Archive for the 'KDE' Category

My Dell Mini setup

Published
by
Patrick
on November 25, 2008
in Gentoo Linux and KDE
. 1 Comment

Jürgen and Michael started this (it seems like everybody is getting a netbook these days), and so I continue by posting my netbook setup as well.

I could get all hardware components except the built-in Bluetooth chip to work with very little trouble. The bluetooth chip is supposed to work in Ubuntu Intrepid, so I guess that should also be solved, soon. I’m using a USB bluetooth dongle for now. For details, please have a look at the page I filled out in the Linux Laptop Wiki or the Dell Mini article in my Wiki.

I’m using Gentoo Linux (~x86) on the netbook just as on my other computers (why would I choose something else?). To help with the compiling, I set up distcc in a VM on my company desktop. Even without that, the small machine is astoundingly fast. The 16 GB SSD’s low access latency kicks ass: for example system startup, where many small files scattered throughout the “disk” need to be read, takes a mere 20 seconds (from grub to KDM being ready to receive the password for login). Suspend to RAM also just works (with gentoo-sources, but probably also with vanilla-sources), and the system resumes automatically when opening the lid. The battery lasts quite long, too (see my small battery consumption test) and the device is completely silent at all times - so all in all, I’m very satisfied with this little device.

Last week I bought two additional no-name el cheapo power supplies for a total of 180¥ (20€ / $26) and put them into the places where I spend most of my time, so I never need to carry the bulky thing around :)

Well, and here is the obligatory screenshot:

Dell Inspiron Mini 9 battery consumption test

Published
by
Patrick
on November 6, 2008
in General, Gentoo Linux, KDE and Linux (general)
. 9 Comments

Last night I ran a quick test on how long my new Dell Inspiron Mini 9’s battery would last under “normal netbook workload”.

Details:

  • OS: Gentoo Linux (what else? ;) )
  • Running programs: KDE 4, Konqueror, Thunderbird (fetching mail via IMAPS every 5 minutes)
  • Conditions:
    • Wireless connection to Internet, shell script kills and reloads Konqueror with three websites every two minutes (emulating a user who browses the WWW).
    • Display set to lowest brightness level, screensaver / standby / etc. deactivated so that it was switched on all the time

Data capturing:

The ‘remaining capacity’ value from /proc/acpi/battery/BAT1/state and a timestamp were written to a file every minute:

#!/bin/bash
LOG="/home/pn/batterylog"
echo "Battery log, started $(date)" >$LOG
while ((1))
do
  TIME=$(date "+%s")
  REMAINING=$(grep "remaining capacity" /proc/acpi/battery/BAT1/state | cut -b 26- | cut -d' ' -f1)
  echo "$TIME $REMAINING" >> $LOG
  sync
  sleep 60
done

Results:

The battery lasted a little longer than 4 hours and 50 minutes which means approx. 6.7 watts average power consumption while browsing the web over WLAN.
This time I decided to use OpenOffice Calc to create the graph - here is a screenshot of it:

(And here is the spreadsheet, if you’re interested: Dell Mini battery consumption log (Spreadsheet))