DragonFly On-Line Manual Pages

Search: Section:  

APM(4)		      DragonFly Kernel Interfaces Manual		APM(4)


NAME

     apm -- APM BIOS interface


SYNOPSIS

     device apm0 at nexus?


DESCRIPTION

     apm is an interface to the Intel / Microsoft APM (Advanced Power Manage-
     ment) BIOS on laptop PCs.	It has been largely superseded by acpi(4),
     which emulates apm's ioctls (see below) so userland can use them as a
     uniform interface (to get at the battery status, for example).

     Note that real apm (in the absence of acpi(4)) is not available on the
     x86_64 platform.

     apm provides the following power management functions.

	   1.	When the system wakes up from suspended mode, apm adjusts the
		system clock to RTC.

	   2.	When the system wakes up from suspended mode, apm passes a
		message to syslogd(8) comprising of system wakeup time and
		elapsed time during suspended mode.

	   3.	apm slows CPU clock when there are no system activities
		(runnable processes, interrupts, etc.).  This function is
		available only on systems whose APM supports CPU idling.

	   4.	apm exports an application interface as a character device.
		Applications can control APM, or retrieve APM status informa-
		tion via this interface.  apm exports the following inter-
		faces.	These symbols are defined in <machine/apm_bios.h>.

		      APMIO_SUSPEND
			    Suspend system.

		      APMIO_GETINFO
			    Get power management information.

		      APMIO_ENABLE

		      APMIO_DISABLE
			    Enable / Disable power management.

		      APMIO_HALTCPU

		      APMIO_NOTHALTCPU
			    Control execution of HLT in the kernel context
			    switch routine.

		      APMIO_GETPWSTATUS
			    Get per battery information.

			    Some APM implementations execute the HLT (Halt CPU
			    until an interrupt occurs) instruction in the
			    ``Idle CPU'' call, while others do not.  Thus
			    enabling this may result in redundant HLT execu-
			    tions because ``Idle CPU'' is called from the ker-
			    nel context switch routine that inherently exe-
			    cutes HLT.	This may reduce peak system perfor-
			    mance.

			    Also the system hangs up if HLT instruction is
			    disabled in the kernel context switch routine, and
			    if the APM implementation of the machine does not
			    execute HLT in ``Idle CPU''.  On some implementa-
			    tions that do not support CPU clock slowdown, APM
			    might not execute HLT.  apm disables
			    APMIO_NOTHALTCPU operation on such machines.

			    The current version of apm does not call ``Idle
			    CPU'' from the kernel context switch routine if
			    clock slowdown is not supported, and it executes
			    HLT instruction by default.  Therefore, there is
			    no need to use these two operations in most cases.

		These interfaces are used by apm(8).

	   5.	apm polls APM events and handles the following events:

		Name		       Action		 Description
		PMEV_STANDBYREQ        suspend system	 standby request
		PMEV_SUSPENDREQ        suspend system	 suspend request
		PMEV_USERSUSPENDREQ    suspend system	 user suspend
							 request
		PMEV_CRITSUSPEND       suspend system	 critical suspend
							 request
		PMEV_NORMRESUME        resume system	 normal resume
		PMEV_CRITRESUME        resume system	 critical resume
		PMEV_STANDBYRESUME     resume system	 standby resume
		PMEV_BATTERYLOW        notify message	 battery low
		PMEV_UPDATETIME        adjust clock	 update time


SEE ALSO

     apm(8), zzz(8)


AUTHORS

     Tatsumi Hosokawa <hosokawa@jp.FreeBSD.org>


BUGS

     WARNING!  Many, if not most, of the implementations of APM-bios in lap-
     tops today are buggy.  You may be putting your LCD-display and batteries
     at a risk by using this interface.  (The reason this isn't a problem for
     MS-windows is that they use the real-mode interface.)  If you see any
     weird behavior from your system with this code in use, unplug the power
     and batteries ASAP, if not immediately, and disable this code.

     We are very interested in getting this code working, so please send your
     observations of any anomalous behavior to us.

     When apm is active, calling the BIOS setup routine by using hot-keys, may
     cause serious trouble when resuming the system.  BIOS setup programs
     should be called during bootstrap, or from DOS.

     Some APM implementations cannot handle events such as pushing the power
     button or closing the cover.  On such implementations, the system must be
     suspended only by using apm(8) or zzz(8).

     Disk spin-down, LCD backlight control, and power on demand have not been
     supported on the current version.

DragonFly 4.1		       September 9, 2012		 DragonFly 4.1

Search: Section: