Comment 47 for bug 395239

In my case with an ancient Dell Inspiron 3500 laptop, the DSDT is so broken that it doesn't even have a datecode, so the kernel ignores it. Using acpi=force makes it hang hard. With no ACPI or APM pretty much everything is broken. I'd like to try a simple dumped dissasembled and recompiled DSDT with no mods (known to fix many issues on ancient hardware, or bugs caused by the Microsoft ACPI compiler) but now I get to rebuild a custom package to even try it. At this point it might be easier to hack the BIOS image to inject a proper DSDT which is even more dangerous than having the kernel option to do it.

Old hardware is never going to be repaired by the manufacturer, it has been out of support lifecycle for years. I am not even sure how to report a bug about this DSDT or how anyone would patch it - detecting the model string in the DSDT and automatically overriding the safety check for the ACPI date, and then tweaking everything else to override or ignore the bits and pieces that are completely broken? Seems like supplying a good custom DSDT would be a more elegant fix than mucking with all that code just for some ancient laptop that most people wouldn't even try to use anymore.

Also a new user isn't going to accidentally drop a random DSDT file in the initramfs, and it should be clear enough from the outset to any user that meddling with initramfs can and probably will lead to severe issues if you don't know exactly what you're doing.

Recompiling a custom kernel package every update cycle is ridiculous, just to get this needed feature back. Stuff like this leads to people using various third party repositories which usually causes even more problems than the one this new posture intends to avoid. I know if there was a repo I could add that had a non-neutered yet current kernel package I would do it immediately. Maybe Ubuntu should run an official "I'm not an idiot" repo that power users could add in order to get non-neutered "unsafe" packages that go against the mainstream "protect you from yourself" grain, yet still actually work properly alongside the normal repo packages. Maybe put up a web page so you have to sign up for access to the repo and take an online quiz to prove you actually aren't an idiot, even, to keep out the dumb average user riff-raff. Or at least a bunch of disclaimer checkboxes that force the user to confirm their computer might light on fire or become an expensive paperweight if they so much as dare to use the repo.