On Tuesday, February 18, 2014 07:59:17 PM Moore, Robert wrote:
> Maybe not exactly "running", but at the very least, ACPICA must be
> initialized.
> 
> All of this of course depends on how early the table needs to be loaded.

I'd say as early as possible.
Not sure about Thomas' use case.
I expect most of the extra tables are needed before ACPICA gets
initialized otherwise it could have been specified to put the info
into DSDT/SSDT via ASL.
Sooner or later people will hit the "I need it earlier" limit and
patch:
ACPICA: Introduce new acpi_os_physical_table_add OS callback
shows that it can be done early and that it integrates nicely
with only some additional lines.

   Thomas