Re: Overriding BIOS poweroff when ACPI is disabled

["Steven M. Bellovin" <smb%cs.columbia.edu@localhost>]

On Mon, 13 Apr 2009 18:17:33 -0400
Daniel Levine <dlev89%gmail.com@localhost> wrote:

> This is probably a pretty stupid question, but on the off chance that
> there might be an answer that helps me, I'm asking around.
> 
> See... On my laptop, I have to disable ACPI when running NetBSD (or
> any BSD) - due to a buggy BIOS, the ethernet and wireless
> pseudodevices magically disappear when ACPI is enabled.
> 
> That's pretty much okay, because the laptop is a bulky, unweildy model
> (an Acer Aspire 3680) that works well as a desktop replacement.
> However, there's one problem with it: when ACPI is disabled, hitting
> the power button causes the computer to instantly power off, shutting
> the system down uncleanly. It would thus be very easy to cause
> accidental data loss when running NetBSD.
> 
> My question is, is there any way of intercepting the signal from the
> power button so that it doesn't cause instant poweroff, without
> enabling ACPI? In best case it would be nice for the power button to
> invoke a clean shutdown, but I would settle for it doing nothing at
> all...

I don't think that that's possible without ACPI.
> 
> (There's also the little issue that my laptop apparently doesn't have
> an APM BIOS, though some sources claim it does; at any rate, enabling
> APM doesn't seem to do anything.)
> 



                --Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb