Power management

[Derek Broughton]

Derek Broughton wrote:

> Oli Grawert, on the ubuntu list, tells us we have to stop using ACPI and
> start using the pm utilities, but I can't find any sign of a way to
> _configure_ the pm utilities in KDE.
> 
> Is there such a beast?  guidance-power-manager not only doesn't let you
> configure anything important, it does hibernation (actually resume) wrong
> for my machine (no vbe POST after resume, resulting in the wrong screen
> resolution).  The pm-* man page suggests that settings should be done by
> gnome-power-manager in gnome, so I think I may actually install that just
> to see if it really does let you set the bits that the man page
> specifically says you shouldn't try to set manually.

So, to report back.  pm sucks.

I did install gnome-power-manager, it runs fine in KDE, it does offer more
options than guidance-power-manager and it still doesn't actually do much
useful.

Neither power manager GUI seems to make any changes to pm configuration (in
either /etc/pm or /etc/pm-utils or /etc/default/pm*).

Trying to hibernate from either GUI fails to do the required (by my
system) "vbetool post" on resume.  I modified /usr/lib/pm-utils/defaults
(and what sort of Ubuntu/Debian app puts its defaults _there_) to include
HIBERNATE_RESUME_POST_VIDEO="yes", and it helped, but...

After hibernating via either GUI (rather than my usual method of just
pressing the power button, which is handled by acpid), my system would
resume with the screen size set incorrectly, and I would have to use the
System Settings to reselect 1280x800 (which would have no apparent effect),
then exit KDE, and re-login (from a KDM screen still with the wrong
resolution) to get my proper resolution.  Finally after one too many
experiments, 1280x800 wasn't an option.  I logged out and couldn't login
again, because X didn't believe I had any modes for whatever was selected. 
I finally had to purge and reinstall KDM and "dpkg-reconfigure
xserver-xorg".  In between I made a horrible discovery - I had to power
down without proper shutdown, because I had no usable screen (even
consoles) and when I rebooted (on battery) the partitions weren't fscked
because I was on battery - I have never encountered that.  Pretty stupid,
though, because my partitions (perhaps due to either being JFS or LVM)
can't be mounted even in ro mode if they are improperly dismounted and not
fsck'd.  That took half an hour to diagnose.

Anyway, I'm back to having hibernate/suspend handled by acpid instead of pm,
and looking forward to a half-decent pm gui.
-- 
derek