Poor Laptop Battery Performance - VL 5.9-Light

[aker]

First off, I have to say that I absolutely love this distribution so far.  It is fast becoming my favorite choice for older hardware.  That said, I have an old Dell Inspiron 5000 that I seem to be running out of battery power very quickly within VL.  This laptop supports a little ACPI, but I think it works better with APM.  I see that the apm module is being loaded, but other than that, I'm not sure what I can do to fix the problem I'm having.  I'm not a Linux expert, and the locations where I'd usually go to add things aren't the same in VL.  I also have no idea how to configure LILO as the only experience I have is in GRUB. 

The processor is a mobile Pentium 3 600Mhz, so I believe it supports speedstep or whatever it was called in these older laptops.

I'd appreciate any help!

[bigpaws]

You may find some suggestions here:

http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/dell.html

My experience with ACPI in linux is not close to
that of Windows.

Lilo is editable and found in /etc/lilo.conf plenty
of docs using google. Do not forget to use
lilo -v after any changes so that the loader is
updated.

HTH

Bigpaws

[aker]

Thanks for the reply!  I didn't find anything on that site that would help me with my issue, unfortunately.

I did notice that VL doesn't seem to have powernowd/powersaved, so I am wondering if that is why I'm going through my battery so quickly.  Is there an alternative that VL-Light uses or can use and find within gslapt?

[bigpaws]

I am working on ACPI for my laptop. There is alot
to read to get even decent grasp on  ACPI.

Here is a website to start:

http://www.linux.com/articles/62091

I am getting less than half battery life form linux than
from Windows. The above article helps show some points
to follow.

You will need to recompile a kernel and other things to get
better battery life. I hope this helps some.

Bigpaws

[aker]

Thanks for the follow up, bigpaws.  I'm actually more interested in running apm for this laptop, as its ACPI support is limited.  I have had respectable battery life in other distributions while using apm, and my hardware seems to be supported well with it.

That said, I'm still unsure what I can do with VL-Light to improve my battery life.  I am assuming that it is not utilizing the SpeedStep functionality of my processor, and I don't seem to see any power management software running or available.

Still open for suggestions!

[bigpaws]

VL Light is a base. You will need to add what
you want.

The kernel will need to be recompiled and apm
setup and not use ACPI in the kernel.

Here is another thing to look at:

http://www.linux.org/docs/ldp/howto/Ecology-HOWTO/ecology-howto-power-management.html

Bigpaws

[InTheWoods]

What about Vec 5.9 standard. Apm fails to load (red warning on boot up). I disabled ACPI which I selected on install. APM still fails to load and my fan stopped working until I re-enabled ACPI.

[InTheWoods]

I don't mean to hijack this thread but maybe some of this is relevant.
 
After looking around a bit I tried the following

Code:

modprobe apm
WARNING: /etc/modprobe.d/modprobe.conf line 8: ignoring bad line starting with 'alias'
FATAL: Error inserting apm (/lib/modules/2.6.22.14/kernel/arch/i386/kernel/apm.ko): No such device

apm.ko is in fact there but for some reason is not being loaded. Thats fine since this laptop is supposed to use ACPI. I would however like to stop it from trying to load and thereby not give the FAILED message when APM setup is attempted.

Perhaps acker should try this first to see if the apm module is present in the VL lite kernel.

Next I tried this.

Code:

modprobe acpi       
WARNING: /etc/modprobe.d/modprobe.conf line 8: ignoring bad line starting with 'alias'

It appears that ACPI is being loaded but there is an error on line 8. Well that is where the alias for my networking interface is.

There is also a module specifically available for Toshiba laptops and it is supposed to be loaded. /proc/acpi has a toshiba directory in it. So I tried to load it.

Code:

modprobe toshiba_acpi
WARNING: /etc/modprobe.d/modprobe.conf line 8: ignoring bad line starting with 'alias'
FATAL: Module toshiba_acpi not found.

This I take it would indicate the toshiba_acpi module is not present in the kernel.

Now if I understand correctly the acpi module can be loaded at boot by adding

Code:

/sbin/modprobe acpi

to /etc/rc.d/rc.local

I found another user of a Toshiba Tecra who had installed Slackware 12 and made the following additions to his rc.local file.

Code:

#preload modules
/sbin/modprobe ac
/sbin/modprobe thermal
/sbin/modprobe fan
/sbin/modprobe processor
/sbin/modprobe speedstep-centrino
/sbin/modprobe video
/sbin/modprobe battery
/sbin/modprobe toshiba_acpi

Only three of these seem to be available.
speedstep-centrino
video
acpi

I take it that I will have to compile the toshiba_acpi module and the entire kernel.

There also appears to be a configuration file at /etc/acpi/events/default. What kind of configuration can be done there?

[bigpaws]

I recompile so that I know that ACPI things for my
laptop are loaded.

There also appears to be a configuration file at /etc/acpi/events/default.

Lots of things can be done here.

Example take event from /proc/acpi/../../AC state then if AC = no then
/etc/acpi/events/default can be setup to trigger event to lower the
screen brightness, CPU speed and kill processes.

You can also keep things strictly in acpi create your scripts there, which
will keep things in one place.

I am currently working on these things for my system.

Bigpaws

[InTheWoods]

The toshiba apci functions are part of the 2.6 kernal. On the 5.8 partition /lib/modules/2.6.18.5/kernel/drivers/acpi/toshiba_acpi.ko exists.
5.8 uses the 2.6.22.14 kernel.

5.9 uses the 2.6.22.18 kernel and although there is no toshiba_acpi.ko
.toshiba_acpi.o.cmd
toshiba_acpi.c
do exist in /usr/src/linux-2.6.22.14/drivers/acpi/

I could not understand why I would have the toshiba_acpi module in 5.8 and not in 5.9. I forget how I found it but there is a module called just "toshiba" I loaded that and adjusted my rc.local file.

With that module enabled I ran

Code:

cat /proc/acpi/toshiba/lcd
brightness:              7
brightness_levels:       8

then

Code:

echo "brightness:4" > /proc/acpi/toshiba/lcd

It worked. The screen dimmed.

I checked the System Profiler utility on 5.9 and found toshiba enabled the Toshiba laptop SMM driver. I can't confirm that the SMM driver is the same as the toshiba_acpi module but they are both maintained by the same person. Jonathan Buzzard. And enabling "toshiba" makes functions adjustable through /proc/acpi/toshiba/.

acker ... there is also a Dell SMM driver that is part of the kernel source code. This may help Dell users like yourself avoid a kernel recompile. I do not know about other brands or 5.9 lite.

Now I just need an easier way to run things than adjusting each feature through the command line.

[bigpaws]

This a good place for a script

#!/bin/bash
echo "brightness:4" > /proc/acpi/toshiba/lcd

Save this is your home set permissions, make executable
and name for example medium_bright

You could also set this up to trigger in /etc/acpi....

Bigpaws