Re: Debian etch with 2.6 kernel on Inspiron 600m battery life
On Friday 21 April 2006 14:47, David PHAN wrote:
> Stefan Srdic wrote:
> > sven.debian-laptop@huster.me.uk wrote:
> >> * Prepaid <prepaid@gmail.com> [2006-04-21 13:42:25 -0400]:
> >>> Hi all
> >>>
> >>> So I just recently installed Debian Etch with a 2.6 kernel on my
> >>> Inspiron 600m. I got everything all working with X11 and wireless. But
> >>> the issue that I'm having it the battery life in Linux is about half
> >>> that of what I was getting in Windows. I have setup CPU thorottling to
> >>> 50% through KDE but I still get about half the battery life that I was
> >>> getting in Windows..
> >>
> >> Have a look at 'cpufreqd' for dynamic scaling/throttling of the CPU
> >> Also 'laptop-mode-tools' might be something for you although I've not
> >> really looking into it
> >>
> >> Sven
> >
> > powernowd is much better at throttling CPU's (not just AMD's, but
> > Intel's too) the cpufred. Laptop-mode-tools can also help extend battery
> > life by spinning down the HDD. You might want to look into acpid or
> > powersaved for general power management.
> >
> > The major difference that windows has over linux for power management is
> > ajusting the power output to the LCD screen. I have yet to find any app
> > that accomplishes just that.
> >
> > Stefan
>
> You can also have a look at cpudyn.
so many choices... Since you use KDE, you should take a look at
klaptopdaemon. Try starting it by opening the KDE control centre, then
navigating to "Power control" -> "Laptop Battery". In that screen you should
see "Start Battery Monitor" at the bottom right of the "Battery" tab.
Using klaptopdaemon you can monitor the state of your battery, but also
customise some power management settings based on whether your laptop is
plugged in or running on batteries.
For CPU throttling, I've been using the built-in kernel CPU speed governors.
No setup required. If you're running klaptopdaemon, right-click on its
system tray icon, select "performance profile", then look at the list. If
there's nothing there, the kernel modules are probably not loaded. As root
try:
modprobe cpufreq_stats
modprobe cpufreq_conservative
modprobe cpufreq_ondemand
modprobe cpufreq_powersave
modprobe cpufreq_userspace
The command
cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_available_governors
should then show you what's available.
You may need to restart klaptopdaemon afterwards to have the new governors
show up in its list. You can select the governor to use from the list. You
can also do it from the command line by writing its name
to /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor. For instance,
echo ondemand > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor
If you're running on battery, you'll probably want to use the conservative or
ondemand speed governor. You can set klaptopdaemon to automatically adjust
the governor used based on whether you're running on batteries or ac.
Hope that helps.
Luca
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