Gentoo Archives: gentoo-user

From: Florian Philipp <lists@××××××××××××××××××.net>
To: gentoo-user@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] MacBook: How many hours on battery with Gentoo?
Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 19:27:21
Message-Id: 1203449224.10427.12.camel@NOTE_GENTOO64.PHHEIMNETZ
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-user] MacBook: How many hours on battery with Gentoo? by "b.n."
1 On Tue, 2008-02-19 at 20:07 +0100, b.n. wrote:
2 > Ritesh Kumar ha scritto:
3 > > On Feb 19, 2008 12:09 PM, Florian Philipp <lists@f_philipp.fastmail.net>
4 > > wrote:
5 > >
6 > >
7 > > On Tue, 2008-02-19 at 11:28 +0100, b.n. wrote:
8 > > > Lowe Schmidt ha scritto:
9 > > > > Hi.
10 > > > >
11 > > > > I'm planning on buying myself a MacBook and I'm just wondering
12 > > if anyone
13 > > > > knows how many hours I will get out of it if I run Gentoo. I
14 > > mainly use
15 > > > > a bunch
16 > > > > of terminals, gvim and some lightweigth gtk app so nothing heavy
17 > > going on.
18 > > > >
19 > > > > All input appreciated
20 > > >
21 > > > My Macbook Pro with light, normal usage lasts about three hours (OS X
22 > > > lasts at least one hour more).
23 > > >
24 > > > m.
25 > >
26 > > Have you found any reason for this discrepancy? I'd suspect them to be
27 > > on par with the right tuning.
28 > >
29 > >
30 > > Are you doing any kind of CPU frequency scaling? In the kernel (I use
31 > > gentoo sources) configuration enable
32 >
33 > Yes, I do frequency scaling (the ondemand governor is used when the
34 > laptop is unplugged). I also use laptop-mode for the hd and pommed to
35 > tune screen brightness.
36 >
37 > I think the problems are the wireless and the video drivers. The new
38 > Macbook Pro wireless drivers (I bought my machine in late October 2007,
39 > just when Leopard came out -although, well, I found myself almost never
40 > using it) required SVN version of madwifi (dunno if now the stable
41 > version works, will check when upgrading kernel), and so far attempting
42 > to set power saving on my wireless card fails.
43 >
44 > The Macbook Pro also has a nvidia video card. The nvidia drivers work
45 > quite well (apart from some issues with external dvi resolution), but as
46 > far as I know, on it the "Powermizer" feature is somehow disabled. :(
47 >
48 > I guess both things combined can explain at least a significant quantity
49 > of the power drain. Suggestions are much welcome, I hate the reduced
50 > battery power.
51 >
52 > m.
53
54
55 1. Use laptop-mode if you don't do it by now. Really nice even without
56 its delayed disk write feature.
57
58 2. Displays are by far the biggest energy consumers. Lower its
59 brightness as far as possible. Some laptops even allow you to switch its
60 backlight off - very nice if you are outdoor.
61
62 3. Use the powersave-governor. If you really need the additional power
63 ondemand offers, try the conservative-governor. It increases the clock
64 rate slower than ondemand and might stop it from jumping too fast too
65 high.
66
67 4. Try sys-power/powertop. It shows you processes creating a lot up
68 wakeups for the CPU. It also gives you tips on your kernel config.
69
70 5. Sometimes a BIOS update helps...
71
72 Hope this helps.

Attachments

File name MIME type
signature.asc application/pgp-signature

Replies

Subject Author
Re: [gentoo-user] MacBook: How many hours on battery with Gentoo? "b.n." <brullonulla@×××××.com>