Kernel Bug Means Linux Power Usage Remains High

An anonymous reader writes "The significant Linux kernel power regression reported back in April, which ended up being attributed to PCI-E Active State Power Management, is still not resolved even as Ubuntu 11.10 and Fedora 16 approach. Until Linux is able to handle ASPM in a manner more like Windows or the device drivers explicitly set the ASPM flag, users of many modern laptops need to use the "pcie_aspm=force" option to regain much of their battery life. At least a power bug affecting newer Intel hardware with the "energy performance bias" feature has been fixed. There's more information in this LaunchPad bug report and in the latest power consumption testing."

Comments

There's nothing wrong with Phoronix...

[Gordonjcp]

... that a good unexplained fire and a stabbing wouldn't fix.

Re:It is not something that can be resolved...

[billcopc]

Just because it's possible doesn't mean the zealots actually care about even trying. It's so much cooler to play the blame game, rather than focus on what's actually important: making things work!

The net result is that someone else has to implement the hackish-yet-perfectly-acceptable fix. Kernel devs could tackle it, but they won't, so someone else will. That someone else is often Redhat or Ubuntu, which means the fixes don't travel back upstream.

Even though it's the BIOS makers' fault, as an end user, I don't care. If the driver devs have an easy way to fix it, they should, because it will take months if not years to convince the OEMs to fix the problem at the source - if at all, because nobody gives a fuck about the 1% of us who use Linux on desktop and laptop machines.