Dasharo ACPI driver

[mkopec]

The problem you're addressing (if any)

Enabling more features that require more cooperation between OS and firmware.

Describe the solution you'd like

Dasharo ACPI driver in Linux

Where is the value to a user, and who might that user be?

With a driver, a ton of new features can be enabled:

• Fan speed and temperature monitoring
• Fan curve adjustment and manual control
• ACPI platform profiles (i.e. the different performance / low-power profiles in GNOME)
• Power management and monitoring (toggling battery boost, battery thresholds, checking what sort of AC adapter is connected)
• Keyboard backlight control
• USB-C control
• Hardware rfkill

Describe alternatives you've considered

no driver, just more setup menu options

Additional context

We lost a lot of those when we broke compat with system76_acpi.

an initial implementation can be limited to just thermal monitoring, then we can submit the driver upstream and expand with more features from there.

[macpijan]

We lost a lot of those when we broke compat with system76_acpi.

Just a note on this on why it was the case.

The behavior implemented by the driver was not what was expected by NovaCustom and it's customers. The priority was to make sure that as many features works consistently independent of the OS (so on Windows, and Linux), not relying on the OS driver entirely. In some cases (like the persistent keyboard backlight control) these mechanisms were simply conflicting (e.g. backlight set by the firmware, was reset by the OS driver on Linux boot). If we fully contorl the driver, we might have a greater chance of making them work nicely together.

[fsbof]

I'd also really like to have some visibility and control over the fans. So 👍

RFKill would be another great feature. So 👍

Extending battery life seems like it is mainly about how hard you use the machine. I don't really want just more nerd knobs to make the system consume less power by turning things down or off. I want better battery life in general.

Regarding driver or UEFI control, so long as you don't do what others have done and require an app that has to come from a store to see or control a basic hardware feature it should all be good. I think UEFI should be for enabling and disabling hardware or features, rather than monitoring or controlling systems in flight so to speak.

[mkopec]

Blocks Dasharo/open-source-firmware-validation#336