Arch Linux

mrmylanman

Member

From: Altamonte Springs, FL, USA

Registered: 2011-03-13

Posts: 178

[SOLVED] A way to find out battery life on Thinkpad X120e (Openbox)

Hey all,

I have a Lenovo Thinkpad X120e which I absolutely love, and it's (mostly) working great with Arch.  The biggest nitpick I have so far is that it doesn't seem to readily show me my battery life.  I have an Openbox environment set up, with a Conky display and Tint2 for the panel.

When I run the "acpi -b" command, I am presented with the battery life and time-remaining without any issues or errors, however when I try to use the "battery_percentage" variable in Conky or the Battery field in Tint2, it seems to just not display anything.

Example acpi -b output:

[mylan@mylan-laptop ~]$ acpi -b
Battery 0: Charging, 98%, 00:09:41 until charged

Hopefully I can get this squared away.  The laptop has a light that changes to orange when it's low (under 20%), but I'd like to know more exactly, as well as when it's charged (the light doesn't relay that unfortunately).

Thanks!

Last edited by mrmylanman (2011-03-29 15:56:57)

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Arch user since 2011-03-13

Thinkpad X220 Intel Core i7-2640M CPU, 16GB DDR3-1333 RAM, 160GB Intel SATA II SSD & 60GB OCZ mSATA SSD, 12.5" IPS 1366x768 Display, 6-cell Battery
(Installation date:  2012-03-19)

lagagnon

Member

From: an Island in the Pacific...

Registered: 2009-12-10

Posts: 1,087

Website

Re: [SOLVED] A way to find out battery life on Thinkpad X120e (Openbox)

If you install "acpitool", then the command "acpitool -B" will give you all the info you will ever need about your battery status. You could then use conky to display any given output from that command.

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Philosophy is looking for a black cat in a dark room. Metaphysics is looking for a black cat in a dark room that isn't there. Religion is looking for a black cat in a dark room that isn't there and shouting "I found it!". Science is looking for a black cat in a dark room with a flashlight.

stlarch

Member

From: hell

Registered: 2010-12-25

Posts: 1,265

Re: [SOLVED] A way to find out battery life on Thinkpad X120e (Openbox)

On mine, I do {battery_percent BAT1}. You may need to change the 1 to 0? (Conky)

mrmylanman

Member

From: Altamonte Springs, FL, USA

Registered: 2011-03-13

Posts: 178

Re: [SOLVED] A way to find out battery life on Thinkpad X120e (Openbox)

Thanks I must have been missing the acpitool package.  That solved it!

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Arch user since 2011-03-13

Thinkpad X220 Intel Core i7-2640M CPU, 16GB DDR3-1333 RAM, 160GB Intel SATA II SSD & 60GB OCZ mSATA SSD, 12.5" IPS 1366x768 Display, 6-cell Battery
(Installation date:  2012-03-19)