ACPI_TOSHIBA(4)

📦 version 12.2, in debian bookworm, debian trixie, ubuntu jammy, ubuntu noble, ubuntu questing, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

💖 ACPI_TOSHIBA 💖

okay bestie, so this is acpi_toshiba from the Kernel Interfaces Manual — aka the little driver that talks to Toshiba laptops and lets you boss around their hardware. sit down, grab a strawberry, we're doing this 🍓

✨ NAME ✨

acpi_toshiba — the Toshiba HCI interface, no cap

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

so to get this driver baked into your kernel, you drop this line into your kernel config file:

device acpi_toshiba

or, if you'd rather load it as a module at boot time (lowkey the easier vibe), you put this line in loader.conf(5):

acpi_toshiba_load="YES"

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

HCI is literally Toshiba's Hardware Control Interface, and the way it works is somewhat uniform across their models — like, mostly the same across the lineup, iykyk.

The acpi_toshiba driver lets you, the user, manipulate HCI-controlled hardware using a bunch of sysctl(8) variables. so you're basically the main character controlling the hardware directly 💅

👑 SYSCTL VARIABLES 👑

here's the current roster of sysctls, and the way that they all just work:

  • hw.acpi.toshiba.force_fan — forces active cooling to be forcibly enabled (1) or disabled (0), regardless of whatever the current temperature is. no thoughts, just fan.
  • hw.acpi.toshiba.video_output — sets which display is active, using a bitwise OR of these:
    • 0 — No display
    • 1 — LCD
    • 2 — CRT
    • 4 — TV-Out
only some systems (i.e., the Libretto L5) even support video switching through this hardware-specific driver. for generic video output support, use the acpi_video(4) driver instead, bestie.
  • hw.acpi.toshiba.lcd_brightness — makes the LCD backlight brighter or dimmer. higher values = brighter ✨
  • hw.acpi.toshiba.lcd_backlight — turns the LCD backlight on and off. that's it. that's the whole job. iconic.
  • hw.acpi.toshiba.cpu_speed — sets the CPU speed to the specified speed. this gives you functionality similar to the hw.acpi.cpu.throttle_state variable. heads up though: higher sysctl values mean lower CPU speeds. yes, it's backwards, don't come for me 😭

Defaults for all of these can be set in sysctl.conf(5), which gets parsed at boot-time. so set it and forget it 🫶

🌈 LOADER TUNABLES 🌈

  • hw.acpi.toshiba.enable_fn_keys — this tunable enables or disables the function keys on the keyboard. and good news: function keys are enabled by default.

you can change this behaviour at the loader(8) prompt, or in loader.conf(5). whatever's giving more convenient for you 💜

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

⭐ HISTORY ⭐

The acpi_toshiba driver first appeared in FreeBSD 5.1. a true elder, we respect the legacy 👑

💖 AUTHORS 💖

  • The acpi_toshiba driver was written by Hiroyuki Aizu <aizu@navi.org>.
  • This manual page was written by Philip Paeps <philip@FreeBSD.org>.

and that's the whole thing, bestie, we ate and left no crumbs 🧚

Debian · February 8, 2010 · that's the source, the version and the date, so go forth and sysctl responsibly 💅🌸

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