[OLPC-devel] Re: Why ACPI DSDT tables?

[Jordan Crouse]

On 10/07/06 12:27 -0400, Jim Gettys wrote:

> > How do you expect to export things like battery and "on ac power?"
> > information to userspace? Frankly, the interfaces the Linux kernel
> > exports for these all suck (/proc/acpi, apm, pmu, etc.) but we work
> > around that in HAL... and now you want to add *another* interface?
> > 
> >     David
> > 
> I think David is making a good point here.
> 
> I'd just as soon not be in left field on these interfaces unless there
> is a good reason, much as we detest ACPI.

I'm fairly certain that somebody is going to have to write in the ASL to
support the embedded controllers and various peripherals anyway (I don't know
if Quanta or provide sample code we can adapt.  AMD can give you code to
to watch stuff hanging off of our chips, but I can't think on of any thing
we can provide that ACPI would be interested in).

So, if all things are equal, isn't it easier for us to just write simple
kernel drivers to talk to the devices directly rather then go through the
effort of writing the necessary ACPI code as well as any needed BIOS or
interpreter support?

I hate writing new interfaces, but is it worth the pain of making ACPI work
just so we don't have to do any work in the kernel to get the battery status?

Jordan

-- 
Jordan Crouse
Senior Linux Engineer
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
<www.amd.com/embeddedprocessors>