The Nasty Battery Power Usage On Ubuntu 11.10

[madjr]

of course Michael is going to post consumer issues about ubuntu. Isnt that the distro he uses?

also is the most widely used distro and many are based on it so they'll have the same problem.

Or maybe you want him to post issues with Slackware and get like 2 views? Who uses that?

[madjr]

oh and where is the bug report link so i can sub to i

[another_sam]

man, this is sad. with 11.04 the battery already evaporates in 2.5 hours even if you don't touch the laptop. with windows 7 I guess it can last for more than 5 hours.

the incredible thing is that kernel developers must be suffering this pain themselves, and they should rush to fix this, but, kernel versions and months pass, and the bug persists.

[liam]

For the past odd 1.5 years I've yet to read a thoroughly positive toned article on Ubuntu on Phoronix.

It is not just Ubuntu that is going to suck more power, it is Linux. The changes are on the kernel side.

Geezzzzz....

Compile in the new kernel on an Arch Linux / <your favourite distro here> and test the power again.

Ubuntu bad, Ubuntu slower booting, Ubuntu Unity fail, Ubuntu unstable, Ubuntu own test suite (where is ours!), Ubuntu <negative rant here>

I, for one, love Unity. And its keyboard shortcuts. KDE is a good second but the <meta>+1 to switch between apps is brilliant. I am really productive on it, and apart from the terrible power management I'm actually looking forward to 11.10.

Hey, at least they are talking about Ubuntu/Unity. Do other distros still exist?

[liam]

It would be nice to have the same tests under optimal conditions, i mean after running power-top git and enabling all of the suggestion it provides, adding pcie_aspm=force, i915.i915_enable_rc6=1 to the kernel boot options.
Personally, after doing that, i have 5,9 -> 6,1W in idle on a netbook with similar spec (asus 1005ha) with kernel 3.0.
Didn't test it under load.

Is that with the backlight on? If so, that is pretty damn good. Close to what I would expect windows to have.

[_ONH_]

of course Michael is going to post consumer issues about ubuntu. Isn't that the distro he uses?

also is the most widely used distro and many are based on it so they'll have the same problem.

Or maybe you want him to post issues with Slackware and get like 2 views? Who uses that?

It's may be the distro he uses. Even then it would be good to now if it depends on the gui or not.
So at least a comparaisson gnome/unity would be nice to assure that its not an effect of the gui.
Since the 10.4LTS uses gnome not unity.
That would also help the people working on the different projects to now if that's a bug in their Software.

also is the most widely used distro and many are based on it so they'll have the same problem.

Wouldn't be sure this is right, most people i now doesn't use Ubuntu since they think it is crap, the last one changed with 11.4. I think many people did the same and Ubuntu lost lots of market share in Jun/July. Up to 1/3 lost according to some market share analysis websites.
And the most people wouldn't be affected if the problem lies in the Ubuntu kernel config and unity.

[kokoko3k]

Is that with the backlight on? If so, that is pretty damn good. Close to what I would expect windows to have.

Sorry for the lag, tha backlight is at 25%
If interested here are two scripts i use; the first is for powersave, the second is for full performance.
acpi daemon switch between them when connected to the line.

I can't say if windows 7 can reach that values; sure xp should last 10.5hours according to asus specs.
But i can reach (idling all the time) even 10.9..11 hours, for what matters

#!/bin/bash


#unplugged

#brightness
	sudo sh -c "echo 4 > /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness"

#cpufreq
        sudo cpufreq-set -c 0 -g conservative
        sudo cpufreq-set -c 1 -g conservative

#eee-she powersave
        sudo eee-she -ps

#standby del disco dopo 10 minuti di inattività
        sudo /sbin/hdparm -S120 /dev/sda

#scheda video a 200Mhz
        sudo /usr/local/bin/gmaboost.sh 200


#Abilita dpms e screensaver
        sudo -u kokonicki xset +dpms
        sudo -u kokonicki xset s on

	sudo sh -c "echo 5 >/proc/sys/vm/laptop_mode"

        sudo /usr/sbin/ethtool -s eth0 wol d

        sudo sh -c "echo min_power > /sys/class/scsi_host/host0/link_power_management_policy"
        sudo sh -c "echo min_power > /sys/class/scsi_host/host1/link_power_management_policy"
        sudo sh -c "echo min_power > /sys/class/scsi_host/host2/link_power_management_policy"
        sudo sh -c "echo min_power > /sys/class/scsi_host/host3/link_power_management_policy"
	sudo sh -c "echo 1500 > /proc/sys/vm/dirty_writeback_centisecs"

#watchdog serve a geenrara dump in caso di crash, ma lo disabilito:
        sudo sh -c "echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/watchdog"
        sudo sh -c "echo 1 > /sys/module/snd_hda_intel/parameters/power_save"
        sudo sh -c "echo 1 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/sched_smt_power_savings"
        for i in /sys/bus/usb/devices/*/power/autosuspend; do sudo sh -c "echo 1 > $i"; done
        for i in /sys/bus/pci/devices/*/power/control; do sudo sh -c "echo auto > $i"; done

#Setta powersave su wlan0 (pacman -S iw)
	sudo iw wlan0 set power_save on

#!/bin/bash

#ScreenBrightness
#	xbacklight -set 100
	#sudo sh -c "echo 15 > /sys/devices/virtual/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness"
	sudo sh -c "echo 15 > /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness"

#cpufreq
	sudo cpufreq-set -c 0 -g performance
	sudo cpufreq-set -c 1 -g performance
#eee-she performance
	sudo eee-she -p

#standby del disco a 2ore 30min. (valori grandi sono da 241 a 251)
        sudo /sbin/hdparm -S245 /dev/sda

#Composite
#	sleep 5
#	/usr/local/bin/KwinCompositeOn.sh

#Disabilita dpms e screensaver
	sudo -u kokonicki xset -dpms
	sudo -u kokonicki xset s off

#scheda video a 400Mhz
	sudo /usr/local/bin/gmaboost.sh 400

#riabilito watchdog
	sudo sh -c "echo 1 > /proc/sys/kernel/watchdog"

Ah, on my model there s a bug in the kernel on audio side; muting and unmuting the audio card saves an extra 0.4W (?!)
I switch manually until i write something to do via scripting:
amixer set Master mute
amixer set Master unmute

--
edit

just append this to the first script should work:

mute=$(amixer get Master|grep "\[off\]")

if [[ "$mute" ]]; then
        amixer set Master mute
        sleep 0.01
        amixer set Master unmute
        sleep 0.01
        amixer set Master mute
  else
        amixer set Master unmute
        sleep 0.01
        amixer set Master mute
        sleep 0.01
        amixer set Master unmute
fi

[kraftman]

man, this is sad. with 11.04 the battery already evaporates in 2.5 hours even if you don't touch the laptop. with windows 7 I guess it can last for more than 5 hours.

the incredible thing is that kernel developers must be suffering this pain themselves, and they should rush to fix this, but, kernel versions and months pass, and the bug persists.

Last time Phoronix did a benchmark Ubuntu was on pair with Win7.

[123john]

And the ugly yet UNTRACED for over a year random freezes of Ubuntu and derivatives. I bet everyone is saying sorry to Squeeze now. He he he. Fix fonts in Debian like this:



The rumors are true. Installing Iceweasel 5 from http://mozilla.debian.net/ solves three problems that have plagued lots of Linux users:

1.Obsolete Iceweasel/Firefox.
2.Ugly font rendering with official Firefox binaries.
3.Ugly font rendering everywhere on the system.

You heard it right, folks. Installing Iceweasel 5 in Squeeze brings in a version of libcairo2

So do this:

Add the following entry to /etc/apt/sources.list or a new file in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/:
deb http://mozilla.debian.net/ squeeze-backports iceweasel-release
Add the archive key to your apt keyring:
# wget -O- -q http://mozilla.debian.net/archive.asc | gpg --import
Import it into the APT keyring:
# gpg --export -a 06C4AE2A | sudo apt-key add -
Update the repository database:
# apt-get update
Install Iceweasel 5 with the following command:
# apt-get install -t squeeze-backports iceweasel

If font still ugly add to the ~/.fonts.conf a file posted here:

http://pastebin.com/yeqkrLxX

and you're done.

For broadcom wifi use debian wiki.

Ha ha ubuntu shmoontu. Suck my ... Canonical.

http://pastebin.com/yeqkrLxX

and you're done.

For broadcom wifi use debian wiki.

Ha ha ubuntu shmoontu.

[Medallish]

Just tested my Llano laptop, usually holds around 4 hours in Windows 7 with the occasional Youtube video running, about 2 hours in Ubuntu.