[gentoo-user] MacBook: How many hours on battery with Gentoo?

[gentoo-user] MacBook: How many hours on battery with Gentoo?

[Lowe Schmidt]

Hi.

I'm planning on buying myself a MacBook and I'm just wondering if anyone
knows how many hours I will get out of it if I run Gentoo. I mainly use 
a bunch
of terminals, gvim and some lightweigth gtk app so nothing heavy going on.

All input appreciated

/Lowe
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Re: [gentoo-user] MacBook: How many hours on battery with Gentoo?

[b.n.]

Lowe Schmidt ha scritto:
> Hi.
> 
> I'm planning on buying myself a MacBook and I'm just wondering if anyone
> knows how many hours I will get out of it if I run Gentoo. I mainly use
> a bunch
> of terminals, gvim and some lightweigth gtk app so nothing heavy going on.
> 
> All input appreciated

My Macbook Pro with light, normal usage lasts about three hours (OS X
lasts at least one hour more).

m.
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Re: [gentoo-user] MacBook: How many hours on battery with Gentoo?

[Florian Philipp]

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On Tue, 2008-02-19 at 11:28 +0100, b.n. wrote:
> Lowe Schmidt ha scritto:
> > Hi.
> > 
> > I'm planning on buying myself a MacBook and I'm just wondering if anyone
> > knows how many hours I will get out of it if I run Gentoo. I mainly use
> > a bunch
> > of terminals, gvim and some lightweigth gtk app so nothing heavy going on.
> > 
> > All input appreciated
> 
> My Macbook Pro with light, normal usage lasts about three hours (OS X
> lasts at least one hour more).
> 
> m.

Have you found any reason for this discrepancy? I'd suspect them to be
on par with the right tuning.

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Re: [gentoo-user] MacBook: How many hours on battery with Gentoo?

[Ritesh Kumar]

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On Feb 19, 2008 12:09 PM, Florian Philipp <lists@f_philipp.fastmail.net>
wrote:

>
> On Tue, 2008-02-19 at 11:28 +0100, b.n. wrote:
> > Lowe Schmidt ha scritto:
> > > Hi.
> > >
> > > I'm planning on buying myself a MacBook and I'm just wondering if
> anyone
> > > knows how many hours I will get out of it if I run Gentoo. I mainly
> use
> > > a bunch
> > > of terminals, gvim and some lightweigth gtk app so nothing heavy going
> on.
> > >
> > > All input appreciated
> >
> > My Macbook Pro with light, normal usage lasts about three hours (OS X
> > lasts at least one hour more).
> >
> > m.
>
> Have you found any reason for this discrepancy? I'd suspect them to be
> on par with the right tuning.
>

Are you doing any kind of CPU frequency scaling? In the kernel (I use gentoo
sources) configuration enable

Power Management
    - CPU frequency scaling
        - performance (is selected as default)
        - ondemand governor
        - conservative
        - ACPI Processor P-States driver
        - Intel Enhanced SpeedStep

This enables frequency scaling... this works for my Core2 desktop so I
suspect it should work for the mac book too.

To select the actual cpu scaling governor to use, you can do the following
(as root)

echo ondemand > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu(n)/cpufreq/scaling_governor

where you need to this for all the cores... for my Core 2 desktop I have
cpu0 and cpu1.
You can select between ondemand, conservative and performance. Try both
ondemand and conservative... My guess is there will be little difference in
power consumption between the two and ondemand may be better for response
time sensitive loads (typical desktop usage).

I keep the above command in /etc/conf.d/local.start so that I get the CPU
freq scaling goodness on every boot :)

# /etc/conf.d/local.start

# This is a good place to load any misc programs
# on startup (use &>/dev/null to hide output)

gov=ondemand

echo "Switching to the '$gov' cpu frequency scaling governer."
echo $gov > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor
echo $gov > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/cpufreq/scaling_governor

_r

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Re: [gentoo-user] MacBook: How many hours on battery with Gentoo?

[b.n.]

Ritesh Kumar ha scritto:
> On Feb 19, 2008 12:09 PM, Florian Philipp <lists@f_philipp.fastmail.net>
> wrote:
> 
> 
>     On Tue, 2008-02-19 at 11:28 +0100, b.n. wrote:
>     > Lowe Schmidt ha scritto:
>     > > Hi.
>     > >
>     > > I'm planning on buying myself a MacBook and I'm just wondering
>     if anyone
>     > > knows how many hours I will get out of it if I run Gentoo. I
>     mainly use
>     > > a bunch
>     > > of terminals, gvim and some lightweigth gtk app so nothing heavy
>     going on.
>     > >
>     > > All input appreciated
>     >
>     > My Macbook Pro with light, normal usage lasts about three hours (OS X
>     > lasts at least one hour more).
>     >
>     > m.
> 
>     Have you found any reason for this discrepancy? I'd suspect them to be
>     on par with the right tuning.
> 
> 
> Are you doing any kind of CPU frequency scaling? In the kernel (I use
> gentoo sources) configuration enable

Yes, I do frequency scaling (the ondemand governor is used when the
laptop is unplugged). I also use laptop-mode for the hd and pommed to
tune screen brightness.

I think the problems are the wireless and the video drivers. The new
Macbook Pro wireless drivers (I bought my machine in late October 2007,
just when Leopard came out -although, well, I found myself almost never
using it) required SVN version of madwifi (dunno if now the stable
version works, will check when upgrading kernel), and so far attempting
to set power saving on my wireless card fails.

The Macbook Pro also has a nvidia video card. The nvidia drivers work
quite well (apart from some issues with external dvi resolution), but as
far as I know, on it the "Powermizer" feature is somehow disabled. :(

I guess both things combined can explain at least a significant quantity
of the power drain. Suggestions are much welcome, I hate the reduced
battery power.

m.
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Re: [gentoo-user] MacBook: How many hours on battery with Gentoo?

[Florian Philipp]

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On Tue, 2008-02-19 at 20:07 +0100, b.n. wrote:
> Ritesh Kumar ha scritto:
> > On Feb 19, 2008 12:09 PM, Florian Philipp <lists@f_philipp.fastmail.net>
> > wrote:
> > 
> > 
> >     On Tue, 2008-02-19 at 11:28 +0100, b.n. wrote:
> >     > Lowe Schmidt ha scritto:
> >     > > Hi.
> >     > >
> >     > > I'm planning on buying myself a MacBook and I'm just wondering
> >     if anyone
> >     > > knows how many hours I will get out of it if I run Gentoo. I
> >     mainly use
> >     > > a bunch
> >     > > of terminals, gvim and some lightweigth gtk app so nothing heavy
> >     going on.
> >     > >
> >     > > All input appreciated
> >     >
> >     > My Macbook Pro with light, normal usage lasts about three hours (OS X
> >     > lasts at least one hour more).
> >     >
> >     > m.
> > 
> >     Have you found any reason for this discrepancy? I'd suspect them to be
> >     on par with the right tuning.
> > 
> > 
> > Are you doing any kind of CPU frequency scaling? In the kernel (I use
> > gentoo sources) configuration enable
> 
> Yes, I do frequency scaling (the ondemand governor is used when the
> laptop is unplugged). I also use laptop-mode for the hd and pommed to
> tune screen brightness.
> 
> I think the problems are the wireless and the video drivers. The new
> Macbook Pro wireless drivers (I bought my machine in late October 2007,
> just when Leopard came out -although, well, I found myself almost never
> using it) required SVN version of madwifi (dunno if now the stable
> version works, will check when upgrading kernel), and so far attempting
> to set power saving on my wireless card fails.
> 
> The Macbook Pro also has a nvidia video card. The nvidia drivers work
> quite well (apart from some issues with external dvi resolution), but as
> far as I know, on it the "Powermizer" feature is somehow disabled. :(
> 
> I guess both things combined can explain at least a significant quantity
> of the power drain. Suggestions are much welcome, I hate the reduced
> battery power.
> 
> m.


1. Use laptop-mode if you don't do it by now. Really nice even without
its delayed disk write feature.

2. Displays are by far the biggest energy consumers. Lower its
brightness as far as possible. Some laptops even allow you to switch its
backlight off - very nice if you are outdoor.

3. Use the powersave-governor. If you really need the additional power
ondemand offers, try the conservative-governor. It increases the clock
rate slower than ondemand and might stop it from jumping too fast too
high.

4. Try sys-power/powertop. It shows you processes creating a lot up
wakeups for the CPU. It also gives you tips on your kernel config.

5. Sometimes a BIOS update helps...

Hope this helps. 

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Re: [gentoo-user] MacBook: How many hours on battery with Gentoo?

[b.n.]

Florian Philipp ha scritto:
> On Tue, 2008-02-19 at 20:07 +0100, b.n. wrote:
> 1. Use laptop-mode if you don't do it by now. Really nice even without
> its delayed disk write feature.

Er, I already use it. I wrote it, in fact. :)

> 2. Displays are by far the biggest energy consumers. Lower its
> brightness as far as possible. Some laptops even allow you to switch its
> backlight off - very nice if you are outdoor.

That's what I do (Never tried outdoor however). Somehow the pommed
daemon seems less granular in managing the screen than OS X, however.

> 3. Use the powersave-governor. If you really need the additional power
> ondemand offers, try the conservative-governor. It increases the clock
> rate slower than ondemand and might stop it from jumping too fast too
> high.

Thanks for the tip!

> 4. Try sys-power/powertop. It shows you processes creating a lot up
> wakeups for the CPU. It also gives you tips on your kernel config.

Thanks too. I know about powertop but it complains about something not
correctly set up in my kernel. I have to do this janitorial work.

> 5. Sometimes a BIOS update helps...

Well, if it's a BIOS issue, OS X works around it? I think it's just my
system suffering some unavoidable limits with new machines, while Apple
of course designed OS X around its own machines.

> Hope this helps. 

Thanks a lot!

m.
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Re: [gentoo-user] MacBook: How many hours on battery with Gentoo?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Tuesday 19 February 2008, b.n. wrote:
> Florian Philipp ha scritto:
> > On Tue, 2008-02-19 at 20:07 +0100, b.n. wrote:
> > 1. Use laptop-mode if you don't do it by now. Really nice even
> > without its delayed disk write feature.
>
> Er, I already use it. I wrote it, in fact. :)

Dude, you just made my day :-)

That is so funny, in a "Wow! What's the odds of that?" kind of way :-)

-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

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Re: [gentoo-user] MacBook: How many hours on battery with Gentoo?

[b.n.]

Alan McKinnon ha scritto:
> On Tuesday 19 February 2008, b.n. wrote:
>> Florian Philipp ha scritto:
>>> On Tue, 2008-02-19 at 20:07 +0100, b.n. wrote:
>>> 1. Use laptop-mode if you don't do it by now. Really nice even
>>> without its delayed disk write feature.
>> Er, I already use it. I wrote it, in fact. :)
> 
> Dude, you just made my day :-)
> 
> That is so funny, in a "Wow! What's the odds of that?" kind of way :-)

Ehm, maybe you are understanding "I wrote the laptop mode code".
That's quite wrong. My programming capabilities are quite scarce... and
I never ever did anything remotely looking like kernel programming.

I meant, I wrote I used it in the previous email!!

However now I see how easy was the misunderstanding (I'm not of English
mother language). Hope the *real* author of laptop-mode was not reading!

m.

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Re: [gentoo-user] MacBook: How many hours on battery with Gentoo?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Wednesday 20 February 2008, b.n. wrote:
> Alan McKinnon ha scritto:
> > On Tuesday 19 February 2008, b.n. wrote:
> >> Florian Philipp ha scritto:
> >>> On Tue, 2008-02-19 at 20:07 +0100, b.n. wrote:
> >>> 1. Use laptop-mode if you don't do it by now. Really nice even
> >>> without its delayed disk write feature.
> >>
> >> Er, I already use it. I wrote it, in fact. :)
> >
> > Dude, you just made my day :-)
> >
> > That is so funny, in a "Wow! What's the odds of that?" kind of way
> > :-)
>
> Ehm, maybe you are understanding "I wrote the laptop mode code".
> That's quite wrong. My programming capabilities are quite scarce...
> and I never ever did anything remotely looking like kernel
> programming.
>
> I meant, I wrote I used it in the previous email!!
>
> However now I see how easy was the misunderstanding (I'm not of
> English mother language). Hope the *real* author of laptop-mode was
> not reading!

Oops :-)

But it still put a smile on my face after an especially hard day :-)



-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

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Re: [gentoo-user] MacBook: How many hours on battery with Gentoo?

[Etaoin Shrdlu]

On Tuesday 19 February 2008, b.n. wrote:

> > 5. Sometimes a BIOS update helps...
>
> Well, if it's a BIOS issue, OS X works around it? 

I'd not be surprised if it did. Windows drivers work around buggy BIOSes 
all the time.
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Re: [gentoo-user] MacBook: How many hours on battery with Gentoo?

[b.n.]

Etaoin Shrdlu ha scritto:
> On Tuesday 19 February 2008, b.n. wrote:
> 
>>> 5. Sometimes a BIOS update helps...
>> Well, if it's a BIOS issue, OS X works around it? 
> 
> I'd not be surprised if it did. Windows drivers work around buggy BIOSes 
> all the time.

Right. So, how can I know it? When I googled to maximize my MBP battery
performance, I found nothing about BIOS/EFI (More precisely, the MBP has
not a BIOS, but an EFI, whatever the difference is). Is there some kind
of diagnostic for this kind of things?

m.
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Re: [gentoo-user] MacBook: How many hours on battery with Gentoo?

[Etaoin Shrdlu]

On Wednesday 20 February 2008, b.n. wrote:
> Etaoin Shrdlu ha scritto:
> > On Tuesday 19 February 2008, b.n. wrote:
> >>> 5. Sometimes a BIOS update helps...
> >>
> >> Well, if it's a BIOS issue, OS X works around it?
> >
> > I'd not be surprised if it did. Windows drivers work around buggy
> > BIOSes all the time.
>
> Right. So, how can I know it? When I googled to maximize my MBP
> battery performance, I found nothing about BIOS/EFI (More precisely,
> the MBP has not a BIOS, but an EFI, whatever the difference is). Is
> there some kind of diagnostic for this kind of things?

Never tried myself, but I guess a good starting point could be using 
tools like powertop (in portage), to see what programs/modules use more 
power.
Also, their web pages (http://www.lesswatts.org/projects/powertop) look 
good, with many tips, information and explanations.

Hope this helps.
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