PowerManagement: Suspend, Sleep, Turn Off Screen...

[J. Erik Hemdal]

>Hello,
>I would like to know if there is a way to use the suspend, sleep, etc...
(in fact the >>>>
>powermanagement function) with an acpi laptop?

I got acpid to work by doing the following:

1. Turn off apmd and enable acpid using redhat-config-services.  If you have
an ACPI machine, you don't have an APM machine.  I don't know why both are
enabled by the default installation.

2. For test purposes, set up a battery monitor.  On the GNOME desktop, I
used battstat-applet; I don't use KDE so I can't help you there.  When
things are broken, it will give you no useful information at all.

3. Add the following code to /etc/rc.local:
----snip----
if [ -d /proc/acpi ]; then
	for module in /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/acpi/*

		do
		insmod $module
		done
fi
----snip-----

This script will load modules for the various ACPI functions.  I located
this in the fedora-list archives, and cleaned it up to suit my style. The
$(uname -r) part extracts the kernel version so that this continues to work
when you change kernels.

4. Reboot the system and add

	acpi=on

as one of your boot parameters.  Make this permanent by editing
/etc/grub.conf.

Once I did these things, I discovered the following:

The battstat-applet properly displayed the battery level and indicated when
I was on AC power.

The system would turn completely off when I halted, rather than simply
halting the OS and leaving the computer on.

I have seen postings that say that suspend does not work under FC1.  I've
also not managed to respond to events from the power button, lid, etc;
because I don't know how to specify events for acpid.  The man page for
acpid explains which files configure it, but not precisely what you can
configure.  I did notice that the screen would turn off after a time, but I
don't know what exactly made that happen.

What this did do for me is to give me status on the battery, the ability to
cleanly shut down the system, and the confidence that I wasn't likely to
melt my processor.  I hope this will get it going for you, so you can figure
out how to go farther.

Good luck.  I hope this helps.  Erik