# Testers wanted!

## shimitar

Hallo, i am working on a nice app for loptops to easy manage power save and cpu freq.

If you have a laptop cpufreq enabled and want to test it... go to:

http://www.gardiol.org/wpd

and try it out. There is also a gentoo ebuild ready (but still not in portage).

Features:

- manages cpufreq governos

- check battery status and reports charge, rate, time remaining

- includes a command line client and a Gkrellm2 plugin

- monitors cpu frequency changes over time

ecc.

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## Tiger683

site seems pretty dead for me ...

but the desciption is very appealing

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## shimitar

What do you mean by "pretty dead"?

I uploaded the latest version yesterday  :Smile: 

Well, also a web designer could be useful for the project  :Smile: 

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## mbar

Why don't you write a xfce4 panel plugin using ACPI?

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## shimitar

Thats a cool idea..

Anybody interested in working on it? Or in finishing the gkrellm plugin?

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## dtor

Just one question - how often does this thing read /proc/acpi/battery/BAT*/state?

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## shimitar

Never, if you do not ask for it.

You can adjust the polling time in the /etc/wpd.conf file. WPD will then use that number as maximum update frequency, Even if you ask for the remaining charge or the current rate more often you will just get the last polled value.

On my Asus laptop i use a comfortable value of 10seconds. But if you do not request that information to wpd (ie: you do not use the gkrellm plugin) the state file will never be read, not even every 10secs.

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## shimitar

Gosh, i am uoploading right now the corrected html page!

WPD does not require anymore to change the headers, configuration is  achieved trhrough the /etc/wpd.conf file!

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## shimitar

A preliminary version of a working XFCE4 plugin is available in the WPD 0.6.0 package. You can grab it at 

http://www.gardiol.org/wpd

please get it, try it and report bugs or contribute.

bye

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## mbar

Tried the plugin, all vertical "sliders" are grayed, but numeric info about battery state is OK.

I'd like you to use more ACPI info, like CPU temperature, and other. I can give you my ACPI info (Sony Vaio Z600 notebook):

/proc/acpi/thermal_zone/ATF0/temperature

```

temperature:          49 C

```

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## shimitar

Ok, i will work on this.

Please subscribe to the WPD mailing list (wpd-subscribe@gardiol.org) to get up-to-date news. 

That is a really low traffic ML.

Are you using the xfce4 plugin or the gkrellm2 plugin? 

HAve you checked the /etc/wpd.conf configuration file to your configuration?

bye

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## mbar

Yep, I changed .conf file according to my system.

But I had in mind that you could make XFCE plugin more advanced, like showing actual temperature, fan state, AC/battery, battery voltage etc. It's all visible in /proc/acpi/* files.

I would gladly help you with programming & testing xfce plugin on my Vaio, but I've much to do in upcoming two weeks, my work deadlines are approaching.

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## shimitar

Hei, good suggestions, i am definitely going in that direction... subscribe to the ML and bring the arguments there.

I just posted  the 0.6.3 version which is capable of reading thermal zone and print it in the gkrellm plugin and in the tooltip of the xfce plugin. 

You have to be satisfied with this for now, but watch it in the next days.

and please, i need suggestions for how to implement a better plugin layout...

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## mbar

Tried 0.6.3 and it's always showing 0 C temperature  :Confused: 

And pls don't use letters in xfce4 plugin.

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## shimitar

If you upgraded from previous version you must edit your wpd.conf and add a line:

temp_file=/proc/acpi/thermal/XXX/temperature

which instead of XXX points to your temperature file. If you do this you will have the temperature.

If you still get 0, try to cat that file and send the output to me (better, to the mailinglist).

For the xfce plugin, i will be happy to add the icons or small pixmaps you will send to me  :Smile:   :Smile:   :Smile:   :Smile:   :Smile: 

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## mbar

OK, I will check my .conf file when I'm back from work (later tonight).

EDIT: not working.

temp_file=/proc/acpi/thermal_zone/ATF0/temperature

cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/ATF0/temperature

```
temperature:             39 C
```

wpc -T

```
0
```

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## shimitar

Ok, im uploading now a new version (0.7.1) which _could_ solve the problem, let me know.

It also present a restyled xfce4 plugin which has the capability of being expanded easily.

I am working on adding a icon capability: nice icons instead of the letters!

But i also need some nice icons. Please help.

bye bye

ps: now wpc -S will print a nice formatted string telling how many minutes and hours you have left before battery is out.

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## shimitar

Ok i figured out the bug ans now the 0.7.2 version will read your temperature.

Some GREAT news:

- wpd now autoconfigure itself so you can DELETE the wpd.conf file

- initial support for ACPI4ASUS !

let me know.

by the way, i really hope you find wpd useful.

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## mbar

Now it's working great, wpd autoconfigured itself nicely and panel plugin is showing real temperature.

In the future, you should make xfce panel more customizable, like switching text labels on/off, add some colours to the temperature bar, etc. But I know it's not important in this stage of development.

EDIT: on my system cpu frequency is not showing, always stays at max freq (I've 700 MHz PIII, plugin shows "694Mhz out of -1Mhz maximum"), but I know that my kernel (2.6.10) throttles cpu freq on demand. When idling "x86info -mhz" shows like 50 or 100 MHz speed. But I can't find any info in /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0, it's empty. Also my battery is not so smart, it always shows full charge/discharge rate (278210 mW), so is't of no use to me. And due to that, remaining time always shows only a few seconds left, even if I can work on battery power for almost two hours. It would be nice to simply switch off unused info in configuration dialog of the xfce plugin (I know it's not done yet).

EDIT: Here's info from my kernel .config:

```

#

# Power management options (ACPI, APM)

#

CONFIG_PM=y

# CONFIG_PM_DEBUG is not set

# CONFIG_SOFTWARE_SUSPEND is not set

#

# ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) Support

#

CONFIG_ACPI=y

CONFIG_ACPI_BOOT=y

CONFIG_ACPI_INTERPRETER=y

# CONFIG_ACPI_SLEEP is not set

CONFIG_ACPI_AC=y

CONFIG_ACPI_BATTERY=y

CONFIG_ACPI_BUTTON=y

CONFIG_ACPI_VIDEO=y

# CONFIG_ACPI_FAN is not set

CONFIG_ACPI_PROCESSOR=y

CONFIG_ACPI_THERMAL=y

# CONFIG_ACPI_ASUS is not set

# CONFIG_ACPI_IBM is not set

# CONFIG_ACPI_TOSHIBA is not set

CONFIG_ACPI_BLACKLIST_YEAR=0

# CONFIG_ACPI_DEBUG is not set

CONFIG_ACPI_BUS=y

CONFIG_ACPI_EC=y

CONFIG_ACPI_POWER=y

CONFIG_ACPI_PCI=y

CONFIG_ACPI_SYSTEM=y

# CONFIG_X86_PM_TIMER is not set

#

# APM (Advanced Power Management) BIOS Support

#

# CONFIG_APM is not set

#

# CPU Frequency scaling

#

CONFIG_CPU_FREQ=y

# CONFIG_CPU_FREQ_DEBUG is not set

# CONFIG_CPU_FREQ_PROC_INTF is not set

CONFIG_CPU_FREQ_DEFAULT_GOV_PERFORMANCE=y

# CONFIG_CPU_FREQ_DEFAULT_GOV_USERSPACE is not set

CONFIG_CPU_FREQ_GOV_PERFORMANCE=y

CONFIG_CPU_FREQ_GOV_POWERSAVE=y

CONFIG_CPU_FREQ_GOV_USERSPACE=y

CONFIG_CPU_FREQ_GOV_ONDEMAND=y

CONFIG_CPU_FREQ_TABLE=y

#

# CPUFreq processor drivers

#

CONFIG_X86_ACPI_CPUFREQ=y

# CONFIG_X86_POWERNOW_K6 is not set

# CONFIG_X86_POWERNOW_K7 is not set

# CONFIG_X86_POWERNOW_K8 is not set

# CONFIG_X86_GX_SUSPMOD is not set

# CONFIG_X86_SPEEDSTEP_CENTRINO is not set

# CONFIG_X86_SPEEDSTEP_ICH is not set

CONFIG_X86_SPEEDSTEP_SMI=y

# CONFIG_X86_P4_CLOCKMOD is not set

# CONFIG_X86_CPUFREQ_NFORCE2 is not set

# CONFIG_X86_LONGRUN is not set

# CONFIG_X86_LONGHAUL is not set

#

# shared options

#

# CONFIG_X86_ACPI_CPUFREQ_PROC_INTF is not set

CONFIG_X86_SPEEDSTEP_LIB=y

# CONFIG_X86_SPEEDSTEP_RELAXED_CAP_CHECK is not set

```

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## shimitar

If you check the WPD startup output (maybe post it here), you should see some "off".

For now there is no way to know whether a capability is unavailable or just unavailable at the moment (i.e. battery removed) from WPD, so the plugin just says "-1".

I intend to add the possibility to remove unwanted elememnts on the plugins, but it will take time and so far i am the only developer.

WPD for now works only with cpqfreq interface (that cpu/cpu0 stuff under /sys) so if you do not have it you loose some capabilities. My laptop does not work with throttling so i cannot work on it now.

I doubt PIII has any cpufreq capabilities.

As for the battery,  it sounds strange. My rate varies between 8800mwh and 27000mwh (i.e.: 8.8w and 27wh) your value of  278210mwh is about 278wh which is indeed too much! so something must be wrong.

I do not know which is your battery capacity but i guess its far less than 200w! so the remaining time is out of scale. 

The remainig time is calculated as  last_full_capacity / discharge_rate (which is mw / (mw/h) = h) so check your values and maybe try with another battery (just guessing, probably the acpi driver does not correctly support your chipset do you cannot do much about this).

By the way, grab version 0.7.3: today i added icon support to the xfce4 plugin!

Ok not top of art icons but... a start.

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## mbar

I think my battery is not well engineered, it's some cheap replacement made in China. Design capacity is 34050 mWh, rate is always showing 279210 mWh, same in Windows. At least it shows exact remaining capacity  :Smile:  And as I said earlier, battery capacity is enough for like two hours of work with LCD constantly on, after running some CPU intensive program (100% cpu usage) my laptop works exactly 70 minutes. It's not bad considering it's a Sony Vaio Z600TEK form year 2000.

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