This options allows emulation of bugs in Microsoft's AML interpreter, which tolerate coding errors not caught by Microsoft's AML compiler. A slippery slope indeed, but it is easier than getting the OEM's to fix their BIOS.
How old are the BIOSes on the machines RELAXED_AML fixes? Because we only do ACPI on >=2001 right?
google lasts finds this message on LKML for an IBM ThinkPad R40 in August 2003, significantly newer than 2001. I think that Toshiba was the notorious one here, but they apparently fixed their BIOS at some point. ACPI_REPORT_WARNING(( "The ACPI AML in your computer contains errors, " "please nag the manufacturer to correct it.\n")); ACPI_REPORT_WARNING(( "Allowing relaxed access to fields; " "turn on CONFIG_ACPI_DEBUG for details.\n")); If we don't see this message anymore, we can remove the workaround; though that may prove a problem for old laptop users with no BIOS upgrade option who currently use acpi=force to get past the 2001 cutoff. As of 2.6.0-test6 this workaround is in both 2.6 and 2.4.
*** Bug 1248 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***