linux-kernel - Re: 2.6.22-rc1-mm1 Implementing fan/thermal control in userspace

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Date:	Sun, 27 May 2007 22:51:23 +0100
From:	Matthew Garrett <mjg59@...f.ucam.org>
To:	Pavel Machek <pavel@....cz>
Cc:	Thomas Renninger <trenn@...e.de>, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	linux-acpi@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: 2.6.22-rc1-mm1 Implementing fan/thermal control in userspace - Was: [cannot change thermal trip points]

On Fri, May 25, 2007 at 06:38:15AM +0000, Pavel Machek wrote:
> Hi!
> > Because, as Len has pointed out, you end up with two different ideas 
> > about what the trip points are - the kernel's and the hardware's. That 
> > works fine until some event in the firmware either forcibly 
> > resynchronises the two or makes assumptions about the spec-compliance of 
> > the interpreter.
> 
> ...and suggested workaround is to drive fans directly from userspace,
> which not only violates the specs and has all the problems with
> desynchronized state, but ALSO FAILS TO WORK IN PRACTICE.

I don't think that's obviously true. 11.3.2 of the 3.0 spec states:

"A package consisting of references to all active cooling devices that 
should be engaged when the associated active cooling threshold (_ACx) is 
exceeded." 

(referring to _ALx objects).

> > The interface would need to be more complicated than that if you wanted 
> > to be able to implement hysteresis, and there's the potential for 
> > hardware damage if paramaters are set inappropriately. Even then, 
> > there's no easy way of programatically determining whether it would work 
> > on any given hardware.
> 
> Not sure why you try to scare people with 'hardware damage'. HP XE3
> bios already _was_ damaging hardware (it cooked the hard drive using
> cpu as a heater), and no acpi magic can damage correctly working
> machine.

Given that this presumably didn't occur under Windows, I think it would 
be significantly better to figure out why and then fix that. 
Alternatively, if the firmware tables are actually genuinely broken in a 
way that's impossible to repair, you can replace the table. That has the 
advantage that there's no risk of the platform and the OS becoming 
confused.

-- 
Matthew Garrett | mjg59@...f.ucam.org
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