found a bit more. upon more searching, i found that there are some acpi utilities included with the knoppix 4.0 dvd under /procs/acpi

i looked here and found the following directory structure:
ac_adapter button event info sleep wakeup
alarm dsdt fadt power_resource thermal_zone
battery embedded_controller fan processor video

when i look in this directory, there is only a lising for fan state. nothing more.
when i attempt to togle the fan using the echo enable > /proc/acpi/fan/FAN/state, the fan state then shows on, but the fan is not running.

i also attempted an apt-get for fnfx (another toshiba acpi utility) but failed miserably.

i'd really like to be able to toggle my fan on, as otherwise i'm way to hot. ANY ideas at all?