So what do you use for power management in lightweight WMs?

miggols99 · 2008-05-17 15:49:08

I want to start using a lightweight WM (probably Openbox with LXDE) or maybe e17, maybe even KDE4 SVN. But the last time I tried Openbox, it made my laptop get quite hot, because I do a lot of graphics work in Inkscape. Normally in Ubuntu (my backup OS) it doesn't get hot and I think it's because it has power saving. For you people out there on a laptop using a lightweight WM...what program do you use for power management? I'm talking about suspend when you shut the laptop lid, dimming or turning off the screen when inactive etc,

Last edited by miggols99 (2008-05-17 15:49:43)

Hohoho · 2008-05-17 15:59:07

I think you need to look into CPU frequency scaling.

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/CPU … cy_Scaling

miggols99 · 2008-05-17 16:00:30

That already works fine for me...

infinitycircuit · 2008-05-17 20:13:02

Try out laptop-mode-tools. It will dim your screen, auto-hibernate at low battery, throttle your cpu, stop intensive programs from logging while on battery, etc.

If you want your laptop to autosuspend when the lid is closed, then just make sure you have acpi support and change the acpi scripts. I use debian and they are in /etc/acpi/ but I don't know about Arch.

Last edited by infinitycircuit (2008-05-17 20:13:45)

miggols99 · 2008-05-17 20:57:18

Will I be able to configure this easily? Without going though confusing config files?

moljac024 · 2008-05-17 21:01:14

Can't you just run gnome-power-manager as a daemon in your WM ?

miggols99 · 2008-05-17 21:02:32

Yes, but that requires gnome-panel, which will drag in a lot of Gnome dependencies, and I don't want that.

jbromley · 2008-05-18 05:08:01

I use wmii and occasionally stumpwm and here's what I use for power management.

* pm-utils for hibernate and suspend. I use my keyboard keys to suspend/hibernate so there is no onscreen GUI. I modified /etc/acpi/handler.sh to switch between power modes and do suspend on lid close type stuff.
* acpid to help out with the above stuff. In particular it provides handling for the ACPI events.
* cpufrequtils w/ custom ACPI handler.sh script to do CPU frequency scaling. (I know this supposedly can be done with laptop mode tools, but that has never worked for me.)
* laptop-mode-tools for general power saving facilities. Yes, the configuration is long, but not too terribly confusing.
* atieventsd (if you have an ATI card) using the powersave feature is the difference between 2 and 3 hours and a half on battery.

Good luck,
j

Sigi · 2008-05-18 06:07:49

miggols99 wrote:

Yes, but that requires gnome-panel, which will drag in a lot of Gnome dependencies, and I don't want that.

I think you have to set priorities on what you prefer. Having some "lightweight" daemons with easy to edit config files or some "heavier" tools with a GUI and some GUI-related dependencies...

moljac024 · 2008-05-18 09:33:15

miggols99 wrote:

Yes, but that requires gnome-panel, which will drag in a lot of Gnome dependencies, and I don't want that.

hold on a minute, how does running a daemon require a panel ??
gnome-power-manager can display an icon in the system tray, but really gnome-panel isn't the only app that provides a tray :-) You can also set it to not display a tray icon.

Last edited by moljac024 (2008-05-18 10:01:24)

Lastebil · 2008-05-18 11:44:17

E17's extra modules have some power management features. If you're going to try out E17, throw in the extra-modules (they're small) and try it out, see if it works for what you want. It may be a bit TOO minimal - but I like it just fine.

miggols99 · 2008-05-18 12:47:05

moljac024 wrote:

miggols99 wrote:
Yes, but that requires gnome-panel, which will drag in a lot of Gnome dependencies, and I don't want that.
hold on a minute, how does running a daemon require a panel ??
gnome-power-manager can display an icon in the system tray, but really gnome-panel isn't the only app that provides a tray :-) You can also set it to not display a tray icon.

I think you'll see that it does.

@Lastebill: How minimal is it?

@Everyone else: So how easy are laptop-mode-tools to configure? Could someone give me an example of a config file?

xaw · 2008-05-18 13:12:33

A tool that I like to use is PowerTOP, developed by Intel IIRC, and you can pinpoint apps that are draining of your system's power resources (it does a real-time evaluation of how much battery life you'd get based on which processes are running)

moljac024 · 2008-05-18 13:15:25

miggols99 wrote:

moljac024 wrote:
miggols99 wrote:
Yes, but that requires gnome-panel, which will drag in a lot of Gnome dependencies, and I don't want that.
hold on a minute, how does running a daemon require a panel ??
gnome-power-manager can display an icon in the system tray, but really gnome-panel isn't the only app that provides a tray :-) You can also set it to not display a tray icon.
I think you'll see that it does.
@Lastebill: How minimal is it?
@Everyone else: So how easy are laptop-mode-tools to configure? Could someone give me an example of a config file?

Oh, I see....I have the whole gnome desktop installed but I don't use it anymore, nevertheless, why does it need gnome-panel installed ? That's strange....

Then you should use laptop-mode-tools, just install it. The configuration file should be located at

/etc/laptop-mode/laptop-mode.conf

It is pretty well commented and easy to configure.

Last edited by moljac024 (2008-05-18 13:16:28)

Arch Linux

#1 2008-05-17 15:49:08

So what do you use for power management in lightweight WMs?

#2 2008-05-17 15:59:07

Re: So what do you use for power management in lightweight WMs?

#3 2008-05-17 16:00:30

Re: So what do you use for power management in lightweight WMs?

#4 2008-05-17 20:13:02

Re: So what do you use for power management in lightweight WMs?

#5 2008-05-17 20:57:18

Re: So what do you use for power management in lightweight WMs?

#6 2008-05-17 21:01:14

Re: So what do you use for power management in lightweight WMs?

#7 2008-05-17 21:02:32

Re: So what do you use for power management in lightweight WMs?

#8 2008-05-18 05:08:01

Re: So what do you use for power management in lightweight WMs?

#9 2008-05-18 06:07:49

Re: So what do you use for power management in lightweight WMs?

#10 2008-05-18 09:33:15

Re: So what do you use for power management in lightweight WMs?

#11 2008-05-18 11:44:17

Re: So what do you use for power management in lightweight WMs?

#12 2008-05-18 12:47:05

Re: So what do you use for power management in lightweight WMs?

#13 2008-05-18 13:12:33

Re: So what do you use for power management in lightweight WMs?

#14 2008-05-18 13:15:25

Re: So what do you use for power management in lightweight WMs?

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