battery use remaining on laptop (solved)

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Justin
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Joined: Fri 04 Aug 2006, 02:54

battery use remaining on laptop (solved)

#1 Post by Justin »

Is there a way to monitor battery use when running Puppy on a laptop?
Last edited by Justin on Wed 16 Aug 2006, 21:02, edited 1 time in total.

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Runemaster
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Location: Albany, GA U.S.

should have it

#2 Post by Runemaster »

Well when I boot puppy on my lappy it has the little power plug in the "system tray" as they would call it in Windows an i can just click on the and it should show it if it doesnt come up on your just try browsing around for it in the utilities or sumthing if not just try lookin at the extra software on the site here but it should already have it if you're running 2.02

violetdream
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#3 Post by violetdream »

What? I've never seen a power plug in the system tray on several systems.

Try the utility wmpower, just type it into a console. You might also have to modprobe battery before you do that.

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darkerror05
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#4 Post by darkerror05 »

type in wmpower into rxvt and you will get a program for monitoring your battery.
-darkerror

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Runemaster
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#5 Post by Runemaster »

Trust me violetdream, if you are running on a laptop just about any OS you use will have the battery information in the systray. You may have over-looked it is all. It may not be an icon such as a power plug but it will have something there presenting battery information, like in XP it has a lil tiny battery

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darkerror05
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#6 Post by darkerror05 »

runemaster: im on a ibm thinkpad. There is NO battery icon. It may just be your laptop.
-darkerror

Justin
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Joined: Fri 04 Aug 2006, 02:54

#7 Post by Justin »

Thank you! That's better than I was expecting..a little iconlike window you can keep in the corner all the time, just the thing.

This would be a good item to put in the sticky index of howtos at the top of this forum--most laptop users would want to know this.
(I don't have anything in the tray either!)

Notes:

I did have to type "modprobe battery" first in the terminal to get things started, as you said.

You can right-click on the window and choose Layer, then Top and it will stay on top of everything. Or you can put it on a second desktop and switch over when you want to check, or right click and choose 'sticky' to make it appear in either desktop. The terminal window has to be minimized in the taskbar.

I found the manual at
http://wmpower.sourceforge.net/manual.php

Justin
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#8 Post by Justin »

A few followup questions:

I don't have a readout for fan or PC temperature--is there a way to get wmpower to recognize these? (I figure the answer is likely to be no since I was never able to find a fan/temp monitor that worked for my old failing desktop).

It takes at least three steps to set up wmpower: modprobing, making the window sticky or whatever and moving the terminal window, and positioning it on the screen. Is there some way to automate all or some of that, or even have appear automatically on boot in the corner I want it?

I haven't looked into desktop icon making, but can it be run without having a terminal window open?

What exactly is the countdown timer timing? I thought it was time left on the battery but now I'm not so sure...

Thanks again for the help.

can8v
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Modprobe battery

#9 Post by can8v »

Hmmm. I tried modprobe battery and it said that it couldn't find a battery to insert. Strange I think. I am already using the battery. I tried wmpower as well, and also got an error. I brought this up a long time ago on the forum and nobody responded, but I figured out how to use the battery monitor in my ThinkPad 570E to keep me up to date with an LED on the base of the monitor. It took a little getting used to and it isn't as fancy but it works.

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Runemaster
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oops!

#10 Post by Runemaster »

Sry guys I forgot that i go back and forth between knoppix and puppy sry it was knoppix that i was talking about, it atoumatically recognizes that you're on a laptop. sry for the false info. :(

PaulBx1
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#11 Post by PaulBx1 »

Ah, now it begins to make sense. :)

I have a Thinkpad A21m. I too have to "modprobe battery" first to get wmpower to work, and it also does not give fan or temp readings. I'm guessing I need ACPI working in the kernel to get this.

I was reading the linux Thinkpad wiki for my machine, and it looks as if to get ACPI running I need to have compiled the driver for it ("ibm-acpi") into the kernel. Of course it is unlikely ibm-acpi is compiled into the Puppy kernel :wink: and indeed when I tried doing a "force" of ACPI with a boot flag it acted as if it had no idea what I was talking about.

I may be interpreting this incorrectly, but I wouldn't be surprised if very few of us will be able to see such things as fan and temp values, unless there exists a generic driver that 1) was compiled into the kernel and 2) a significant percentage of manufacturers used. But us Thinkpad guys will have to live without, it seems.

EZ4arabs
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#12 Post by EZ4arabs »

John Doe posted this:
John Doe wrote:Try this:

#!/bin/sh
modprobe ac
modprobe battery
modprobe fan
modprobe processor
modprobe thermal
#/proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THM0/polling_frequency
wmpower -no-meddling &
http://www.murga.org/~puppy/viewtopic.php?p=61860#61860

if you need a more complex utility and know how to compile it for puppy try this:
http://wmsensormon.sourceforge.net/

Justin
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#13 Post by Justin »

Thank you for the script--but I'll need some help running it or setting it to run at boot.

PaulBx1
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Location: Wyoming, USA

#14 Post by PaulBx1 »

You can put it in /etc/rc.d/rc.local - that script is generally where you add things you want at boot. I think. :)

Thanks for pointing that out EZ. It got me the temp at least. The fan still says "-" (I suppose if working it's supposed to say "0" or "1"). But, I guess I really don't need this application to tell me if the fan is on. I can just use my ears. :lol:

I suppose this means there is a generic ACPI driver in Puppy, and it supports at least some Thinkpad ACPI functions.

I think the countdown timer is the time left on the battery, but sometimes you are not going to get meaningful numbers (later revisions of wmpower say that it is calculated "directly" - whatever that means - if not available otherwise). BTW this is a pretty old revision of wmpower, 0.3.1. The latest is 0.4.2, which has for example a -geometry argument. Although I was not able to find details on it, this might give control over applet placement and layer when invoked.

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