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#1 2011-12-20 09:54:40

Gazpacho
Member
Registered: 2011-11-05
Posts: 17

[SOLVED] Laptop-mode vs KDE Power Manager

Hi folk,

This is my first post, so "Hello world!". I have been a happy linux user for the past 10 years and a few weeks ago I decided to jump Arch. At the moment, I'm very happy with my decision.

Once I've presented, here my problem/doubt:

In my work I have an Acer Aspire 5736Z and after a deep Wiki read I have a fully functional Linux and KDE environment, but.... until this morning when I plugged an USB device the laptop goes to sleep. After search in a lot of forums, wikis, etc... I thought, "Could be the problem the KDE power-managment and the laptop-mode-tools?". And I was right, I have disabled the laptop-mode, enabled the cpugovernor and the problem has gone.

And here is my question, based in your experience, what is better?, to use laptop-mode or desktop power-managment?

PD: I have not found in the wiki any warning about the problems that could appear if you use laptop-mode and KDE, maybe it could be useful for future users.

Last edited by Gazpacho (2012-01-10 08:10:56)

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#2 2011-12-21 15:19:08

jon
Member
Registered: 2002-11-28
Posts: 87

Re: [SOLVED] Laptop-mode vs KDE Power Manager

I can't say for KDE specifically, but I use both TLP (Thinkpad specific version of Laptop-Mode-Tools) and XFCE Power Manager.

TLP handles things like kernel settings and disk settings (performance vs power-saving), when I unplug or plug back in.

XFCE Power Manager handles display sleep timeouts, and Suspend / Hibernate.

Since XFCE Power Manager doesn't handle brightness settings very well I have a tiny script in /etc/pm/power.d/ that get run on a plug / unplug event with the other TLP scripts.

I also use cpufreq to set all my processor cores to "on-demand" upon boot. This is the recommended power-saving option for all modern processors.

So from my perspective all 3 (TLP / Laptop-Mode-Tools, Power Manager, and cpufreq) handle different things.

If you are having issues with USB suspend, it would probably be a setting somewhere in Laptop-Mode-Tools that you can disable.

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#3 2011-12-22 08:22:35

der_fenix
Member
Registered: 2011-12-22
Posts: 3

Re: [SOLVED] Laptop-mode vs KDE Power Manager

jon wrote:

Since XFCE Power Manager doesn't handle brightness settings very well I have a tiny script in /etc/pm/power.d/ that get run on a plug / unplug event with the other TLP scripts.

Laptop-Mode-Tools can control brightness and cpu scaling with cpufreq. No need other tools or script, all can be configured within LMT configs

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#4 2011-12-22 08:59:44

Gazpacho
Member
Registered: 2011-11-05
Posts: 17

Re: [SOLVED] Laptop-mode vs KDE Power Manager

jon wrote:

If you are having issues with USB suspend, it would probably be a setting somewhere in Laptop-Mode-Tools that you can disable.

I tried to disable completely the USB auto-suspend, use black-lists, unload usbhid module (from /etc/laptop-mode/conf.d/usb-autosuspend.conf) and it don't work. All works fine when laptop-mode daemon does not loaded or KDE power-manager is disabled. I suppose is a conflict between them but I have not found more information

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#5 2011-12-22 17:34:55

jon
Member
Registered: 2002-11-28
Posts: 87

Re: [SOLVED] Laptop-mode vs KDE Power Manager

der_fenix wrote:
jon wrote:

Since XFCE Power Manager doesn't handle brightness settings very well I have a tiny script in /etc/pm/power.d/ that get run on a plug / unplug event with the other TLP scripts.

Laptop-Mode-Tools can control brightness and cpu scaling with cpufreq. No need other tools or script, all can be configured within LMT configs

Except I don't use Laptop-Mode-Tools. I use TLP which conflicts with LMT, and provides better functionality for IBM / Lenovo Thinkpads.

When I say my brightness script is simple, it's simple.

#!/bin/sh
brightness="/sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness"
case $1 in
    true) echo 6 > "$brightness";;
    false) echo 10 > "$brightness";;
esac
exit 0

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#6 2011-12-23 16:29:30

Gazpacho
Member
Registered: 2011-11-05
Posts: 17

Re: [SOLVED] Laptop-mode vs KDE Power Manager

I spoke very soon,

Laptop-mode daemon is not running, I am using the battery, powertop says "Enable ustosuspend USB...": I have connected an USB Stick and the laptop has gone to sleep.

Anyone know what could be?

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#7 2011-12-23 23:45:04

jon
Member
Registered: 2002-11-28
Posts: 87

Re: [SOLVED] Laptop-mode vs KDE Power Manager

Gazpacho wrote:

I spoke very soon,

Laptop-mode daemon is not running, I am using the battery, powertop says "Enable ustosuspend USB...": I have connected an USB Stick and the laptop has gone to sleep.

Anyone know what could be?

Are you saying that as soon as you plug in a USB device the entire laptop goes to sleep? Or just that while a USB device is plugged in, the laptop will sleep after X minutes?

As far as I know, USB auto-suspend has nothing to do with laptop "sleep", aka suspend-to-ram, it only affects power on the USB bus.

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#8 2011-12-24 16:37:02

Gazpacho
Member
Registered: 2011-11-05
Posts: 17

Re: [SOLVED] Laptop-mode vs KDE Power Manager

When I plug in a USB device (does not matter if is a memory, mouse, bluetooth...) the laptop goes to sleep intermediately. I thought it could be for USB auto-suspend, after disable laptop-mode-tools all was fine, but now it happens again.

The problem not happens each time, so, could it be produced by the order the modules are loaded?

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#9 2011-12-25 12:14:40

Shark
Member
From: /dev/zero
Registered: 2011-02-28
Posts: 684

Re: [SOLVED] Laptop-mode vs KDE Power Manager

I have LMT and KDE power manager. Everything works fine. The problem has to be elsewhere.


If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them.
Henry David Thoreau

Registered Linux User: #559057

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#10 2012-01-10 08:09:47

Gazpacho
Member
Registered: 2011-11-05
Posts: 17

Re: [SOLVED] Laptop-mode vs KDE Power Manager

Finally I have solved my problem: Laptop suspend when working with battery and an USB device was plugged.

I have found the solution in this thread: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=116288 (Chok comment), Just go to KDE settings and change the global keyboard shortcut Suspend to None

Now I can use Laptop-mode-tools and KDE Power manager

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