Re: Overriding BIOS poweroff when ACPI is disabled

[Daniel Levine <dlev89%gmail.com@localhost>]

On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 6:22 PM, Steven M. Bellovin 
<smb%cs.columbia.edu@localhost> wrote:
> 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
>

Dang... Well, thanks anyway.

 - Dan