no /proc/acpi, trying to dump dsdt to a file

Greetings,

I've done some searches, poked around in the kernel source and doc, can't seem to find anything relevant.

kernel is 2.6.15, with gentoo patches and the patch to load a dsdt from initrd.

I'm trying to dump my dsdt, but there is no /proc/acpi, let alone /proc/acpi/dsdt.

Is there something special needed to make /proc/acpi show up? Or other way to get at the existing dsdt in this situation?

The dsdt table in my BIOS is broken, in case that's relevant and nonobvious. :) I'm hoping the broken existing table isn't what is blocking the /proc/acpi ...

The other interesting (to me, anyway) snippet is that CONFIG_ACPI_SYSTEM doesn't show up when 'make menuconfig', but is set to 'Y' in the .config file. /drivers/acpi/system.o is built.

I've tried booting with various kernel parameters, disabling variously acpi, apic and lapic. no difference in behavior. right now they're all turned on (no special parms on kernel line).

Here's a snippet from my .config

#
# ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) Support #
CONFIG_ACPI=y
# CONFIG_ACPI_AC is not set
# CONFIG_ACPI_BATTERY is not set CONFIG_ACPI_BUTTON=y
CONFIG_ACPI_VIDEO=y
# CONFIG_ACPI_HOTKEY is not set
CONFIG_ACPI_FAN=y
CONFIG_ACPI_PROCESSOR=y
CONFIG_ACPI_THERMAL=y
# CONFIG_ACPI_ASUS is not set
# CONFIG_ACPI_IBM is not set
# CONFIG_ACPI_TOSHIBA is not set CONFIG_ACPI_CUSTOM_DSDT_INITRD=y CONFIG_ACPI_BLACKLIST_YEAR=0
CONFIG_ACPI_DEBUG=y
CONFIG_ACPI_EC=y
CONFIG_ACPI_POWER=y
CONFIG_ACPI_SYSTEM=y
CONFIG_X86_PM_TIMER=y
# CONFIG_ACPI_CONTAINER is not set

Here's the dmesg output when loading the existing BIOS DSDT, in case that is relevant.

ACPI: Looking for DSDT in initramfs... error, file /DSDT.aml not found.
tbxface-0109 [02] load_tables : ACPI Tables successfully acquired
nssearch-0311: *** Error: ns_search_and_enter: Bad character in ACPI Name: 43035350
dswload-0292: *** Error: Looking up [0x43035350] (NON-ASCII)
in namespace, AE_BAD_CHARACTER
psloop-0287 [09] ps_parse_loop : During name lookup/catalog,
AE_BAD_CHARACTER
tbxface-0115: *** Error: acpi_load_tables: Could not load namespace: AE_BAD_CHARACTER
tbxface-0123: *** Error: acpi_load_tables: Could not load tables: AE_BAD_CHARACTER
ACPI: Unable to load the System Description Tables

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance,

glen