

Ask HN: Linux power issues solved yet? - samrat

My Ubuntu 11.10 installation drains out a lot of battery; same for Sabayon. The problem persists even after upgrading kernel to 3.2.<p>When are these problems going to get fixed? Do you guys happen to have any idea?
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karlmdavis
If you're talking about the ASPM regression introduced in 2.6.38, it looks
like it's been resolved in a patch that should drop in 3.3.

Here's a Phoronix article on the issue and fix that covers it in detail:
[http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=linux...](http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=linux_aspm_solution&num=1)

And here's (what I think is) the corresponding bug for Ubuntu:
<https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/760131>

Please note that even though that Ubuntu bug is marked as fixed, the following
comment on it seems to call that into question:
[https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/760131/...](https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/760131/comments/241)

Either way, it sounds like it will be fixed in 12.04.

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evmar
With sadness, I think the broad answer is likely never. For a given piece of
hardware Linux support generally improves over time, but new hardware
continually comes out so support is continually behind. You need the OS
vendor, the kernel authors, and the hardware vendor to all be in sync for this
kind of thing to work out well.

With that out of the way, it is possible to diagnose and fix the problem
yourself. sudo apt-get install powertop, read some docs, experiment a bit.
(Right here is where someone injects "buy a Mac".) And if you go the "safe"
route and pick a laptop popular with Linux users, like a Thinkpad, you'll
likely have better luck. My laptop (an X201) gets around 6 hours and I haven't
changed anything.

~~~
samrat
Mine is a Thinkpad too, but I'm pretty sure buying the Edge series was a
mistake.

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pasbesoin
This response is very off the cuff, but I seem to recall reading recently
about a fix but that it did not make it into 3.2 (or was that 3.0) because of
some outstanding concern or concerns I cannot recall. That is, a real
improvement (was it something that evolved from that Phoronix post everyone's
been citing, recently?), but that still needs a bit of work to
safely/effectively be merged.

Sorry I can't be more specific, but have a look around at the recent news on
this topic.

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jessa
I hope they can find a way to resolve this. I'm sure there is a way. There
will be. Optimistic mode on.

