Oh sorry, I guess I wasn't clear in my question.

What I meant by saying "use ACPI" is that are there any commands I can
use to see how much battery status remains, or any way I can get the
GNOME battery monitor to query ACPI and show me the battery status
etc. I found a document on the NetBSD docs page that tell you how to
use the various apm commands etc; I was hoping to find something
similar for ACPI.

Thanks for the pointers on how to compile ACPI support. I had tried
compiling my kernel for APM support (coz that's what I found first in
the power management doc), saw that it doesnt work (guess my laptop
doesnt have APM), and so then I tried compiling ACPI support coz I saw
thelines that u mentioned in the kernel config file. And now while I
get some ACPI messages while booting, I am lost as to what to do next.
:)

Thanks,
Rakhesh

On 5/24/06, Patrick Welche <prlw1@newn.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
> On Wed, May 24, 2006 at 07:16:30AM +0400, Rakhesh Sasidharan wrote:
> > Just curious, how is ACPI support in NetBSD 3.0? I checked the
> > manpages, I get the impression its not fully implemented. Is that the
> > case?
> >
> > Are there any docs on how to use ACPI?
>
> I didn't understand "use ACPI" but now I think I see: the GENERIC
> kernel doesn't have acpi compiled in. The ready-made kernels worth
> trying are netbsd-GENERIC.MPACPI.gz and netbsd-GENERIC_LAPTOP.gz
> from i386/binary/sets/kernel (having seen you post to port-i386,
> I assume that you are using i386). Otherwise, just
> build-your-own-kernel(tm), c.f.,
>
>    http://www.netbsd.org/guide/en/chap-kernel.html
>
> and uncomment the
>
> #acpi0          at mainbus0
> ...
> # ACPI devices
> #acpiacad*      at acpi?                # ACPI AC Adapter
> #acpibat*       at acpi?                # ACPI Battery
> #acpibut*       at acpi?                # ACPI Button
> #acpiec*        at acpi?                # ACPI Embedded Controller
> #acpilid*       at acpi?                # ACPI Lid Switch
> #acpitz*        at acpi?                # ACPI Thermal Zone
>
> lines..
>
> Cheers,
>
> Patrick
>