LF alternatives to Arch for my laptop

Eit · 2011-12-15 18:36:48

Some months ago I've bought a new laptop for college use ( I'm studying computer engineering ).
And I've setup, w/o many problems, arch64 + awesomeWM and everything was working properly.
Even if I'm not really concerned about battery duration (we've plenty of wall plugs under our desks in any rooms we use ), I had installed and configured laptop-mode module and adjusted brightness not too use too much power (and not to burn my eyes aswell, since full brightness is rly too much ).
But honestly I've noticed that battery under win7 lasts almost 2 times with respect to arch and my hdd is not having that many spindowns that are pretty frequent under arch, even when I'm just typing in vim and my wifi connection is not shutting down suddendly (ok I know that I could adjust those parameters ) .
So the point is: is there any distro supporting more efficient and user-friendly/fast access power management for laptops in supported repositories, maybe other laptops features and possibly very close to arch? (I've a pretty new laptop, this may be the problem )
I'm running Ubuntu on my desktop but I'd like to run something more 'interesting' on my laptop without load of useless stuff on it and that allows me to make choices about WM and other programs.

Thanks in advance

GERGE · 2011-12-15 20:14:10

When it comes to the new hardware Arch is among the best, so you might just be in a unlucky place for now Linux-wise. My notebook has better power management with Arch by the way.

aurinkolasit · 2011-12-15 20:48:45

You might be afflicted by the power regression bug that lurks somewhere in the Linux kernel. I don't follow kernel development that closely, but according to Phoronix this is still an issue even with the latest kernel 3.1.

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=a … ress&num=1

Now, as for distros, I don't think that distro devs can conjure up anything that could reduce power consumption significantly in the userland. Secondly, I'm afraid that battery life time is such an important marketing feature when it comes to laptops that companies might want to protect/hide whatever software schemes they have, making it difficult for Linux to come par.

As a chemistry student I'm putting all my hopes on the development of more powerful batteries. :-P

EDIT: I'd like to also point out that while Archers are the first to get all the cool new kernel features, they are also going to be the first to feel the pain of kernel bugs. Does installing Debian (that I don't fancy that much myself) make a difference for you in terms of battery life?

Last edited by aurinkolasit (2011-12-15 20:53:27)

Eit · 2011-12-15 20:58:19

Ofc I know that it's all about companies, there's a lot of stuff under win7 about Vaio management that I can't expect to be under any linux distro, but really the gap between the battery duration looks huge to me and what I get as drawback for using power saving settings is not reasonable.

EDIT: I'm trying to ask here because, even if I prefer configuring and modify stuff myself, I'd not spend weeks monitoring battery duration or installing different distros (especially because installing stuff on a new laptop is quite a pain ), I've just noticed the difference because recently I had to use win a lot for of a couple of projects, so I was wondering if I could both improve the duration and reduce spindowns and other unpleasant stuff. I know this is not much "arch way" but I'm quite busy so I'd like to have things 'done' at least on those power management stuff

Last edited by Eit (2011-12-15 21:13:52)

KingX · 2011-12-15 21:02:53

One thing you might want to check is what cpufreq governor (if any!) you are using. Win7 etc. throttle down the cpu if you are not doing anything cpu intensive. I believe by default the cpu runs at max speed in arch linux. I would recommend looking into CPU Freq Scaling to scale down the cpu. powertop is another utility you can use to save some watts. Compiling your kernel would be another thing you can do to save some power and run a kernel that is better suited towards your laptops hardware. Remember the ARCH kernel is a generic kernel meant to be suitable for a wide range of hardware.

Regarding other distros, ubuntu/fedora etc. has these utilities pre-installed for their laptop edition. Anything resembling arch like gentoo/crux/slackware you will end up having to take care of it yourself.

Eit · 2011-12-15 21:22:53

KingX wrote:

One thing you might want to check is what cpufreq governor (if any!) you are using. Win7 etc. throttle down the cpu if you are not doing anything cpu intensive. I believe by default the cpu runs at max speed in arch linux. I would recommend looking into CPU Freq Scaling to scale down the cpu. powertop is another utility you can use to save some watts. Compiling your kernel would be another thing you can do to save some power and run a kernel that is better suited towards your laptops hardware. Remember the ARCH kernel is a generic kernel meant to be suitable for a wide range of hardware.
Regarding other distros, ubuntu/fedora etc. has these utilities pre-installed for their laptop edition. Anything resembling arch like gentoo/crux/slackware you will end up having to take care of it yourself.

I'll try cpufrequtils, thanks for the hint

Last edited by Eit (2011-12-15 22:05:40)

Lone_Wolf · 2011-12-17 13:57:40

another thing to try is a switch to the LTS kernel 2.6.32 , as there have been 2 major power regressions in the kernel (2.6.35 and 2.6.38 iirc)

bwat47 · 2011-12-17 17:30:54

Lone_Wolf wrote:

another thing to try is a switch to the LTS kernel 2.6.32 , as there have been 2 major power regressions in the kernel (2.6.35 and 2.6.38 iirc)

The workaround for the "huge power regression" is very easy and does not require downgrading the kernel. Add pcie_aspm=force to the kernel line in grub. Its not so much a regression, as the kernel disabling a feature that can crash certain systems with crappy/buggy BIOS. I also wouldn't be too keen on downgrading the kernel on very new hardware. The older kernels could have compatibility issues.

Last edited by bwat47 (2011-12-17 17:33:30)

scenox · 2011-12-17 21:07:38

This difference is really huge and extraordinary. Try using http://www.lesswatts.org/projects/powertop/ to check relevant hardware / process power usage and https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Laptop_Mode_Tools to save energy.

One of the causes could be using open source graphics card driver which doesn't support energy saving mode. You might want to try proprietary drivers instead.

Arch Linux

#1 2011-12-15 18:36:48

LF alternatives to Arch for my laptop

#2 2011-12-15 20:14:10

Re: LF alternatives to Arch for my laptop

#3 2011-12-15 20:48:45

Re: LF alternatives to Arch for my laptop

#4 2011-12-15 20:58:19

Re: LF alternatives to Arch for my laptop

#5 2011-12-15 21:02:53

Re: LF alternatives to Arch for my laptop

#6 2011-12-15 21:22:53

Re: LF alternatives to Arch for my laptop

#7 2011-12-17 13:57:40

Re: LF alternatives to Arch for my laptop

#8 2011-12-17 17:30:54

Re: LF alternatives to Arch for my laptop

#9 2011-12-17 21:07:38

Re: LF alternatives to Arch for my laptop

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