Hi there,

I'm very new to these forums, so this post is pretty much a shot in the dark as to whether someone can help me out in anyway - either by some in-depth instructions or a general idea as to what I can do.

I have just installed SuSe 9.2 on an Acer laptop as part of a Dual-Boot system with Windows XP. The operating system seems to work nicely on this system, and installing a couple of extra applications like LimeWire and Firefox were very easy.

The one lingering problem I have is SuSe not being able to detect the amount of battery power remaining left on my laptop. The only thing that saves any work that's open at that time is a tiny blinking 'low battery' light on the front of the laptop. If I notice it's flashing, then nine times out of ten I can get to a power socket quick enough - if I don't, then it just dies horribly.

When I look in the Power Management part of KDE Control Panel, it says that ACPI was partially installed and that I should install 'AC Adaptor' and something along the lines of 'Control Mode Battery', then recompile the kernel.

Given the fact that I have been a Windows user for getting on for 8 years , I am finding it very difficult to find a way around this.

Any help on this would be appreciated!

Many thanks,

Nick

-----------------------------------
CPU: 1.60GHz Pentium-M
RAM: 512Mb PC2700
WLAN: Intel 2200BG
BIOS: Acer 3A10
-----------------------------------

The most likely scenario is that you don't have the proper 'modules' or drivers loaded for acpi to be able to get readings. If you could issue the command 'lsmod' as root and post up the results here, we can begin to troubleshoot.

Another thing to try:
If 'state' exists, you already have support enabled, but something's awry with SuSE's acpi implemenation. If it's not there, then we know you don't have support enabled.

--Shade

Shade,

Thanks for such a prompt reply to my post.

Here is the result of lsmod run as root from Konsole

Module Size Used by
udf 84612 0
usbserial 26856 0
parport_pc 37824 0
lp 10536 0
parport 37960 2 parport_pc,lp
nvram 8328 0
ipt_TOS 2560 14
ip6t_LOG 6656 20
ip6t_limit 2432 20
ipt_LOG 6912 33
ipt_limit 2432 33
ipt_pkttype 1792 2
cpufreq_userspace 5208 2
acpi 7940 0
speedstep_lib 4228 0
freq_table 4356 1 acpi
thermal 17928 0
processor 25640 2 acpi,thermal
fan 5380 0
button 8464 0
battery 11396 0
ac 6404 0
snd_pcm_oss 57896 0
snd_mixer_oss 19200 1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_intel8x0 31268 1
snd_ac97_codec 69728 1 snd_intel8x0
snd_pcm 96776 3 snd_pcm_oss,snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec
snd_timer 24708 1 snd_pcm
snd 60164 8 snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm,snd_timer
soundcore 9056 1 snd
snd_page_alloc 10248 2 snd_intel8x0,snd_pcm
af_packet 20872 2
arc4 2048 1
ieee80211_crypt_wep 5120 1
edd 10012 0
ip6t_state 2048 22
ip6_conntrack 38404 1 ip6t_state
ipt_state 2176 28
ip6t_REJECT 7552 3
ipt_REJECT 6784 3
iptable_mangle 2944 1
iptable_filter 3072 1
ip6table_mangle 2688 0
ip_nat_ftp 5232 0
iptable_nat 23980 1 ip_nat_ftp
ip_conntrack_ftp 72624 1 ip_nat_ftp
ip_conntrack 43512 4 ipt_state,ip_nat_ftp,iptable_nat,ip_conntrack_ftp
ip_tables 17664 9 ipt_TOS,ipt_LOG,ipt_limit,ipt_pkttype,ipt_state,ipt_REJECT,iptable_mangle,iptable_filter,iptable_nat
ip6table_filter 2816 1
ip6_tables 18816 6 ip6t_LOG,ip6t_limit,ip6t_state,ip6t_REJECT,ip6table_mangle,ip6table_filter
ipv6 237312 17 ip6_conntrack,ip6t_REJECT
ds 17796 2
joydev 9664 0
sg 35872 0
st 37404 0
sd_mod 16912 0
sr_mod 16292 0
intel_agp 21024 1
agpgart 32168 1 intel_agp
scsi_mod 111308 4 sg,st,sd_mod,sr_mod
ide_cd 38176 0
cdrom 36508 2 sr_mod,ide_cd
ohci1394 31748 0
ieee1394 106168 1 ohci1394
yenta_socket 19840 0
pcmcia_core 66100 2 ds,yenta_socket
uhci_hcd 29712 0
ehci_hcd 29188 0
subfs 7552 1
nls_utf8 2176 2
ntfs 91888 2
evdev 8960 0
b44 19972 0
mii 4992 1 b44
ipw2200 91244 0
firmware_class 9600 1 ipw2200
ieee80211 20228 1 ipw2200
ieee80211_crypt 5508 2 ieee80211_crypt_wep,ieee80211
dm_mod 54524 0
usbcore 106724 5 usbserial,uhci_hcd,ehci_hcd
reiserfs 242000 1

As for the cat command, this is what's happening:

Dothan-1600:/home/nick # cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT1/state
cat: /proc/acpi/battery/BAT1/state: No such file or directory

Thanks for your help so far, I hope I can have a battery meter working soon!

-- Nick

Looks like you've got the module loaded. What is listed in /proc/acpi ?

--Shade

Listed in /proc/acpi is the following:

ac_adapter, alarm, battery, button, debug_layer, debug_level, dsdt, embedded_controller, event, fadt, fan, info, power_resource, processor, sleep, thermal_zone and wakeup

I also did ls in /proc/acpi/battery and there is nothing listed in there,

Thanks for help so far :-)

-- Nick