Laptop-Mode-Tools on RESEARCHUT

Laptop Mode Tools 1.74

rrs@researchut.com (Ritesh Raj Sarraf) — Sat, 18 Jul 2020 21:15:04 +0530

Laptop Mode Tools 1.74

Laptop Mode Tools version 1.74 has been released. This release includes important bug fixes, some defaults settings updated to current driver support in Linux and support for devices with nouveau based nVIDIA cards.

A filtered list of changes is mentioned below. For the full log, please refer to the git repository

1.74 - Sat Jul 18 19:10:40 IST 2020

* With 4.15+ kernels, Linux Intel SATA has a better link power
saving policy, med_power_with_dipm, which should be the recommended
one to use
* Disable defaults for syslog logging
* Initialize LM_VERBOSE with default to disabled
* Merge pull request #157 from rickysarraf/nouveau
* Add power saving module for nouveau cards
* Disable ethernet module by default
* Add board-specific folder and documentation
* Add execute bit on module radeon-dpm
* Drop unlock because there is no lock acquired

Resources

Source tarball, Feodra/SUSE RPM Packages available at project’s release page
Debian packages will be available soon in Unstable.
Homepage: https://github.com/rickysarraf/laptop-mode-tools/wiki
Mailing List: https://groups.google.com/d/forum/laptop-mode-tools

What is Laptop Mode Tools

Description: Tools for Power Savings based on battery/AC status
Laptop mode is a Linux kernel feature that allows your laptop to save
considerable power, by allowing the hard drive to spin down for longer
periods of time. This package contains the userland scripts that are
needed to enable laptop mode.
.
It includes support for automatically enabling laptop mode when the
computer is working on batteries. It also supports various other power
management features, such as starting and stopping daemons depending on
power mode, automatically hibernating if battery levels are too low, and
adjusting terminal blanking and X11 screen blanking
.
laptop-mode-tools uses the Linux kernel's Laptop Mode feature and thus
is also used on Desktops and Servers to conserve power

Laptop Mode Tools 1.73

rrs@researchut.com (Ritesh Raj Sarraf) — Sat, 11 Jan 2020 15:14:22 +0530

Laptop Mode Tools 1.73

I am pleased to announce the release of Laptop Mode Tools version 1.73

This release includes many bug fixes. For user convenience, 2 command options have been added.

rrs@priyasi:~$ laptop_mode -h
****************************
Following user commands are understood
status : Display a Laptop Mode Tools power savings status
power-stats : Display the power statistics on the machine
power-events : Trap power related events on the machine
help : Display this help message (--help, -h)
version : Display program version (--version, -v)
****************************
15:22 ♒ ॐ ☺ 😄
rrs@priyasi:~$ sudo laptop_mode status
[sudo] password for rrs:
Mounts:
/dev/mapper/nvme0n1p4_crypt on / type btrfs (rw,noatime,compress=zstd:3,ssd,space_cache,autodefrag,subvolid=5,subvol=/)
/dev/nvme0n1p3 on /boot type ext4 (rw,relatime)
/dev/nvme0n1p1 on /boot/efi type vfat (rw,relatime,fmask=0077,dmask=0077,codepage=437,iocharset=ascii,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro)
/dev/fuse on /run/user/1000/doc type fuse (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=1000,group_id=1000)
Drive power status:
Cannot read /dev/[hs]d[abcdefgh], permission denied - /usr/sbin/laptop_mode needs to be run as root
(NOTE: drive settings affected by Laptop Mode cannot be retrieved.)
Readahead states:
/dev/mapper/nvme0n1p4_crypt: 128 kB
/dev/nvme0n1p3: 128 kB
/dev/nvme0n1p1: 128 kB
Laptop Mode Tools is allowed to run: /var/run/laptop-mode-tools/enabled exists.
/proc/sys/vm/laptop_mode:
0
/proc/sys/vm/dirty_ratio:
40
/proc/sys/fs/xfs/xfssyncd_centisecs:
3000
/proc/sys/vm/dirty_background_ratio:
10
/proc/sys/vm/dirty_expire_centisecs:
3000
/proc/sys/vm/dirty_writeback_centisecs:
500
......SNIPPED......
/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_cur_freq:
400000
/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu5/cpufreq/cpuinfo_max_freq:
2001000
/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor:
schedutil
/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu7/cpufreq/scaling_governor:
schedutil
/proc/acpi/button/lid/LID0/state:
state: open
/sys/class/power_supply/AC/online:
1
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/status:
Charging
15:22 ♒ ॐ ☺ 😄
rrs@priyasi:~$ laptop_mode power-stats
Power Supply details for /sys/class/power_supply/AC
P: /devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXSYBUS:00/ACPI0003:00/power_supply/AC
L: 0
E: DEVPATH=/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXSYBUS:00/ACPI0003:00/power_supply/AC
E: POWER_SUPPLY_NAME=AC
E: POWER_SUPPLY_ONLINE=1
E: SUBSYSTEM=power_supply
Power Supply details for /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0
P: /devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXSYBUS:00/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0
L: 0
E: DEVPATH=/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXSYBUS:00/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0
E: POWER_SUPPLY_NAME=BAT0
E: POWER_SUPPLY_STATUS=Charging
E: POWER_SUPPLY_PRESENT=1
E: POWER_SUPPLY_TECHNOLOGY=Li-poly
E: POWER_SUPPLY_CYCLE_COUNT=0
E: POWER_SUPPLY_VOLTAGE_MIN_DESIGN=7600000
E: POWER_SUPPLY_VOLTAGE_NOW=8760000
E: POWER_SUPPLY_CURRENT_NOW=545000
E: POWER_SUPPLY_CHARGE_FULL_DESIGN=6842000
E: POWER_SUPPLY_CHARGE_FULL=6592000
E: POWER_SUPPLY_CHARGE_NOW=6526000
E: POWER_SUPPLY_CAPACITY=98
E: POWER_SUPPLY_CAPACITY_LEVEL=Normal
E: POWER_SUPPLY_MODEL_NAME=DELL G8VCF6C
E: POWER_SUPPLY_MANUFACTURER=SMP
E: POWER_SUPPLY_SERIAL_NUMBER=1549
E: SUBSYSTEM=power_supply
15:23 ♒ ॐ ☺ 😄
rrs@priyasi:~$ laptop_mode power-events
Running Laptop Mode Tools in event tracing mode. Press ^C to interrupt
monitor will print the received events for:
UDEV - the event which udev sends out after rule processing
KERNEL - the kernel uevent
KERNEL[140321.536870] change /devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXSYBUS:00/ACPI0003:00/power_supply/AC (power_supply)
ACTION=change
DEVPATH=/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXSYBUS:00/ACPI0003:00/power_supply/AC
SUBSYSTEM=power_supply
POWER_SUPPLY_NAME=AC
POWER_SUPPLY_ONLINE=0
SEQNUM=5908
KERNEL[140321.569526] change /devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXSYBUS:00/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0 (power_supply)
ACTION=change
DEVPATH=/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXSYBUS:00/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0
SUBSYSTEM=power_supply
POWER_SUPPLY_NAME=BAT0
POWER_SUPPLY_STATUS=Discharging
POWER_SUPPLY_PRESENT=1
POWER_SUPPLY_TECHNOLOGY=Li-poly
POWER_SUPPLY_CYCLE_COUNT=0
POWER_SUPPLY_VOLTAGE_MIN_DESIGN=7600000
POWER_SUPPLY_VOLTAGE_NOW=8761000
POWER_SUPPLY_CHARGE_FULL_DESIGN=6842000
POWER_SUPPLY_CHARGE_FULL=6592000
POWER_SUPPLY_CHARGE_NOW=6526000
POWER_SUPPLY_CAPACITY=98
POWER_SUPPLY_CAPACITY_LEVEL=Normal
POWER_SUPPLY_MODEL_NAME=DELL G8VCF6C
POWER_SUPPLY_MANUFACTURER=SMP
POWER_SUPPLY_SERIAL_NUMBER=1549
SEQNUM=5909
UDEV [140321.577770] change /devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXSYBUS:00/ACPI0003:00/power_supply/AC (power_supply)
ACTION=change
DEVPATH=/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXSYBUS:00/ACPI0003:00/power_supply/AC
SUBSYSTEM=power_supply
POWER_SUPPLY_NAME=AC
POWER_SUPPLY_ONLINE=0
SEQNUM=5908
USEC_INITIALIZED=140321550931
UDEV [140321.582123] change /devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXSYBUS:00/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0 (power_supply)
ACTION=change
DEVPATH=/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXSYBUS:00/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0
SUBSYSTEM=power_supply
POWER_SUPPLY_NAME=BAT0
POWER_SUPPLY_STATUS=Discharging
POWER_SUPPLY_PRESENT=1
POWER_SUPPLY_TECHNOLOGY=Li-poly
POWER_SUPPLY_CYCLE_COUNT=0
POWER_SUPPLY_VOLTAGE_MIN_DESIGN=7600000
POWER_SUPPLY_VOLTAGE_NOW=8761000
POWER_SUPPLY_CHARGE_FULL_DESIGN=6842000
POWER_SUPPLY_CHARGE_FULL=6592000
POWER_SUPPLY_CHARGE_NOW=6526000
POWER_SUPPLY_CAPACITY=98
POWER_SUPPLY_CAPACITY_LEVEL=Normal
POWER_SUPPLY_MODEL_NAME=DELL G8VCF6C
POWER_SUPPLY_MANUFACTURER=SMP
POWER_SUPPLY_SERIAL_NUMBER=1549
SEQNUM=5909
USEC_INITIALIZED=140321580812
KERNEL[140324.857185] change /devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXSYBUS:00/ACPI0003:00/power_supply/AC (power_supply)
ACTION=change
DEVPATH=/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXSYBUS:00/ACPI0003:00/power_supply/AC
SUBSYSTEM=power_supply
POWER_SUPPLY_NAME=AC
POWER_SUPPLY_ONLINE=1
SEQNUM=5912
UDEV [140324.916156] change /devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXSYBUS:00/ACPI0003:00/power_supply/AC (power_supply)
ACTION=change
DEVPATH=/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXSYBUS:00/ACPI0003:00/power_supply/AC
SUBSYSTEM=power_supply
POWER_SUPPLY_NAME=AC
POWER_SUPPLY_ONLINE=1
SEQNUM=5912
USEC_INITIALIZED=140324887055
KERNEL[140324.917955] change /devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXSYBUS:00/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0 (power_supply)
ACTION=change
DEVPATH=/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXSYBUS:00/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0
SUBSYSTEM=power_supply
POWER_SUPPLY_NAME=BAT0
POWER_SUPPLY_STATUS=Unknown
POWER_SUPPLY_PRESENT=1
POWER_SUPPLY_TECHNOLOGY=Li-poly
POWER_SUPPLY_CYCLE_COUNT=0
POWER_SUPPLY_VOLTAGE_MIN_DESIGN=7600000
POWER_SUPPLY_VOLTAGE_NOW=8622000
POWER_SUPPLY_CHARGE_FULL_DESIGN=6842000
POWER_SUPPLY_CHARGE_FULL=6592000
POWER_SUPPLY_CHARGE_NOW=6526000
POWER_SUPPLY_CAPACITY=98
POWER_SUPPLY_CAPACITY_LEVEL=Normal
POWER_SUPPLY_MODEL_NAME=DELL G8VCF6C
POWER_SUPPLY_MANUFACTURER=SMP
POWER_SUPPLY_SERIAL_NUMBER=1549
SEQNUM=5913
UDEV [140324.922916] change /devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXSYBUS:00/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0 (power_supply)
ACTION=change
DEVPATH=/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXSYBUS:00/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0
SUBSYSTEM=power_supply
POWER_SUPPLY_NAME=BAT0
POWER_SUPPLY_STATUS=Unknown
POWER_SUPPLY_PRESENT=1
POWER_SUPPLY_TECHNOLOGY=Li-poly
POWER_SUPPLY_CYCLE_COUNT=0
POWER_SUPPLY_VOLTAGE_MIN_DESIGN=7600000
POWER_SUPPLY_VOLTAGE_NOW=8622000
POWER_SUPPLY_CHARGE_FULL_DESIGN=6842000
POWER_SUPPLY_CHARGE_FULL=6592000
POWER_SUPPLY_CHARGE_NOW=6526000
POWER_SUPPLY_CAPACITY=98
POWER_SUPPLY_CAPACITY_LEVEL=Normal
POWER_SUPPLY_MODEL_NAME=DELL G8VCF6C
POWER_SUPPLY_MANUFACTURER=SMP
POWER_SUPPLY_SERIAL_NUMBER=1549
SEQNUM=5913
USEC_INITIALIZED=140324922572
^C
15:24 ♒ ॐ ☹ 😟=> 130

A filtered list of changes is mentioned below. For the full log, please refer to the git repository.

1.73 - Sat Jan 11 14:52:11 IST 2020

* Respect black/white lists when disabling autosuspend
* Add newer power supply names
* Fix crash due external battery of mouse
* Honor configuration setting for battery level polling
* cpufreq: intel_pstate should use performance governors
* runtime-pm: Speed up by avoiding fork in echo_to_file
* runtime-pm: Inline echo_to_file_do
* runtime-pm: Fix echo_to_file* indentation
* runtime-pm: Speed up by avoiding fork in listed_by_{id,type}
* runtime-pm: Simplify vendor/product match
* add help and verison user commands
* Add a power-stats status command
* Separate power sysfs attributes and add sysfs status attribute
* Add device type 'sd' to default blacklist
* Fix rpm spec file for new installable files

Source tarball, Feodra/SUSE RPM Packages available at: https://github.com/rickysarraf/laptop-mode-tools/releases

Debian packages will be available soon in Unstable.

Homepage: https://github.com/rickysarraf/laptop-mode-tools/wiki

Mailing List: https://groups.google.com/d/forum/laptop-mode-tools

What is Laptop Mode Tools

Description: Tools for Power Savings based on battery/AC status
Laptop mode is a Linux kernel feature that allows your laptop to save
considerable power, by allowing the hard drive to spin down for longer
periods of time. This package contains the userland scripts that are
needed to enable laptop mode.
.
It includes support for automatically enabling laptop mode when the
computer is working on batteries. It also supports various other power
management features, such as starting and stopping daemons depending on
power mode, automatically hibernating if battery levels are too low, and
adjusting terminal blanking and X11 screen blanking
.
laptop-mode-tools uses the Linux kernel's Laptop Mode feature and thus
is also used on Desktops and Servers to conserve power

Laptop Mode Tools 1.72

rrs@researchut.com (Ritesh Raj Sarraf) — Thu, 01 Feb 2018 12:45:06 -0500

What a way to make a gift!

I’m pleased to announce the 1.72 release of Laptop Mode Tools. Major changes include the port of the GUI configuration utility to Python 3 and PyQt5. Some tweaks, fixes and enhancements in current modules. Extending {black,white}list of devices to types other than USB. Listing of devices by their devtype attribute.

A filtered list of changes is mentioned below. For the full log, please refer to the git repository.

Source tarball, Feodra/SUSE RPM Packages available at:
https://github.com/rickysarraf/laptop-mode-tools/releases

Debian packages will be available soon in Unstable.

Homepage: https://github.com/rickysarraf/laptop-mode-tools/wiki
Mailing List: https://groups.google.com/d/forum/laptop-mode-tools

1.72 - Thu Feb 1 21:59:24 IST 2018
* Switch to PyQt5 and Python3
* Add btrfs to list of filesystems for which we can set commit interval
* Add pkexec invocation script
* Add desktop file to upstream repo and invoke script
* Update installer to includes gui wrappers
* Install new SVG pixmap
* Control all available cards in radeon-dpm
* Prefer to use the new runtime pm autosuspend_delay_ms interface
* tolerate broken device interfaces quietly
* runtime-pm: Make {black,white}lists work with non-USB devices
* send echo errors to verbose log
* Extend blacklist by device types of devtype

What is Laptop Mode Tools

Description: Tools for Power Savings based on battery/AC status
Laptop mode is a Linux kernel feature that allows your laptop to save
considerable power, by allowing the hard drive to spin down for longer
periods of time. This package contains the userland scripts that are
needed to enable laptop mode.
.
It includes support for automatically enabling laptop mode when the
computer is working on batteries. It also supports various other power
management features, such as starting and stopping daemons depending on
power mode, automatically hibernating if battery levels are too low, and
adjusting terminal blanking and X11 screen blanking
.
laptop-mode-tools uses the Linux kernel's Laptop Mode feature and thus
is also used on Desktops and Servers to conserve power

PS: This release took around 13 months. A lot of things changed, for me, personally. Some life lessons learnt. Some idiots uncovered. But the best of 2017, I got married. I am hopeful to keep work-life balanced, including time for FOSS.

Laptop Mode Tools 1.71

rrs@researchut.com (Ritesh Raj Sarraf) — Thu, 12 Jan 2017 03:54:02 -0500

I am pleased to announce the 1.71 release of Laptop Mode Tools. This release includes some new modules, some bug fixes, and there are some efficiency improvements too. Many thanks to our users; most changes in this release are contributions from our users.

A filtered list of changes in mentioned below. For the full log, please refer to the git repository.

Source tarball, Feodra/SUSE RPM Packages available at:
https://github.com/rickysarraf/laptop-mode-tools/releases

Debian packages will be available soon in Unstable.

Homepage: https://github.com/rickysarraf/laptop-mode-tools/wiki
Mailing List: https://groups.google.com/d/forum/laptop-mode-tools

1.71 - Thu Jan 12 13:30:50 IST 2017
* Fix incorrect import of os.putenv
* Merge pull request #74 from Coucouf/fix-os-putenv
* Fix documentation on where we read battery capacity from
* cpuhotplug: allow disabling specific cpus
* Merge pull request #78 from aartamonau/cpuhotplug
* runtime-pm: refactor listed_by_id()
* wireless-power: Use iw and fallback to iwconfig if it not available
* Prefer available AC supply information over battery state to determine ON_AC
* On startup, we want to force the full execution of LMT.
* Device hotplugs need a forced execution for LMT to apply the proper settings
* runtime-pm: Refactor list_by_type()
* kbd-backlight: New module to control keyboard backlight brightness
* Include Transmit power saving in wireless cards
* Don't run in a subshell
* Try harder to check battery charge
* New module: vgaswitcheroo
* Revive bluetooth module. Use rfkill primarily. Also don't unload (incomplete list of) kernel modules

What is Laptop Mode Tools

Description: Tools for Power Savings based on battery/AC status
Laptop mode is a Linux kernel feature that allows your laptop to save
considerable power, by allowing the hard drive to spin down for longer
periods of time. This package contains the userland scripts that are
needed to enable laptop mode.
.
It includes support for automatically enabling laptop mode when the
computer is working on batteries. It also supports various other power
management features, such as starting and stopping daemons depending on
power mode, automatically hibernating if battery levels are too low, and
adjusting terminal blanking and X11 screen blanking
.
laptop-mode-tools uses the Linux kernel's Laptop Mode feature and thus
is also used on Desktops and Servers to conserve power

Laptop Mode Tools 1.70

rrs@researchut.com (Ritesh Raj Sarraf) — Sat, 24 Sep 2016 09:55:23 -0400

I’m pleased to announce the release of Laptop Mode Tools, version 1.70. This release adds support for AHCI Runtime PM, introduced in Linux 4.6. It also includes many important bug fixes, mostly related to invocation and determination of power states.

Changelog:

1.70 - Sat Sep 24 16:51:02 IST 2016
* Deal harder with broken battery states
* On machines with 2+ batteries, determine states from all batteries
* Limit status message logging frequency. Some machines tend to send
ACPI events too often. Thanks Maciej S. Szmigiero
* Try harder to determine power states. As reports have shown, the
power_supply subsystem has had incorrect state reporting on many machines,
for both, BAT and AC.
* Relax conditional events where Laptop Mode Tools should be executed. This
affected for use cases of Laptop being docked and undocked
Thanks Daniel Koch.
* CPU Hotplug settings extended
* Cleanup states for improved Laptop Mode Tools invocation
Thanks: Tomas Janousek
* Align Intel P State default to what the actual driver (intel_pstate.c)
uses
Thanks: George Caswell and Matthew Gabeler-Lee
* Add support for AHCI Runtime PM in module intel-sata-powermgmt
* Many systemd and initscript fixes
* Relax default USB device list. This avoids the long standing issues with
USB devices (mice, keyboard) that mis-behaved during autosuspend

Source tarball, Feodra/SUSE RPM Packages available at:
https://github.com/rickysarraf/laptop-mode-tools/releases

Debian packages will be available soon in Unstable.

Homepage: https://github.com/rickysarraf/laptop-mode-tools/wiki
Mailing List: https://groups.google.com/d/forum/laptop-mode-tools

Laptop Mode Tools 1.69 Released

rrs@researchut.com (Ritesh Raj Sarraf) — Mon, 07 Mar 2016 08:20:20 -0500

Today is an auspicious day. For those who know (or follow) the Hindu religion will be familiar; Today is Maha Shivaratri![](/images/LMT-Maha- Shivaratri.jpeg)

On this day, It is great delight for me to be able to release Laptop Mode Tools, version 1.69

This release adds on many bug fixes and some enhancements. There is a new module (disabled by default) for cpuhotplug. The release tarball also includes a basic PolicyKit file for convenience, that packagers can use for the Laptop Mode Tools Graphical Configuration Interface. Apart from the policykit file, the graphical invocation script has been slightly fine tuned to work under pkexec and sudo. Some defaults have been tuned based on user requests - This should improve in situations where your External USB Mouse/Keyboard used to suspend after idle time periods.

In January this year, I had the pleasure of meeting Bart Samwel in person at his office in Amsterdam. For those who don’t know, Bart started off Laptop Mode Tools around 2004, and I took over maintenance around 2008. Meeting in person has been a delight, especially with the ones you work over email for years; This is something I cherished last year at Debconf 15 too.

IMPORTANT:- Until now, Laptop Mode Tools project was hosted on Bart’s webserver. Now, as you read, the homepage and mailing lists have changed. I’d urge all users to subscribe to the new mailing list and update their bookmarks.

Homepage: https://github.com/rickysarraf/laptop-mode-tools/wiki

Mailing List: https://groups.google.com/d/forum/laptop-mode-tools

Note: For users who are not comfortable with creating a google a/c for mailing list subscription, you should still be able to subscribe with your personal email address. Please follow the steps in the mentioned homepage.

Since last couple releases, I’ve also been providing RPM packages for Opensuse Tumbleweed and Fedora. The same should be available on the github release page. The Debian package will follow shortly in the Debian repository.

Thank you and a Happy Maha Shivaratri. Har Har Mahadev.

1.69 - Mon Mar 7 17:44:42 IST 2016
* Wait for all forked modules to complete
* Add new module: cputhotplug
* CPU online/offine is reverse here
* Fix shell syntax
* Install policykit file
* Detach polling daemon from main process
* Do NOT touch speed if throttling is not set
* Restore to MAX speed when back to AC Power
* Fix manpage about DISABLE_ETHERNET_ON_BATTERY setting
* Update documentation about ENABLE_LAPTOP_MODE_ON_AC setting
* Change powersaving default for USB class devices
* Drop usbhid from default (black)list
* Add usb keyboard driver to the list default list
* Be consistent with passing args to LMT from different invokers
* Honor device plug/unplug events on a per device basis;
like how Chromium initially submitted this patch
* Also be consistent with option in the event parser
* Update links in README.md
* Update new github homepage location
* Add lmt-config-gui shell script

Linux Power Savings 2016

rrs@researchut.com (Ritesh Raj Sarraf) — Tue, 01 Mar 2016 10:31:45 -0500

Having moved to a new place, now at times, I also have to deal with power outages. As heat increases, the power outages will be much longer and more frequent. So much, that UPS and Power Inverters run out. Such are ideal times to measure idle power consumption for my laptop.

Here’s what my default (and idle) OS looks like. It should be standard to most “typical” users. Some minor odds could be apport, dnsmasq, and maybe, tor. Also, thanks to systemd, there are some native services which are now converted to socket activation based ones. There’s also Laptop Mode Tools for userspace power savings. But huge thanks to Intel’s work in making the kernel more power efficient. With things like Runtime PM and Intel P-State , we can now define, default and aggressive power-savings modes, helping conserve more power.

We still have challenges with things like binary-only drivers; and also stock GPL drivers but with an external firmware blob. There have been many instances when my previous machines (which had both) ran into severe power drain. The challenge with power savings is that it is not just the job of the kernel. All components, kernel and userspace, need to be made aware of, and work in unison. Otherwise, one ill behaving web browser tab can be the cause of power drain. P-State driver seems to already be doing some scale down of CPU resources. And with CGroups maturing moe I think we’ll eventually have all Desktop Environments making use of it.

systemd-+-ModemManager-+-{gdbus}
| `-{gmain}
|-NetworkManager-+-{gdbus}
| `-{gmain}
|-accounts-daemon-+-{gdbus}
| `-{gmain}
|-agetty
|-apport-notifyd
|-atd
|-avahi-daemon---avahi-daemon
|-bluetoothd
|-colord-+-{gdbus}
| `-{gmain}
|-cron
|-dbus-daemon
|-dnsmasq
|-evolution-+-{book-client-dbu}
| |-{dconf worker}
| |-7*[{evolution}]
| |-{gdbus}
| `-{gmain}
|-gdm3-+-gdm-session-wor-+-gdm-x-session-+-Xorg
| | | |-gnome-session-b-+-gnome-settings--+-{dconf worker}
| | | | | |-{gdbus}
| | | | | |-{gmain}
| | | | | |-{pool}
| | | | | `-{threaded-ml}
| | | | |-gnome-shell-+-ibus-daemon-+-ibus-dconf-+-{dconf worker}
| | | | | | | |-{gdbus}
| | | | | | | `-{gmain}
| | | | | | |-ibus-engine-sim-+-{gdbus}
| | | | | | | `-{gmain}
| | | | | | |-{gdbus}
| | | | | | `-{gmain}
| | | | | |-{JS GC Helper}
| | | | | |-{JS Sour~ Thread}
| | | | | |-{dconf worker}
| | | | | |-{gdbus}
| | | | | |-{gmain}
| | | | | `-{threaded-ml}
| | | | |-{dconf worker}
| | | | |-{gdbus}
| | | | `-{gmain}
| | | |-{gdbus}
| | | `-{gmain}
| | |-{gdbus}
| | `-{gmain}
| |-gdm-session-wor-+-gdm-x-session-+-Xorg
| | | |-gnome-session-b-+-evolution-alarm-+-{cal-client-dbus}
| | | | | |-{dconf worker}
| | | | | |-{evolution-alarm}
| | | | | |-{gdbus}
| | | | | `-{gmain}
| | | | |-gnome-settings--+-{dconf worker}
| | | | | |-{gdbus}
| | | | | |-{gmain}
| | | | | |-{pool}
| | | | | `-{threaded-ml}
| | | | |-gnome-shell-+-2*[redshift-+-{gdbus}]
| | | | | | `-{gmain}]
| | | | | |-{JS GC Helper}
| | | | | |-{JS Sour~ Thread}
| | | | | |-{dconf worker}
| | | | | |-{gdbus}
| | | | | |-{gmain}
| | | | | `-{threaded-ml}
| | | | |-parcimonie
| | | | |-parcimonie-appl-+-{gdbus}
| | | | | `-{gmain}
| | | | |-python3---libinput-debug-
| | | | |-ssh-agent
| | | | |-tracker-extract-+-{dconf worker}
| | | | | |-{gdbus}
| | | | | |-{gmain}
| | | | | `-10*[{pool}]
| | | | |-tracker-miner-a-+-{gdbus}
| | | | | `-{gmain}
| | | | |-tracker-miner-f-+-{dconf worker}
| | | | | |-{gdbus}
| | | | | `-{gmain}
| | | | |-tracker-miner-u-+-{gdbus}
| | | | | `-{gmain}
| | | | |-{dconf worker}
| | | | |-{gdbus}
| | | | `-{gmain}
| | | |-{gdbus}
| | | `-{gmain}
| | |-{gdbus}
| | `-{gmain}
| |-{gdbus}
| `-{gmain}
|-geoclue-+-{gdbus}
| `-{gmain}
|-gnome-keyring-d-+-{gdbus}
| |-{gmain}
| `-{timer}
|-gpg-agent
|-gsd-printer-+-{gdbus}
| `-{gmain}
|-ibus-daemon-+-ibus-dconf-+-{dconf worker}
| | |-{gdbus}
| | `-{gmain}
| |-ibus-engine-sim-+-{gdbus}
| | `-{gmain}
| |-{gdbus}
| `-{gmain}
|-ibus-x11-+-{gdbus}
| `-{gmain}
|-iio-sensor-prox-+-{gdbus}
| `-{gmain}
|-inetd---leafnode
|-libvirtd---15*[{libvirtd}]
|-lvmetad
|-master-+-pickup
| |-qmgr
| `-tlsmgr
|-mcelog
|-minissdpd
|-mount.ntfs
|-onboard-+-{dconf worker}
| |-{gdbus}
| `-{gmain}
|-packagekitd-+-{gdbus}
| `-{gmain}
|-polkitd-+-{gdbus}
| `-{gmain}
|-2*[pulseaudio-+-gconf-helper]
| |-{alsa-sink-ALC23}]
| |-{alsa-sink-HDMI }]
| |-{alsa-sink-pcspe}]
| `-{alsa-source-ALC}]
|-rtkit-daemon---2*[{rtkit-daemon}]
|-systemd-+-(sd-pam)
| |-at-spi-bus-laun-+-dbus-daemon
| | |-{dconf worker}
| | |-{gdbus}
| | `-{gmain}
| |-at-spi2-registr-+-{gdbus}
| | `-{gmain}
| |-dbus-daemon
| |-dconf-service-+-{gdbus}
| | `-{gmain}
| |-goa-daemon-+-{dconf worker}
| | |-{gdbus}
| | `-{gmain}
| |-goa-identity-se-+-{gdbus}
| | |-{gmain}
| | `-{pool}
| |-gvfs-afc-volume-+-{gdbus}
| | |-{gmain}
| | `-{gvfs-afc-volume}
| |-gvfs-goa-volume-+-{gdbus}
| | `-{gmain}
| |-gvfs-gphoto2-vo-+-{gdbus}
| | `-{gmain}
| |-gvfs-mtp-volume-+-{gdbus}
| | `-{gmain}
| |-gvfs-udisks2-vo-+-{gdbus}
| | `-{gmain}
| |-gvfsd-+-{gdbus}
| | `-{gmain}
| |-gvfsd-fuse-+-{gdbus}
| | |-{gmain}
| | |-{gvfs-fuse-sub}
| | `-2*[{gvfsd-fuse}]
| |-gvfsd-metadata-+-{gdbus}
| | `-{gmain}
| `-mission-control-+-{dconf worker}
| |-{gdbus}
| `-{gmain}
|-systemd-+-(sd-pam)
| |-at-spi-bus-laun-+-dbus-daemon
| | |-{dconf worker}
| | |-{gdbus}
| | `-{gmain}
| |-at-spi2-registr-+-{gdbus}
| | `-{gmain}
| |-dbus-daemon
| `-gconfd-2
|-systemd-+-(sd-pam)
| |-at-spi-bus-laun-+-dbus-daemon
| | |-{dconf worker}
| | |-{gdbus}
| | `-{gmain}
| |-at-spi2-registr-+-{gdbus}
| | `-{gmain}
| |-dbus-daemon
| |-dconf-service-+-{gdbus}
| | `-{gmain}
| |-evolution-addre-+-2*[evolution-addre-+-{dconf worker}]
| | | |-{evolution-addre}]
| | | |-{gdbus}]
| | | `-{gmain}]
| | |-{dconf worker}
| | |-{evolution-addre}
| | |-{gdbus}
| | `-{gmain}
| |-evolution-calen-+-evolution-calen-+-{dconf worker}
| | | |-{evolution-calen}
| | | |-{gdbus}
| | | |-{gmain}
| | | `-6*[{pool}]
| | |-evolution-calen-+-{book-client-dbu}
| | | |-{dconf worker}
| | | |-{evolution-calen}
| | | |-{gdbus}
| | | |-{gmain}
| | | `-{pool}
| | |-2*[evolution-calen-+-{dconf worker}]
| | | |-{evolution-calen}]
| | | |-{gdbus}]
| | | `-{gmain}]
| | |-{dconf worker}
| | |-{evolution-calen}
| | |-{gdbus}
| | `-{gmain}
| |-evolution-sourc-+-{dconf worker}
| | |-{gdbus}
| | `-{gmain}
| |-gconfd-2
| |-gnome-shell-cal-+-{cal-client-dbus}
| | |-{dconf worker}
| | |-{gdbus}
| | |-{gmain}
| | `-{gnome-shell-cal}
| |-gnome-terminal--+-bash---pstree
| | |-bash
| | |-{dconf worker}
| | |-{gdbus}
| | `-{gmain}
| |-goa-daemon-+-{dconf worker}
| | |-{gdbus}
| | `-{gmain}
| |-goa-identity-se-+-{gdbus}
| | |-{gmain}
| | `-{pool}
| |-gpaste-daemon-+-{dconf worker}
| | |-{gdbus}
| | `-{gmain}
| |-gvfs-afc-volume-+-{gdbus}
| | |-{gmain}
| | `-{gvfs-afc-volume}
| |-gvfs-goa-volume-+-{gdbus}
| | `-{gmain}
| |-gvfs-gphoto2-vo-+-{gdbus}
| | `-{gmain}
| |-gvfs-mtp-volume-+-{gdbus}
| | `-{gmain}
| |-gvfs-udisks2-vo-+-{gdbus}
| | `-{gmain}
| |-gvfsd-+-{gdbus}
| | `-{gmain}
| |-gvfsd-burn-+-{gdbus}
| | `-{gmain}
| |-gvfsd-dnssd-+-{gdbus}
| | `-{gmain}
| |-gvfsd-fuse-+-{gdbus}
| | |-{gmain}
| | |-{gvfs-fuse-sub}
| | `-2*[{gvfsd-fuse}]
| |-gvfsd-metadata-+-{gdbus}
| | `-{gmain}
| |-gvfsd-network-+-{dconf worker}
| | |-{gdbus}
| | `-{gmain}
| |-gvfsd-trash-+-{gdbus}
| | `-{gmain}
| |-mission-control-+-{dconf worker}
| | |-{gdbus}
| | `-{gmain}
| |-nautilus-+-gedit
| | |-{dconf worker}
| | |-{gdbus}
| | `-{gmain}
| `-tracker-store-+-{dconf worker}
| |-{gdbus}
| |-{gmain}
| `-4*[{pool}]
|-systemd-journal
|-systemd-logind
|-systemd-network
|-systemd-timesyn---{sd-resolve}
|-systemd-udevd
|-thermald---{thermald}
|-tor
|-udisksd-+-{cleanup}
| |-{gdbus}
| |-{gmain}
| `-{probing-thread}
|-upowerd-+-{gdbus}
| `-{gmain}
`-wpa_supplicant

So I used the standard power measurement tool, powertop. Below is a screenshot of PowerTop claiming 9 - 10 hours of possible battery backup. This is idle state. “Idle” would mean when the user is not interacting with the machine. When under basic usage (email, web), the actual battery backup I’ve sensed is somewhere around 6-7 hrs, which is still good from what we got a couple years ago.

There’s one oddity in the screenshot though. The estimated power consumption reported is 4.55W, where as, the power consumption of just the wifi card is reported 6.17W. That too, when the wifi was disconnected.

This reminded me of the [bug report](https://bugs.debian.org/cgi- bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=719860) against PowerTop, which is now more than 2 years old. We’ve still not concluded in that bug report, so if anyone can shed some light on PowerTop’s reporting, please do share it in the bug report.

Note: Please ignore the terminal’s title in the screenshot. That is wrong and I’ve not bothered to figure out why it is displaying the title name constructed from an outdated session, which is already terminated.

Laptop Mode Tools 1.68.1

rrs@researchut.com (Ritesh Raj Sarraf) — Sun, 27 Sep 2015 04:57:48 -0400

I am please to announce the release of Laptop Mode Tools 1.68.1.

The last release (1.68) was mostly about systemd integration, and so is this release. There were a couple of bugs reported, and most of them fixed, with this release. All downstreams are requested to upgrade.

For RPM packages for Fedora and OpenSUSE (Tumbleweed), please see the homepage.

1.68.1 - Sun Sep 27 14:00:13 IST 2015
* Update details about runtime-pm in manpage
* Revert "Drop out reload"
* Log error more descriptively
* Write to common stderr. Do not hardcode a specific one
* Call lmt-udev in lmt-poll. Don't call the laptop_mode binary directly.
Helps in a lot of housekeeping
* Direct stderr/stdout to journal
* Fix stdout descriptor
* Install the new .timer and poll service
* Use _sbindir for RPM

Laptop Mode Tools - 1.68

rrs@researchut.com (Ritesh Raj Sarraf) — Thu, 27 Aug 2015 13:39:15 -0400

I am please to announce the release of Laptop Mode Tools, version 1.68.

This release is mainly focused on integration with the newer init system, systemd. Without the help from the awesome Debian systemd maintainers, this would not have been possible. Thank you folks.

While the focus now is on systemd, LMT will still support the older SysV Init.

With this new release, there are some new files: laptop-mode.service, laptop- mode.timer and lmt-poll.service. All the files should be documented well enough for users. lmt-poll.service is the equivalent of the module battery- level-polling , should you need it.

Filtered git log:

1.68 - Thu Aug 27 22:36:43 IST 2015
* Fix all instances for BATTERY_LEVEL_POLLING
* Group kill the polling daemon so that its child process get the same signal
* Release the descriptor explicitly
* Add identifier about who's our parent
* Narrow down our power_supply subsystem event check condition
* Fine tune the .service file
* On my ultrabook, AC as reported as ACAD
* Enhance lmt-udev to better work with systemd
* Add a timer based polling for LMT. It is the equivalent of battery-polling-daemon,
using systemd
* Disable battery level polling by default, because most systems will have systemd running
* Add documentation reference in systemd files

The tarball is available @ <http://samwel.tk/laptop_mode/tools/downloads /laptop-mode-tools_1.68.tar.gz>

The md5 checksum for the tarball is 15edf643990e08deaebebf66b128b270

Laptop Mode Tools 1.67

rrs@researchut.com (Ritesh Raj Sarraf) — Thu, 02 Jul 2015 08:11:06 -0400

I am pleased to announce the release of Laptop Mode Tools, version 1.67.

This release has many important bug fixes, and everyone is recommended to upgrade. Of the many, one important fix is to, more reliably check for Device Mapper based devices, which is common these days with Crypt and LVM.

For the summary of changes to quote from git log:

1.67 - Thu Jul 2 17:05:07 IST 2015
* Relax minimum window size to accomodate low res screens
* Fix variable name to comply with our "constants" assuptions
* Get more aggressive in power saving for Intel HD Audio
* Account Device Mapper devices
* Add swsusp freeze support
* Switch battery-level-polling default to True
* Detect ethernet carrier, early and relibaly
* changes the boolean setting *_ACTIVATE_SATA_POWER to a customizable
*_SATA_POLICY, with backward-compatible defaults and documentation
Thanks Yuir D'Elia

PS: On a side note, over the years, Linux’s power savings functionality has improved a lot, all thanks to its use in the mobile worlds. At the same time, because of more companies shipping drivers depending on external firmware, stability has become less reliable. And to add to that, bare functionality of devices typically ask for disabling, you know what, LPM.

So, at the end, the result is the same.

Laptop Mode Tools 1.66

rrs@researchut.com (Ritesh Raj Sarraf) — Sat, 27 Sep 2014 05:09:30 -0400

I am pleased to announce the release of Laptop Mode Tools at version 1.66.

This release fixes an important bug in the way Laptop Mode Tools is invoked. Users, now when disable it in the config file, the tool will be disabled. Thanks to bendlas @github for narrowing it down. The GUI configuration tool has been improved, thanks to Juan. And there is a new power saving module for users with ATI Radeon cards. Thanks to M. Ziebell for submitting the patch.

Laptop Mode Tools development can be tracked @ GitHub

![](/images/LMT New GUI.jpg)

Laptop Mode Tools 1.65

rrs@researchut.com (Ritesh Raj Sarraf) — Wed, 18 Jun 2014 10:39:35 -0400

I am very pleased to announce the release of Laptop Mode Tools , at version 1.65

This release took a toll given things have been changing for me, both personally and professionally. 1.64 was released on September 1st, 2013. So it was a full 9 month period, of which a good 2-3 months were procrastination. That said, this release has some pretty good bug fixes and I urge all distribution packagers to push it to their repositories soon. While I ’d thank all contributors who have helped make this release, a special thank you to Stefan Huber. Stefan found/fixed many issues, did the messy code clean up etc.. Thank you.

Worthy changes are mentioned below. For full details, please refer to the git commit logs.

1.65 - Wed Jun 18 19:22:35 IST 2014
* fix grep error on missing $device/uevent
* ethernet: replace sysfs/enabled by ‘ip link down’
* wireless-iwl-power: sysfs attr enbable -> enabled
* wireless-iwl-power: Add iwlwifi support
* Use Runtime Power Managemet Framework is more robust now. Deprecates module
usb-autosuspend
* Fix multiple hibernate issue
* When resuming, run LMT in force initialization mode
* Add module for Intel PState driver
* GUI: Implement suspend/hibernate interface

Laptop Mode Tools 1.64

rrs@researchut.com (Ritesh Raj Sarraf) — Sun, 01 Sep 2013 04:16:01 -0400

I just released Laptop Mode Tools @ version 1.64. And am pleased to introduce the new graphical utility to toggle individual power saving modules in the package.

The GUI is written using the PyQT Toolkit and the options in the GUI are generated at runtime, based on the list of available power saving modules.

Apart from the GUI configuration tool, this release also includes some bug fixes:

Don’t touch USB Controller power settings. The individual devices, when plugged in, while on battery, inherit the power settings from the USB controller
start-stop-programs: add support for systemd. Thanks to Alexander Mezin
Replace hardcoded path to udevadm with “which udevadm”. Thanks to Alexander Mezin
Honor .conf files only. Thanks to Sven Köhler
Make ‘/usr/lib’ path configurable. This is especially useful for systems that use /usr/lib64, or /lib64 directly. Thanks to Nicolas Braud-Santoni
Don’t call killall with the -g argument. Thanks to Murray Campbell
Fix RPM Spec file build errors

The Debian package will follow soon. I don’t intend to introduce a new package for the GUI tool because the source is hardly 200 lines. So the dependencies (pyqt packages) will go as Recommeds or Suggests

Power consumption on Linux 3.10

rrs@researchut.com (Ritesh Raj Sarraf) — Tue, 23 Jul 2013 16:08:19 -0400

The power consumption on the Linux kernel 3.10 is pretty bad.

On kernel 3.10, with the follwing config, the PowerTop results are:

# Timers subsystem

CONFIG_TICK_ONESHOT=y

CONFIG_NO_HZ_COMMON=y

# CONFIG_HZ_PERIODIC is not set

CONFIG_NO_HZ_IDLE=y

# CONFIG_NO_HZ_FULL is not set

CONFIG_NO_HZ=y

CONFIG_HIGH_RES_TIMERS=y

PowerTOP v2.0 Overview Idle stats Frequency stats Device stats Tunables

The battery reports a discharge rate of 28.0 W

The estimated remaining time is 23 minutes

Summary: 1785.5 wakeups/second, 0.0 GPU ops/second, 0.0 VFS ops/sec and 22.1% CPU use

Power est. Usage Events/s Category Description

16.3 W 2915 rpm Device Laptop fan

5.11 W 100.0% Device USB device: WALTON Primo-X1 Primo-X1

1.70 W 33.3% Device Display backlight

849 mW 33.3% Device Display backlight

425 mW 86.0 ms/s 330.7 Process /usr/bin/konsole

316 mW 63.9 ms/s 66.1 Process /usr/bin/plasma-desktop

142 mW 28.6 ms/s 396.8 Process /usr/bin/X :0 -auth /var/run/lightdm/root/:0 -nolisten tcp vt7

64.1 mW 13.0 ms/s 198.4 Process kwin -session 101261418fe3000136103713100000053880000_13746081

53.6 mW 10.8 ms/s 0.00 Process powertop

35.9 mW 7.3 ms/s 66.1 Process /usr/lib/chromium/chromium –type=plugin –plugin-path=/usr/li

24.3 mW 4.9 ms/s 396.8 Interrupt PS/2 Touchpad / Keyboard / Mouse

6.92 mW 1.4 ms/s 0.00 Interrupt [48] i915

5.94 mW 1.2 ms/s 66.1 Interrupt [9] RCU(softirq)

3.98 mW 0.8 ms/s 0.00 kWork flush_to_ldisc

3.78 mW 0.8 ms/s 66.1 Process [ksoftirqd/2]

3.33 mW 673.3 us/s 66.1 Process [rcu_sched]

1.80 mW 363.1 us/s 66.1 Interrupt [1] timer(softirq)

1.79 mW 363.0 us/s 0.00 Process [ksoftirqd/4]

Where as on the 3.9 kernel:

The battery reports a discharge rate of 13.2 W

The estimated remaining time is 43 minutes

Summary: 611.5 wakeups/second, 0.0 GPU ops/second, 0.0 VFS ops/sec and 14.2% CPU use

Power est. Usage Events/s Category Description

14.0 W 2722 rpm Device Laptop fan

1.72 W 33.3% Device Display backlight

862 mW 33.3% Device Display backlight

255 mW 65.7 ms/s 58.0 Process /usr/bin/plasma-desktop

91.9 mW 23.7 ms/s 27.5 Process /usr/lib/chromium/chromium –type=renderer –lang=en-US –forc

60.1 mW 15.5 ms/s 96.1 Process /usr/lib/chromium/chromium –type=plugin –plugin-path=/usr/li

25.0 mW 6.4 ms/s 25.1 Process kwin -session 101261418fe3000136103713100000053880000_13746094

21.5 mW 5.6 ms/s 34.2 Process /usr/bin/X :0 -auth /var/run/lightdm/root/:0 -nolisten tcp vt7

13.1 mW 3.4 ms/s 5.6 Process /usr/bin/konsole

9.82 mW 2.5 ms/s 53.7 Process [irq/48-iwlwifi]

9.11 mW 2.4 ms/s 2.2 Process /usr/bin/knemo

8.62 mW 2.2 ms/s 12.3 Process /usr/lib/chromium/chromium –password-store=detect

8.32 mW 2.1 ms/s 45.5 Interrupt [48] iwlwifi

6.96 mW 1.8 ms/s 35.3 Interrupt [7] sched(softirq)

5.13 mW 1.3 ms/s 57.1 Interrupt [47] i915

4.24 mW 1.1 ms/s 0.4 Process powertop

3.38 mW 0.9 ms/s 1.5 Timer tcp_keepalive_timer

2.85 mW 0.7 ms/s 11.9 Process /usr/sbin/mysqld –basedir=/usr –datadir=/var/lib/mysql –plu

Laptop Mode Tools - 1.61

rrs@researchut.com (Ritesh Raj Sarraf) — Thu, 17 May 2012 08:56:29 -0400

Laptop Mode Tools, version 1.61, has been released and will land up soon for Debian. This is the version that would be targetting Wheezy.
This release includes many bug fixes and should make power savings much better on your machines.

This is mainly a bug fix release. Some parallel module execution approach has been used which could show runtime improvements.

Changelog:

1.61 - Thu May 17 17:44:26 IST 2012
* Handle devices with persistent device naming. This fixes the issues where
you don’t have a disk referenced by a block name, the commit= value was
completely skipped
* Fix issue where hdparm skips SSDs for power management
* Add parallel execution for the modules. In theory this should speeden up the
execution. See git commit log comments for details
* Add support for non-deafult customized settings
* calculate design_capacity_warning on machines/arches where it is not readily
available

We have switched the SCM to git. The current code repository is
available at [1] along with the changelog.

The tarball is available here [2].
The md5 checksum for the tarball is 6685af5dbb34c3d51ca27933b58f484e

[1] https://github.com/rickysarraf/laptop-mode-tools
[2]<http://samwel.tk/laptop_mode/tools/downloads/laptop-mode- tools_1.61.tar.gz>

Laptop Mode Tools - 1.60

rrs@researchut.com (Ritesh Raj Sarraf) — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 04:36:59 -0400

Hello World,

I am very pleased to announce the release of Laptop Mode Tools, version 1.60.
This release includes lots of bug fixes and should make power savings much better on your machines.The battery polling daemon now, more reliably, gets triggered and killed based on power states.

This release also includes 2 helper scripts to trigger suspend and hibernate, in case anyone is interested.

Given the advancements of Linux PM ( All thanks to Rafael J. Wysocki ) in recent years, the freezer/thawfunctionality really does a very good job of handling suspend/hibernate, there is no need of a hacky suspend/resumemechanism. Thus, you’ll notice the helper scripts just do a mere echo into sysfs.

I would also like to thank the Chromium project that has found and fixed many bugs and added many enhancements to Laptop Mode Tools.

Changelog:

1.60 -- Fri Oct 14 13:08:09 IST 2011

Use proper device reference for iwconfig (Debian BTS: #639388)
Check for block device’s existence. Thanks to Simon Que
Add suspend/resume helper tools: pm-helper, pm-suspend, pm-hibernate
What laptop-mode-tools is stopped from init, also kill polling daemon
Reliable and much better locking mechanics
Make polling dameon lock safe
Make lmt-udev distro neutral. Thanks to Simon Que
Change Intel HDA Audio’s default power save timeout to 2 seconds

We have switched the SCM to git. The current code repository is
available at [1] along with the changelog.

The tarball is available here [2].
The md5 checksum for the tarball is 22bcc955c4e5d28e2f3a992b0efb50b4

[1] https://github.com/rickysarraf/laptop-mode-tools
[2]<http://samwel.tk/laptop_mode/tools/downloads/laptop-mode- tools_1.60.tar.gz>

laptop-mode-tools

rrs@researchut.com (Ritesh Raj Sarraf) — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 10:41:23 -0500

I just released laptop-mode-tools version 1.56.

This release adds many goodies. We now have a better calling application to rely upon, udev. The linux kernel generates many events based on conditions. udev is a framework that acts on those events and can call-in applications based on conditions. This is something I wanted to do for laptop- mode-tools.

Power State

First was power state. The power_supply subsystem can sense changes and generate events. We simply act on the change action here and call in laptop-mode-tools because we want laptop-mode-tools run on both ON_AC and ON_BAT

Suspend/Resume

Suspend/Resume was my bigger concern. pm-utils no more likes us. In fact it now has direct Conflict: defined in the Package Managers. For laptop-mode- tools, on suspend, there was not much to care about. But I did want to ensure that we act on resume because:

User could suspend when ON_AC
Go back home
Resume when ON_BAT

The machinecheck subsystem helped here. I hope my assumption that this event in only seen during suspend/resume stands true.

Multi Events and Locking

Acting on events is good but can be challenging because the kernel can generate a large number of events and we have a danger of ending up spawning just too many instances. flock came to the rescue there.

So overall, by depending on events, we are better now. We can cut down on many dependencies. Especially the Power Management Daemon dependency because different arches had diffrerent managers.

pm-utils conflict is disappointing especially for the fact that that conflict is inherited in Debian too. I hope the pm-utils maintainer reconsiders. Uninstalling pm-utils has the challenge that the DEs lose the suspend functionality. Does anyone know how the DEs call them? Can a minor hacky workaround be provided?