acpi=force safe?

["Nick Bartos" <spam99-1EIjRwF9Gc5s5w19saIqfg@public.gmane.org>]

I manage a little router distro that uses acpi to do a clean shutdown when
the power button is tapped.  So really I am only using the powerdown &
button event features.

The problem I am having is that a lot of the boards I use are older, and
acpi does not get enabled by default.  In the distro I want to keep
everything consistent, so if I fix this problem by forcing acpi on, I will
want to do it globally (for all systems).

I can do acpi=force, but I worry about causing stability issues.

I posted this question on the kernel devel list, and it was suggested to
me that I compile in basic acpi support button support, and nothing else. 
Then I could do a acpi=force and just force on those features.

I am wondering if this will be safe, or if I could run into problems.  I
don't want to sacrifice stability to have these features, but I would like
all my boxes to be consistent.

At least one of the systems is an asus p4b266 (most boards are asus),
which is on the blacklist for acpi=ht.  I tried to force acpi on for this
board which did work, but it gave me a warning about overriding acpi=ht
(which I really don't know what that is supposed to do).

If this is OK, then what other features can I enable and safely force acpi
on?  I would like to eventually implement fan speed and processor temp
monitoring (possibly other health monitoring).  For some router only boxes
it may be good to reduce power consumption, but I don't want to push my
luck if it may not be safe.

I am using the latest 2.4.x pre at the moment.

Comments?





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