sudo cat /proc/acpi/dsdt > ~dsdt.aml no longer works in Ubuntu 11.04 (???)

[iJohn]

IIRC, one of the usual methods for extracting the DSDT used by a
mobo's BIOS is to boot from some flavor of Linux Live media and then
run a command similar to
sudo cat /proc/acpi/dsdt > ~dsdt.aml
in a terminal window.

When I tried this recently with Ubuntu 11.04 (64 bit ... but I assume
also for 32 bit) it did not work. Digging a little deeper I found that
the acpi directory has been moved into a new directory named
"firmware".

I believe as of Ubuntu 11.04 the way to extract the DSDT is to use, for example,
sudo cat /proc/firmware/acpi/tables/DSDT > ~dsdt.aml

Does anyone know (1) if the above is correct and (2) why this change
was made? I'm guessing somewhere along the way a change was made to
the linux kernel but I have no idea when it happened or why it was
done.

FWIW,

-irrationally clueless john

P.S.
I finally figured out why the suggested format is "sudo cat /proc/...
> ~dsdt.aml" rather than "sudo cp /proc/... ~dsdt.aml". The latter
version seems more natural to me since all you want to do is copy the
file, correct? Unfortunately, using the copy command results in "sudo"
being active when the output file is created and then root ends up
owing ~dsdt.aml.

If on the other hand you redirect standard out from a sudo'ed cat
command, then the resulting file won't have any annoying restrictive
permissions.

Obvious in hindsight. <insert forehead hand heel slap> Duh! ;-)

[pete...@cruzio.com]

> When I tried this recently with Ubuntu 11.04 (64 bit ... but I assume
> also for 32 bit) it did not work. Digging a little deeper I found that
> the acpi directory has been moved into a new directory named
> "firmware".
>
> I believe as of Ubuntu 11.04 the way to extract the DSDT is to use, for
> example,
> sudo cat /proc/firmware/acpi/tables/DSDT > ~dsdt.aml
>
> Does anyone know (1) if the above is correct and (2) why this change
> was made? I'm guessing somewhere along the way a change was made to
> the linux kernel but I have no idea when it happened or why it was
> done.

On my last hack job, a Shuttle SP35, I DID USE the 11.04 Desktop
distribution, and I am fairly sure I used the command:

sudo cat /proc/acpi/dsdt > /home/ubuntu/Desktop/Shuttle-SP35-dsdt.aml

But, I could have been wrong.

Anyway, I installed 11.04 on an AMD I am playing with, and I'm pretty sure
I extracted the DSDT on that machine, too.

Which ever ...

Using:

sudo cat ...

will indeed place the .aml file on the desktop, and you may, thereafter,
copy it to a USB flash drive, and then eject that flash drive, taking it
over to a Leo or Snow machine and run DSDTSE.

I must have done a hundred DSDTs this way, and all have been successful.

[iJohn]

On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 11:05 AM, <pete...@cruzio.com> wrote:
>
> I must have done a hundred DSDTs this way, and all have been successful.
>

Well, maybe it's just me then. I was doing things a bit differently in
that instead of booting an Ubuntu 11.04 Live CD I created a bootable
USB flash drive with persistence enabled. (Any changes you make are
still there the next time you boot from the flash drive). I used the
tool I downloaded from the link below.
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/universal-usb-installer-easy-as-1-2-3/

Here's the result of some command I issued in terminal after the
Ubuntu 11.04 (32 bit version this time) booted up.

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo find / -name dsdt -print
/rofs/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.38-8-generic/include/config/acpi/custom/dsdt
/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.38-8-generic/include/config/acpi/custom/dsdt

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo find / -name DSDT -print
/sys/firmware/acpi/tables/DSDT

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ ls -a /proc/acpi
. .. ac_adapter battery button event wakeup

Not saying I'm right. I just don't think I'm completely wrong and I'd
be interested to understand happening here a bit better. If I screwed
something up I hope someone can tell me where I went wrong.

-irrational john

[pete...@cruzio.com]

> Not saying I'm right. I just don't think I'm completely wrong and I'd
> be interested to understand happening here a bit better. If I screwed
> something up I hope someone can tell me where I went wrong.

And, I'm not saying you're wrong, either.

A regular installation CD is not the one to use, a Live CD is.

[iJohn]

On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 1:50 PM, <pete...@cruzio.com> wrote:
> A regular installation CD is not the one to use, a Live CD is.

I'm not aware of a difference between the two.

You can boot the install/Live CD and run Ubuntu from it.

You can also install Ubuntu from it.

Or you can boot it, run Ubuntu (Live), and then decide to install Ubuntu.

I had assumed that aside from the addition of persistence, the
Install/Live USB flash drive I was using is equivalent to the Live CD.

Guess what I'll have to do later tonight is burn some Live CD's (32 &
64 also maybe) and boot from them and see what I get.

But for now it's time to go get walked by some dogs at the local SPCA.

-irrational john

[pete...@cruzio.com]

> Well, maybe it's just me then. I was doing things a bit differently in
> that instead of booting an Ubuntu 11.04 Live CD I created a bootable
> USB flash drive with persistence enabled. (Any changes you make are
> still there the next time you boot from the flash drive). I used the
> tool I downloaded from the link below.
> http://www.pendrivelinux.com/universal-usb-installer-easy-as-1-2-3/

I successfully build a PENDRIVE with 11.04 on it.

I even discovered how to get my Shuttle SP35 to boot it ... move the flash
drive to the head of the hard drive boot list ... and I got it booted.

You're right ... the location of the DSDT DID change.

[pete...@cruzio.com]

> I successfully build a PENDRIVE with 11.04 on it.
>
> I even discovered how to get my Shuttle SP35 to boot it ... move the flash
> drive to the head of the hard drive boot list ... and I got it booted.
>
> You're right ... the location of the DSDT DID change.

Tested, successfully, on my ASRock P55 Pro.

I AM VERY PLEASED with the thumb drive residence of Ubuntu.

The test by do not install option works, too.

Didn't, from the CD, however.

[paaguti]

No worries, there is a new package, called acpidump you have to
install.
It's small, so it'll run even on a LiveCD. I'm not very happy with
11.04 but
it has _a_ feature I like. The custom CD creation. I have used it to
create
a USB stick with 'my' basics, including Python and acpidump and that's
what I use now when fighting against my new ASUS U30Jc that really
doesn't want to work with anything above 10.6.2 :(

hope it helps

[iJohn]

On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 7:02 PM, <pete...@cruzio.com> wrote:
> The test by do not install option works, too.
> Didn't, from the CD, however.

Not sure what you are referring to there, Peter.

I'm glad to hear you are also seeing a change to the location of the
DSDT file. Wonder why they did it. Not questioning whether it was a
good thing to do or not. I don't know nearly enough to do that. I'm
just curious about what is going on "under the covers" with Linux
here. I'm guessing a change was made to the kernel, but that's just a
WAG.

FWIW, I burned CD's of the Ubunut 11.04 Live CD ISOs and booted them.
Both the 32 bit & 64 bit showed the same (new) location for the DSDT
file. (As I was expecting they would. ;-)

As for the www.pendrivelinux.com/universal-usb-installer-easy-as-1-2-3/
link, that and some of the other tools on the PenDrive web site look
potentially very useful. The site was linked to in a "How To" on the
Ubuntu site explaining how to put the Ubuntu "Live CD" images on a USB
flash drive. It's step 2 on this page:
http://www.ubuntu.com/download/ubuntu/download/.

-irrational john

[Ralph Green]

Howdy,
If you decide a boot CD or DVD is what you want, I recently found a
nice little tool called remastersys. It lets you take a running Ubuntu
system and make a bootable CD or DVD from it. It will have all the
packages you added. It is limited to creating a iso file of 4
gigabytes, but worked well for me.
Good day,
Ralph

[wove]

This is pretty low level for me and I probably do not understand this fully. Changes in the directory structure has been made necessary by a move within the Linux community to standardize on using systemd. Earlier init mangagers created temporary mount points to access files at boot before the file system was mounted.  Systemd does not allow for temporary mount points. The net result is that changes needed to be made in the directory structure to accomodate systemd. A side effect of this move however should be a lot more consistency in the directory structure across all the various Linux distributions. A google search on systemd will turn up a great deal more and better information.

bill