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#1 2010-03-02 22:58:33

Nanthiel
Member
From: Slovenia
Registered: 2009-09-20
Posts: 148

Laptop-mode-tools, cpufrequtils, hdparm, wifi-select and net-auto-*?

Hello everyone!


I've the following questions:

1.) Does laptop-mode-tools (if configured so in /etc/laptop-mode/conf.d/cpufreq.conf) control the CPU frequency scaling itself, or is the cpufrequtils package still required? And what exactly are the available governors for this setting? I've "powersave" in it, and it does not complain, but I'm not sure if it's being used. The default was "ondemand".

2.) The hdparm manpage says that the hard drive will not spin down with a -B value of 128 or higher. So will it ignore -S value timeouts? And will it really not spin down at -B 128 when set to that value in laptop-mode.conf? Also, laptop-mode.conf uses "seconds" for -S time, but the man page of hdparm says the formatting is rather unique (the word used is "peculiar".)

3.) Wifi-select does not automatically make a new profile if one is not present. What gives? The Wiki says it should behave this way. There is also no man page for it.

4.) The net-auto-wired daemon starts a wired connection as soon as I put my cable in, this is great. But will net-auto-wireless automatically connect to a wireless connection when I gain physical access to it (i.e. moving around a city) if it can? Or will I still need to use netcfg? I'm assuming now a profile for that network has been created, since otherwise netcfg can't connect, or can it?

Repeating my wifi-select problem, today I was in a cafe with free wireless and wifi-select did not want to connect, said there was no profile. So I created one and just used netcfg <profile>. That worked. It would be nice if net-auto-wireless connected to a free wireless connection automatically (although it might cause some anarchy). Wifi-select seems to work with already-existing profiles, but I could just as well netcfg-menu my way into those, rendering wifi-select obsolete.

4b.) What is the benefit of the net-auto-wireless daemon, if my assumations are correct, and it only does -something- at boot?

What is _your_ preferred method of using netcfg for a netbook user?

5.) Powertop says I should enable SATA link power management when I run it. But I have enabled this in the laptop-mode configuration files. What is wrong? This is also the only recommendation it gives. Note: after I press "S" (which it wants me to), and then restart powertop, it shows the recommendation again!


Thank you lots for your answers! smile

— Nanthiel


P.S. I am using an ASUS EeePC 1005 HA-H netbook, and it tells me it's glad to be off Ubuntu Netbook Remix.

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#2 2010-03-02 23:40:03

lucke
Member
From: Poland
Registered: 2004-11-30
Posts: 4,018

Re: Laptop-mode-tools, cpufrequtils, hdparm, wifi-select and net-auto-*?

1) I just have "cpufreq-set -g ondemand" in /etc/rc.local and don't bother with laptop-tools' cpufreq options. I don't think you really want to use the powersave governor, it just keeps the CPU at the lowest possible frequency; it might actually save less power that way, because performing tasks takes longer.

2) hdparm indeed uses a peculiar scheme. Different drives also treat those options a bit differently. Your bet best is to run "hdparm -S/B xxx" in the CLI and see what it does.

5) It's the case in my case too, even if options seem to be enabled, powertop still complains.

Last edited by lucke (2010-03-02 23:40:42)

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#3 2010-03-03 16:49:21

Nanthiel
Member
From: Slovenia
Registered: 2009-09-20
Posts: 148

Re: Laptop-mode-tools, cpufrequtils, hdparm, wifi-select and net-auto-*?

Thanks for the answer!

So, I've got cpufrequtils working properly via laptop-mode-tools now. I was stupid enough to not load the two required modules (the driver for cpufreq and the _ondemand governor), so laptop-mode-tools just throttled my CPU.

Hdparm shows no errors when I use it on the command line. I decided to use 128 for battery, 254 for others and disable the setting of -S in laptop-mode.conf, it seems my disk does not spin down now. At least not after short periods.

I'm definitely keeping laptop-mode-tools for the automatism of switching settings depending on the usage of battery. And it does a great job of the Superhe engine in my Eee. The battery life is improved by around 1 hour (maybe a little more) when it's on!


EDIT: apparently my drive does still spin down when the -B value is set to 128, even is -S is manually set to 0. At the moment I changed my settings to -B 254 in all cases and that laptop-mode-tools does not touch the -S values, which I don't think have any real effect anyway.

Last edited by Nanthiel (2010-03-03 16:55:31)

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