Some new messages about powersave and KPowersave: I added packages for Fedora Core 5 to the sourceforge project website. It was again a pain to create the new rpms. I don't know if really someone develop KDE applications on FC5, but if I need to compile a own dbus-qt3 and dbus-qt3-devel package - only because there is no rpm available and the related section in the specfile is out-commented - something is wrong with this distribution. Btw. Because of this I added also the needed dbus-qt3 rpms here. If you try to install and use KPowersave on FC5 you need at least the dbus-qt3 package. Unfortunately if have no experiences with SELinux and also the guys on the fedora selinux irc-channel were not very helpful. Hence you need to disable selinux support or at least the rule for acpi(d) on FC5. Patches for powersave are welcome.
Since powersave supports s2ram, I also added a suspend package (which include s2ram) for SUSE Linux 10.0 to sf.net. You also need to update pciutils to version 2.2.1, packages are available on the same download page.
Finally: powersave and KPowersave are now also available for Arch Linux. You can find the PKGBUILD powersave packages in the unstable tree and the KPowersave PKGBUILD here.
Sunday, April 23, 2006
Thursday, April 13, 2006
KPowersave 0.6.0 (stable) released
Monday I released the new stable KPowersave, version 0.6.0. The release contains several fixes for the processor information in the detailed dialog (e.g. for multiprocessor machines with throttling support), fixes for the battery infos in the tooltip, a fix from Michael Biebl for events after autosuspend, fixed errorhandling for call YaST power-management module and fixed the timeout for connection to powersave on startup to avoid problems with slow machines and autosuspend. I reduced the size of the package by optimize the included png-files and added a german version of the handbook. Also included: translation updates, changed links for report bugs from the applet menu if the installation is a SUSE/SLES/SLED, added support for lock screen with gnome-screensaver and added fake a key event after resume if the screen was locked to get the unlock dialog automatically. For all changes since the last stable version and the release news, read here.
Thanks to all people which helped to develop KPowersave and make the hole project successful with code, patches, testing all the unstable versions, reported bugs, their ideas and all the spend time. Special thanks to Holger Macht, Stefan Seyfried, Michael Biebl and Daniel Gollub.
You can download KPowersave for SUSE 10.0 (for 10.1 from factory repository or from the CD/DVD), Fedora Core 4 and Mandriva from the sourceforge project page. You can find links to download packages for e.g. Debian, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Gentoo and Alt Linux on the kde-apps.org KPowersave page.
Thanks to all people which helped to develop KPowersave and make the hole project successful with code, patches, testing all the unstable versions, reported bugs, their ideas and all the spend time. Special thanks to Holger Macht, Stefan Seyfried, Michael Biebl and Daniel Gollub.
You can download KPowersave for SUSE 10.0 (for 10.1 from factory repository or from the CD/DVD), Fedora Core 4 and Mandriva from the sourceforge project page. You can find links to download packages for e.g. Debian, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Gentoo and Alt Linux on the kde-apps.org KPowersave page.
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
kernel module packages
Last week , while testing KPowersave on Kubuntu to force UpstreamVersionFreeze Exception process, I tested a LG M1 Express Dual as first with SUSE 10.1 Beta9, but it was a pain to install on this machine. I couldn't start installation via SLP: the kernel doesn't support the network card, USB and cardbus tulip network card also not worked. At the end I used a DVD to install the laptop.
After installation, in the running system the network worked via the usb docking station (also if KNetworkManager alway try to use COM1 instead of the correct networkinterface and I need to switch this always manually) but not correct via a Tulip cardbus card. I need pci=assigned_busses as kernel parameter and the card must be inserted before the yenta_socket kernel module is loaded. But also in this case the tulip module is not loaded automatically.
Btw. the onboard networkcard is not supported by the kernel. It's a Agere Systems ET1310 ethernet card. There was a patch (from a Agere developer as it looks) available e.g. on dadams1969.googlepages.com to add kernel support. I tested the module on the machine and it worked. But I needed to add some little fixes to get the patch compile. While testing I recognised that the module generate random mac addresses. Looks as if the first read from the EEPROM, to get the mac of the hardware, fail and instead of try again it generates a random address. With a little workaround (read directly two times from the EEPROM) I get the correct address.
Because it's not really a good idea to compile each time while BETA testing, after each kernel update or new installaation I made a et131-KMP package. Thanks to Andreas Gruenbacher for the help to get the package build. It's not available via factory tree at the moment. But If you need this package you can download it (without any support or guaranty) here. I hope Agere fix the module and try to get this in the linux kernel.
I also added a omnibook-KMP package to the factory tree. I should allow a lot of machines e.g. to get support for brightness change. For more information about the supported Laptops (HP Omnibook and Pavilion, Toshiba Satellite and some FSC, Compal, Acer and Compaq) and the features see the sf.net omke project page. I already added support for the module to powersave. The package should be on the media of RC1 and SUSE Linux 10.1/SLES 10/SLED 10.
After installation, in the running system the network worked via the usb docking station (also if KNetworkManager alway try to use COM1 instead of the correct networkinterface and I need to switch this always manually) but not correct via a Tulip cardbus card. I need pci=assigned_busses as kernel parameter and the card must be inserted before the yenta_socket kernel module is loaded. But also in this case the tulip module is not loaded automatically.
Btw. the onboard networkcard is not supported by the kernel. It's a Agere Systems ET1310 ethernet card. There was a patch (from a Agere developer as it looks) available e.g. on dadams1969.googlepages.com to add kernel support. I tested the module on the machine and it worked. But I needed to add some little fixes to get the patch compile. While testing I recognised that the module generate random mac addresses. Looks as if the first read from the EEPROM, to get the mac of the hardware, fail and instead of try again it generates a random address. With a little workaround (read directly two times from the EEPROM) I get the correct address.
Because it's not really a good idea to compile each time while BETA testing, after each kernel update or new installaation I made a et131-KMP package. Thanks to Andreas Gruenbacher for the help to get the package build. It's not available via factory tree at the moment. But If you need this package you can download it (without any support or guaranty) here. I hope Agere fix the module and try to get this in the linux kernel.
I also added a omnibook-KMP package to the factory tree. I should allow a lot of machines e.g. to get support for brightness change. For more information about the supported Laptops (HP Omnibook and Pavilion, Toshiba Satellite and some FSC, Compal, Acer and Compaq) and the features see the sf.net omke project page. I already added support for the module to powersave. The package should be on the media of RC1 and SUSE Linux 10.1/SLES 10/SLED 10.
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Testing (K)powersave on Kubuntu
The Kubuntu LaptopTestingTeam announced a help request for testing KPowersave/powersave on the current Kubuntu Dapper test release (Dapper Flight 5/6). The tester should test if KPowersave work better than the current default solution klaptop and document the results on a wiki page.
As I taked a look at the page some days ago, I could only found three reports. Hence I started testing Kubuntu here on several laptops from the Mobile Devices team at SUSE and reported the results back to the wiki. After eleven machines I can say two different things:
Feel free to install Kubuntu Dapper Flight 6 on a small partition on your latop and run the requested tests to support the powersave project. All test reports would be really appreciated!
As I taked a look at the page some days ago, I could only found three reports. Hence I started testing Kubuntu here on several laptops from the Mobile Devices team at SUSE and reported the results back to the wiki. After eleven machines I can say two different things:
- klaptop sucks! (it's not really maintained anymore, it hangs up in the most cases if you try to trigger suspend to ram ... )
- on all tested laptops it works better with KPowersave/powersave than with klaptop
Feel free to install Kubuntu Dapper Flight 6 on a small partition on your latop and run the requested tests to support the powersave project. All test reports would be really appreciated!
Thursday, March 23, 2006
KPowersave 0.5.11 - last RC before stable v0.6
Yesterday I released the next KPowersave version on sourceforge.net and added a announcement on kde-apps.org (and today on freshmeat and forge.novell). This release (v0.5.11-rc5) is planed as the last release candidate before the next stable release since September 2005.
I fixed the handling of set brightness. In the previous version KPowersave allowed to use all available brightness level to be set. But e.g. on machines with PMU brightness interface the lowest level off the display. From now only the last usable brightness level, defined by powersave, can be set. With powersave >= 0.12.7 you can now also change the brighness on machines supported by pmu and omnibook module.
On a request I added a function to check if the machine is a laptop, by asking HAL. Now KPowersave display laptop specific widgets and functionality only on laptops. I think this is now less confusing for the user of workstations which not expect to be able to configure lidclose handling.
The new version also include: handbook, translation and documentation updates and fixes; a Slackware specific fix again; some code cleanups and a little fix to prepare for QT4. I added furthermore a patch from Holger Macht to allow the root user always all kind of suspend/standby independent from the powersave settings for the other users.
Fell free to download the current version (available for SUSE, Fedora Core 4, Mandriva and I think in the next days also for Debian and U/Kubuntu). All bugreports are welcome for the stable release.
I fixed the handling of set brightness. In the previous version KPowersave allowed to use all available brightness level to be set. But e.g. on machines with PMU brightness interface the lowest level off the display. From now only the last usable brightness level, defined by powersave, can be set. With powersave >= 0.12.7 you can now also change the brighness on machines supported by pmu and omnibook module.
On a request I added a function to check if the machine is a laptop, by asking HAL. Now KPowersave display laptop specific widgets and functionality only on laptops. I think this is now less confusing for the user of workstations which not expect to be able to configure lidclose handling.
The new version also include: handbook, translation and documentation updates and fixes; a Slackware specific fix again; some code cleanups and a little fix to prepare for QT4. I added furthermore a patch from Holger Macht to allow the root user always all kind of suspend/standby independent from the powersave settings for the other users.
Fell free to download the current version (available for SUSE, Fedora Core 4, Mandriva and I think in the next days also for Debian and U/Kubuntu). All bugreports are welcome for the stable release.
The last two weeks ...
I didn't wrote anything here since two weeks. So here a update about some of the issues I worked on in this time:
Powersave:
Powersave:
- I installed the first time a SUSE Linux 10.1 Beta 7 on a Apple iBook G4. The installation process is really abortive compared to normal install on ix86 or x86_64. By the way powersave also work on ppc and I tested (K)Powersave on this machine. Suspend to Disk work perfect, but I could not get Suspend to RAM running on this machine. Looks as if this not work on ppc via apm, need to investigate if this maybe is possible somehow via pmu. I added support for change brightness on machines with pmu support to powersave.
- I also added brightness support for the omnibook kernel module. They released now a updated version of the package and now you can also unload the module on a 2.6.x kernel. I try to build a km_omnibook package in the next days.
- Added more support for TabletPCs to HAL. From now HAL set automatically the serial port (by call the correct setserial command) for the Wacom Tablets if they are detected. Because HAL starts early enough before the X server this addon should be able to activate the port to be used in X. I also added a FDI file to set the correct ttyS* device on machines where we should not use ttyS0.
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
KPowersave 0.5.10-rc4 released
Yesterday I released the next KPowersave version. This new release candidate (yes we are now at RC4 and there follow also some more rc's, because of the changed releaseplan for SUSE 10.1) depends now on powersave >= 0.12.2.
I fixed, based on a report on powersave-devel, the handling of the lidclose event. Now KPowersave call 'xset dpms force off ' on lidclose and reset the dpms and screensaver settings on lidopen to off the LCD backlights. Also included: a fix to display processor infos on multiprocessor/-core machines for all CPUs/cores also on non-CPUFreq/throttling machines, a fix from Daniel Gollub to read throttling informatation also on multiprocessor machines, a fix to display battery infos in the detailed dialog only if at least one batterybay is available. While porting to Mandriva, I made also some autotool releated changes: changed detection of Mandriva and read location/name of the D-BUS system socket from pkgconfig. I added at least a patch from Michael Biebl to use pkgconfig from powersave for checks and linking.
With this version the packagesize increased to ~3.3 MByte because I updated and added missing screenshots for the localized handbook versions and added a icon to avoid problems on non-SUSE distributions. The changes also include language updates.
The last release was really successful! It was, after released, downloaded 1421 times in the first seven days from the project page at sourceforge. This is nearly the same as normaly in one complete month (~1500 downloads). I don't know who are all the people which downloaded the files but I like it and hope they like and use KPowersave. The most downloads was for SUSE and the source tar.bz2 but also many downloads for Fedora Core 4.
I fixed, based on a report on powersave-devel, the handling of the lidclose event. Now KPowersave call 'xset dpms force off ' on lidclose and reset the dpms and screensaver settings on lidopen to off the LCD backlights. Also included: a fix to display processor infos on multiprocessor/-core machines for all CPUs/cores also on non-CPUFreq/throttling machines, a fix from Daniel Gollub to read throttling informatation also on multiprocessor machines, a fix to display battery infos in the detailed dialog only if at least one batterybay is available. While porting to Mandriva, I made also some autotool releated changes: changed detection of Mandriva and read location/name of the D-BUS system socket from pkgconfig. I added at least a patch from Michael Biebl to use pkgconfig from powersave for checks and linking.
With this version the packagesize increased to ~3.3 MByte because I updated and added missing screenshots for the localized handbook versions and added a icon to avoid problems on non-SUSE distributions. The changes also include language updates.
The last release was really successful! It was, after released, downloaded 1421 times in the first seven days from the project page at sourceforge. This is nearly the same as normaly in one complete month (~1500 downloads). I don't know who are all the people which downloaded the files but I like it and hope they like and use KPowersave. The most downloads was for SUSE and the source tar.bz2 but also many downloads for Fedora Core 4.
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