OpenBSD Journal

Improved ACPI WMI support (may be) incoming

Contributed by Peter N. M. Hansteen on from the WMI for the win dept.

Over on tech@, Ted Unangst (tedu@) is airing a patch to introduce better support ACPI WMI, looking for tests and comments:
List:       openbsd-tech
Subject:    acpi wmi asus driver
From:       "Ted Unangst" <tedu () tedunangst ! com>
Date:       2025-05-11 1:57:07

My newish ASUS laptop needs WMI to handle hotkeys like backlight toggle.

More importantly, for me, it's needed to handle the Fn-F hotkey to switch
fan/performance profiles. The system is far more pleasant to use in whisper
mode. I also notice a substantial improvement in battery life, without much
performance difference. It affects the power limits, but more long term I
think.
Tested with both an AMD zenbook and Intel vivobook.

Anyway, there's tons of other devices that use WMI as well. They will need
their own WMI handlers, but I think this is a start. It's a little chatty,
and maybe not fully knf, but perhaps it can be beaten into submission?

I include just acpiwmi.c for reading.

-- followed by the acpiwmi.c file.

This is a likely starting point for even better support of these features and make OpenBSD life on various devices significantly more pleasant.

If you are able to test or otherwise contribute, please do. The code, is in the message with subject acpi wmi asus driver, in an inbox near you or in the tech@ archive.


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