Powermanagement on linux still sucks, please learn from Redmond
3.4.2010 14:56 Perma-Link//Begin: rant
Last year I bought a Netbook, an EeePC 1011HA. I know it is not the best choice for linux, since it has the Poulsbo graphic chipset, but this one works mostly okay with the VESA xorg driver.
The problem in the beginning was, that linux did not really like to be installed at all. Ubuntu/Kubuntu failed, Fedora crashed during hardware detection, the only thing which at leas installed quite okay was openSUSE 11.2. It just hang once during package installation.
After installation wireless worked okay, with my home network, at university with the cisco accesspoints, it was not not possible to download more than 5MB before the driver completely hang and I had to reboot, to get it working again, unloading/loading of the driver did not work. After building my own newer wireless drivers, this started working.
Next major point of failure: POWER MANAGEMENT.
The linux system time ran way too slow, I tried all available clock sources. TSC ( stuttering sound), hpet and acpi_pm too slow. A screensaver with a one minute delay triggerd after 6 hours. The only way to get this somehow working was a shell script run from the init, which basically does
while true
sleep 2
hwclock --hctosys
done
I\'ve been using the poulsbo driver from an OBS user, which really worked out great.
Next step, upgrading to openSUSE factory with an new kernel. I know factory is equal to debian unstable, but still.
The new version of the ondemand governer (kernel 2.6.33) sucks even more than the old one. The clock sources seems to work better, but I always lose PS/2 synchronisation for touchpad and keyboard, if the governor switches cpu frequency. Which happens about every twenty seconds. The only way to return to work for a few seconds is to press the power buttton, which seems to start a resync process and pops up the KDE shutdown dialog. After some seconds, same problem.
Switching to Performance inc the Plasmosomething, doesn\'t help, it just does nothing. The only thing to get a working systems is to add to an init script
echo -n "performance" > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor
echo -n "performance" > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/cpufreq/scaling_governor
Eventually working keyboard/mouse IO and correct time. This is bad for battery lifetime though.
I guess it is needless to say, but anyways: Windows 7 which has been preinstalled on this system has been working flawlessly from the beginning.
Therefor: Either make it easy and working to switch governors from the gui, deactivate power management by default or make it work out of the box. M$ still is has the nose far ahead of linux
And: I know the poulsbo driver is a dirty hack with its own drm module, but at least it works, please start shipping it out of the box
//End: rant
Last year I bought a Netbook, an EeePC 1011HA. I know it is not the best choice for linux, since it has the Poulsbo graphic chipset, but this one works mostly okay with the VESA xorg driver.
The problem in the beginning was, that linux did not really like to be installed at all. Ubuntu/Kubuntu failed, Fedora crashed during hardware detection, the only thing which at leas installed quite okay was openSUSE 11.2. It just hang once during package installation.
After installation wireless worked okay, with my home network, at university with the cisco accesspoints, it was not not possible to download more than 5MB before the driver completely hang and I had to reboot, to get it working again, unloading/loading of the driver did not work. After building my own newer wireless drivers, this started working.
Next major point of failure: POWER MANAGEMENT.
The linux system time ran way too slow, I tried all available clock sources. TSC ( stuttering sound), hpet and acpi_pm too slow. A screensaver with a one minute delay triggerd after 6 hours. The only way to get this somehow working was a shell script run from the init, which basically does
while true
sleep 2
hwclock --hctosys
done
I\'ve been using the poulsbo driver from an OBS user, which really worked out great.
Next step, upgrading to openSUSE factory with an new kernel. I know factory is equal to debian unstable, but still.
The new version of the ondemand governer (kernel 2.6.33) sucks even more than the old one. The clock sources seems to work better, but I always lose PS/2 synchronisation for touchpad and keyboard, if the governor switches cpu frequency. Which happens about every twenty seconds. The only way to return to work for a few seconds is to press the power buttton, which seems to start a resync process and pops up the KDE shutdown dialog. After some seconds, same problem.
Switching to Performance inc the Plasmosomething, doesn\'t help, it just does nothing. The only thing to get a working systems is to add to an init script
echo -n "performance" > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor
echo -n "performance" > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/cpufreq/scaling_governor
Eventually working keyboard/mouse IO and correct time. This is bad for battery lifetime though.
I guess it is needless to say, but anyways: Windows 7 which has been preinstalled on this system has been working flawlessly from the beginning.
Therefor: Either make it easy and working to switch governors from the gui, deactivate power management by default or make it work out of the box. M$ still is has the nose far ahead of linux
And: I know the poulsbo driver is a dirty hack with its own drm module, but at least it works, please start shipping it out of the box
//End: rant
