I8k

This is an utility to access SMM (System Management Mode) BIOS at least on many Dell Inspiron and Latitude laptops.

1 Basis Setup
- 1.1 Kernel Setup
- 1.2 Software Setup
2 Usage
3 Advanced Topics
- 3.1 Force enable on unknown systems
- 3.2 GUI
4 Links

Basis Setup

Kernel Setup

Linux Kernel Configuration:

Processor type and features  --->
    <M> Dell laptop support

Software Setup

Emerge i8kutils.

Usage

The information provided by the kernel driver can be accessed by simply reading the /proc/i8k file. For example:

$ cat /proc/i8k
   1.0 A17 2J59L02 52 2 1 8040 6420 1 2

The fields read from /proc/18k are:

   1.0 A17 2J59L02 52 2 1 8040 6420 1 2
   |   |   |       |  | | |    |    | |
   |   |   |       |  | | |    |    | +------- 10. buttons status
   |   |   |       |  | | |    |    +--------- 9.  ac status
   |   |   |       |  | | |    +-------------- 8.  right fan rpm
   |   |   |       |  | | +------------------- 7.  left fan rpm
   |   |   |       |  | +--------------------- 6.  right fan status
   |   |   |       |  +----------------------- 5.  left fan status
   |   |   |       +-------------------------- 4.  CPU temperature (Celsius)
   |   |   +---------------------------------- 3.  serial number
   |   +-------------------------------------- 2.  BIOS version
   +------------------------------------------ 1.  /proc/i8k format version

The i8kctl utility provides a command-line interface to the i8k kernel driver. When invoked without arguments the program reports the same information which can be read from the /proc/i8k file.

For more informations, see the README.

Note: The button stuff of i8k is no longer needed.

Advanced Topics

Force enable on unknown systems

On loading the module checks for the presence of an Dell Inspiron or Latitude laptop and refuses to load if running on an unknown system. You can however force loading of the driver, for testing it on unknown hardware, by passing the force=1 option to modprobe:

# modprobe i8k force=1

Note that force loading of the module on unknown hardware could crash your system and will anyway 'taint' the kernel. The force option is provided only for testing purposes or for loading on systems where the BIOS version can't be read from the SMM BIOS.