Suggestions on packages to add to Ubuntu "main" (athcool)

[Paul Sladen]

On Mon, 15 Nov 2004, misGnomer wrote:
> 'Athcool' (http://members.jcom.home.ne.jp/jacobi/linux/softwares.html)
> would be very useful addition as it's only '23KB'

According to the page above:

   Powersaving works if your kernel support ACPI (APM not work),

So, this probably needs to be tied into any other power-saving that is being
done.  Hopefully if the functionality is as simple as setting a single flag,
it may already be rolled into one of the other daemons:

  athcool only set/unset "Disconnect enable when STPGNT detected" bits in
  the Northbridge of Chipset.

Which is as it says, the real power-saving is coming from elsewhere and is
reliant on the system being switched to that state:

  To really save power, someone has to send the STPGNT signal when idle.
  This is done by the ACPI subsystem when C2 state entered.

On the CD (if the functionality isn't provided anywhere else) maybe a good
thing;  but given the warning provided I don't know whether it's the sort of
thing that should really be enabled by default:

  WARNING: Depending on your motherboard and/or hardware components,
  enabling powersaving mode may cause:
    * noisy or distorted sound playback
    * a slowdown in harddisk performance
    * system locks or instability  

Matthew, what are your thoughts?

	-Paul
-- 
Is there no safe way to travel?  Edinburgh, GB