[DRAFT] Differentiated System Description Table (DSDT) - DSDT is a part of the ACPI specification and it supplies configuration information about a base system. ACPI capable computers come with a preinstalled DSDT from the manufacturer. A common Linux/OS X problem is missing ACPI functionality (fans not running, laptop screens not shutting off, etc.)
This subforum is dedicated to patches/fixes able to be inserted/modified from an extracted dsdt.dsl, which is then compiled into a DSDT.aml for OS X to pick up and use (with a proper bootloader).
These fixes are not permanent, and do not damage your BIOS.
DSDT is a part of ACPI. Actually DSDT tells OS how to interract with the hardware (simplified way of telling it). OSX has an incomplete ACPI implementation which supports only a subset of DSDT. By replacing DSDT we can declare essentially the same interface but in the way that OSX understands. This potentially can solve nearly any ACPI-related problem (except if OSX bypasses ACPI). Other usage case is emulating by the means of DSDT features or hardware components not present on your system. But this is limited to devices that use ACPI.
Read-only
DSDT modification is for debugging and development only. Supported systems should run ONLY the DSDT supplied by the platform vendor. Further, the maintainer and the development team generally consider it a Linux bug if Windows handles an un-modified DSDT and Linux does not.
These pages offer facilities to upload improved or original DSDTs. You can also make comments about these here. This section is open for abuse like a WikiWiki, so please: always be aware of that. #include <std/disclaimer.h> - no warranties - no liabilities.
Currently, we can offer 865 DSDTs from our database, supplied or commented by 975 people. What is a DSDT?
This is just a short introduction to DSDTs, see the specification, chapter 2.1 for more info. DSDT is an acronym for Differentiated System Description Table. This table contains the Differentiated Definition Block, which supplies the information and configuration information about the base system. It is always inserted into the ACPI Namespace by the OS at boot time. Unfortunately, many hardware vendors and OEMs are not capable of supplying fully functional tables (not even the members of the ACPI SIG), see also the blacklist. So there is a need to patch these tables by us. :)
Richard Black wrote a HOWTO about integrating a custom DSDT into the kernel and how to debug it. Another extensive manual by jetblack was made available at Gentoo's. Check also Philipp Matthias Hahn's page in our Wiki how to integrate a custom DSDT. Markus Gaugusch recently presented a patch for integrating a custom DSDT via initrd, similar to the approach of bootsplash.