Bug#783264: Bug#783247: Please don't install acpid and acpi-support-base
Wouter Verhelst wou...@debian.org writes:
On Fri, Apr 24, 2015 at 10:07:36PM +0200, Marco d'Itri wrote:
I'm not sure, if the acpi command line utility is that useful which
would warrant having it installed by default. The attached patch drops
it as well. Incidentally, this was also suggested for the laptop-task,
which still pulls it in.
The acpi package is *totally useless* and should be immediately dropped
from hw-detect and task-laptop.
Disagree.
- Acpi is a useful command-line tool to easily read values of things
like battery life expectancy and other ACPI power-related values,
without having to dig through files in /sys.
I'd have to disagree after trying it out just now.
For command like usage I am used to looking at the sysfs files, doing
something like
bjorn@nemi:~$ grep .
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/{energy_,voltage_,power_,alarm}*
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/energy_full:3948
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/energy_full_design:4320
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/energy_now:3898
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/voltage_min_design:1080
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/voltage_now:12455000
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/power_now:0
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/alarm:1964000
which gives me a nice overview over the battery status. Note that the
design values (both capacity and voltage) match the DMI data from the
battery:
nemi:/tmp# dmidecode -t 22
# dmidecode 2.12
SMBIOS 2.4 present.
Handle 0x0034, DMI type 22, 26 bytes
Portable Battery
Location: Rear
Manufacturer: SANYO
Name: 42T4643
Design Capacity: 43200 mWh
Design Voltage: 10800 mV
SBDS Version: 03.01
Maximum Error: Unknown
SBDS Serial Number: 0097
SBDS Manufacture Date: 2014-03-03
SBDS Chemistry: LION
OEM-specific Information: 0x
I agree that acpi would have been a useful tool if it provided the same
(or equivalent) information without having to know which sysfs
attributes to look at. But it doesn't. The view it presents is
confusing and plain wrong:
bjorn@nemi:~$ acpi -i -b
Battery 0: Unknown, 98%
Battery 0: design capacity 3468 mAh, last full capacity 3169 mAh = 91%
So what happened to the capacities presented by the battery firmware?
Looks like they were converted from their native µWh values to mAh,
apparently using the current voltage for the conversion. Anyone
remotely familiar with battery charging will see the problem... The
rest can study the numbers after unplugging AC (repeated a number of
times with a second or two between to help illustrate the point):
bjorn@nemi:~$ acpi -i -b
Battery 0: Discharging, 98%, discharging at zero rate - will never fully
discharge.
Battery 0: design capacity 3468 mAh, last full capacity 3169 mAh = 91%
bjorn@nemi:~$ acpi -i -b
Battery 0: Discharging, 98%, 03:00:13 remaining
Battery 0: design capacity 3509 mAh, last full capacity 3206 mAh = 91%
bjorn@nemi:~$ acpi -i -b
Battery 0: Discharging, 98%, 02:41:10 remaining
Battery 0: design capacity 3523 mAh, last full capacity 3219 mAh = 91%
bjorn@nemi:~$ acpi -i -b
Battery 0: Discharging, 98%, 02:33:16 remaining
Battery 0: design capacity 3530 mAh, last full capacity 3226 mAh = 91%
bjorn@nemi:~$ acpi -i -b
Battery 0: Discharging, 98%, 02:32:43 remaining
Battery 0: design capacity 3524 mAh, last full capacity 3221 mAh = 91%
So why do both capacities *increase* after unplugging AC? You would
expect them to be stable. The problem is of course that the voltage
decreases. And it will continue to do so, although not at the alarming
rate we see here, until AC power is plugged in again.
Where does this leave acpi? Lying. The battery design capacity was
never 3468, 3509, 3523, 3530 or 3524 mAh. It is 43200 mWh. No need to
mess with that.
acpi does indeed look like a useless tool, not even usable by the few of
us wanting to look at this stuff from the command line.
Bjørn
--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-boot-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: https://lists.debian.org/87bni7gwfs@nemi.mork.no
Bug#783264: Bug#783247: Please don't install acpid and acpi-support-base
On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 11:34:36PM +0200, Marco d'Itri wrote: On Apr 28, Wouter Verhelst wou...@debian.org wrote: - Acpi is a useful command-line tool to easily read values of things So basically you are saying that it is common use case is laptops with no good management GUI. No. I am saying that it is a good *baseline* tool, which does not do much harm in terms of disk space usage[1], and that I therefore don't see why you want to throw it out. This is not enough to make it a candidate for magic installation by hw-detect, but maybe you can persuade the task-laptop maintainer that it is actually useful. Or maybe you can persuade the task-laptop maintainer that the status quo needs to be changed, and that what's currently happening is positively harmful. I disagree with that. Remember that task-desktop-* and task-laptop are separate. The acpi tool will be installed even if task-desktop-whatever isn't, and there are valid use cases for such installations; I've seen people take an old laptop, put in a more recent disk, and use that as a home server (it draws less power than an equally old desktop, and has a builtin UPS!). Such an installation would not have or need a GUI, but could still use a tool to query battery usage. If you can show me where it does harm to keep the status quo of having the acpi tool installed, I'll concede the point. So far, though, all I've seen is you stating your opinion as fact. I'm not saying it's an invalid opinion, but just stating out of the blue that acpi is totally useless doesn't make it so. [1] wouter@gangtai:~$ apt-cache show acpi | grep -E '(Installed-Size|Depends)' Installed-Size: 71 Depends: libc6 (= 2.7) i.e., it only adds 71k to the set of Essential packages. -- It is easy to love a country that is famous for chocolate and beer -- Barack Obama, speaking in Brussels, Belgium, 2014-03-26 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-boot-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20150429175329.ga1...@grep.be
Bug#783264: Bug#783247: Please don't install acpid and acpi-support-base
On Fri, Apr 24, 2015 at 10:07:36PM +0200, Marco d'Itri wrote: I'm not sure, if the acpi command line utility is that useful which would warrant having it installed by default. The attached patch drops it as well. Incidentally, this was also suggested for the laptop-task, which still pulls it in. The acpi package is *totally useless* and should be immediately dropped from hw-detect and task-laptop. Disagree. - Acpi is a useful command-line tool to easily read values of things like battery life expectancy and other ACPI power-related values, without having to dig through files in /sys. - It provides more detailed information than most graphical interfaces that I've seen (but I'd be happy to be corrected). - Its dependencies are fairly light, so it does little harm. - As a command-line tool, it is useful even when no GUI is available (for whatever reason). -- It is easy to love a country that is famous for chocolate and beer -- Barack Obama, speaking in Brussels, Belgium, 2014-03-26 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-boot-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20150428082216.gb2...@grep.be
Bug#783264: Bug#783247: Please don't install acpid and acpi-support-base
On Apr 28, Wouter Verhelst wou...@debian.org wrote: - Acpi is a useful command-line tool to easily read values of things So basically you are saying that it is common use case is laptops with no good management GUI. This is not enough to make it a candidate for magic installation by hw-detect, but maybe you can persuade the task-laptop maintainer that it is actually useful. -- ciao, Marco pgpsztf8CA6UM.pgp Description: PGP signature
