ACPI_ASUS(4)

📦 version 15.1, in freebsd 14.5, freebsd 15.1, nixpkgs unstable

💻 NAME 💻

Okay so bestie, meet acpi_asus — the Asus Laptop Extras driver. That's the whole name, no cap. It's the little guy that makes all the extra lil buttons and lights on your Asus actually do something. 🎀

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

Wanna bake this driver straight into your kernel? Say less — drop this line in your kernel configuration file:

device acpi_asus

Or, if you're more of a "load it at boot as a module" kind of main character, put this in loader.conf(5):

acpi_asus_load="YES"

Both are valid, both slay, pick your vibe. 💅

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

So the acpi_asus driver is literally out here supporting all the extra ACPI-controlled gadgets — think hotkeys and leds — that live on recent Asus (and Medion!! yes, Medion too 🫶) laptops. It lets you use the sysctl(8) interface to mess with the brightness of the LCD panel and the display output state. Iconic behavior, honestly.

Hotkey events get passed over to devd(8) so you can handle them in userspace, easy peasy, with the default configuration living in /etc/devd/asus.conf. ✨

Currently, the following Asus laptops are fully supported:

xxN
A1x
A2x
A3N
A4D
A6VM
D1x
J1x
L2B
L2D
L2E
L3C
L3D
L3H
L4E
L4R
L5x
L8x
M1A
M2E
M6N
M6R
S1x
S2x
V6V
W5A
Eee PC

And as if that wasn't enough — acpi_asus also supports the Asus-compatible ATK0100 interface found in Samsung P30/P35 laptops. Yes gorl, Samsung too. We're generous like that. 💖

🦋 SYSCTL VARIABLES 🦋

The following sysctls are currently implemented — go forth and poke them:

  • hw.acpi.asus.lcd_brightness — makes the LCD backlight brighter or dimmer (higher values = brighter, so crank it if you're feeling dramatic ☀️).
  • hw.acpi.asus.lcd_backlight — turns the LCD backlight on or off. That's it. Just on or off, king. 💡
  • hw.acpi.asus.video_output — sets the active display to use according to a bitwise OR of the following:
0       No display
1       LCD
2       CRT
4       TV-Out

Okay and quick heads up: some models also support video switching via the generic acpi_video(4) driver. Most models do not, however. So don't come for us if yours doesn't, iykyk. 🙈

Defaults for these variables can be set in sysctl.conf(5), which gets parsed at boot-time. Set it and forget it, bestie. 🎀

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

Also go show some love to the acpi4asus Project, over at http://sourceforge.net/projects/acpi4asus/. They're the blueprint, fr fr. 🫶

📜 HISTORY 📜

The acpi_asus driver first appeared in FreeBSD 5.3. Ancient history to some, still serving looks to this day. 👑

💜 AUTHORS 💜

The acpi_asus driver and this manual page were written by Philip Paeps <philip@FreeBSD.org>. Give him his flowers, he earned them. 🌸

Inspiration came from the acpi4asus project started by Julien Lerouge, which maintains a driver implementing this functionality in the Linux kernel. Cross-platform queen behavior, we love to see it. 🧚

Okay that's the whole page bestie, go compile something cute. 😭💖

Debian ✨ February 8, 2010 ✨ ACPI_ASUS(4) — signing off, mwah 💋

📦 where this page comes from