
Many thanks in advance for helping clear this up!