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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."
Phoronix has issues because the guy running it likes to oversensationalize and hyperbolize to get traffic and ad revenue... which is to say it's exactly like Slashdot with the difference being that Phoronix actually does some useful work and there are valuable facts that Phoronix discovers.
The (multiple) kernel power bugs are a very real problem affecting a large number of Linux users and Phoronix helped to shine a light on the issue and at least get the word out about work-arounds. I don't hang on everything that Phoronix publishes, but dismissing it just shows that you want to remain wilfully ignorant about real issues surrounding Linux so that you can appear 'l33t' to your friends.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
Seems like its been so long since relevant technical submissions were made to /. I remember being able to learn so many interesting OS tricks from poster's comments to articles and hearing about new software.
Now it's mostly just crap about who pissed on who's patents...
If thou see a fair woman pay court to her, for thus thou wilt obtain love
It's a problem with the BIOS manufacturers, and the BIOS incorrectly reporting its ASPM capability. When an OEM installs Windows on a laptop, it can correctly tune these settings. But for a fresh install of Linux that YOU performed, a database of every motherboard + BIOS combination needs to be maintained in the open to set the force PCIE ASPM flag. If set wrongly, when the BIOS doesn't support it, it could lead to locking which is far more serious.
There are other solutions to effectively manage power in Linux, like Jupiter.
For more (and better) information, see the following links: About the Kernel 3.0 "Power Regression" Myth and PCIe, power management, and problematic BIOSes
If the BIOS reports ASPM it'll be used. If it doesn't, then Linux can't assume that it works.
Why use Intel icon when it's a Linux issue?
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Phoronix testing of video devices has been very helpful to me. The state of Intel and AMD video drivers is analysed in enough detail to make good decisions about hardware for embedded systems. I've found high correlation between my own test results and those of Phoronix.
Yeah, I'm still a little bitter that that issue came to nothing in the end. It certainly did look like parts of a Linux-native Steam GUI.
The preceding comment is my own, and in no way construes an opinon of the Emperor of Mankind.
+1. I've been sticking with Maverick on my Vaio E, since Natty actually slashed half of my battery life, even when forcing ASPM
Phoronix has issues because the guy running it likes to oversensationalize and hyperbolize to get traffic and ad revenue... which is to say it's exactly like Slashdot with the difference being that Phoronix actually does some useful work and there are valuable facts that Phoronix discovers.
The (multiple) kernel power bugs are a very real problem affecting a large number of Linux users and Phoronix helped to shine a light on the issue and at least get the word out about work-arounds. I don't hang on everything that Phoronix publishes, but dismissing it just shows that you want to remain wilfully ignorant about real issues surrounding Linux so that you can appear 'l33t' to your friends.
Welcome to New Media, same as the Old Media.
The marginal performance improvements you get by tweaking kernel settings will not make one whit of difference to the average user unless there is a glaring performance issue like the power drain currently being discussed.
Grandma isn't going to install Linux on her laptop -- you are. And as the technically knowledgeable person, you should be doing any such tweaking. Other systems have the benefit of the OEM doing the tweaking and tuning, but it does get done by somebody. Don't blame Linux for not doing something automagically that other systems don't do, either.
I don't believe that's true. While server tweaks get the press, there is a lot of effort put into the desktop experience as well. You're just far more likely to hear about kernel tweaks that are useful for desktop performance from the "real time systems" people.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
- replace BIOS (perhaps demand that the manufacturer update it)
- create a large (online) database of MBs (best identified by a list of hardware) that support ASPM and check it upon installation
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
They have been playing the blame game. Seriously though, I don't care whether it's an upstream issue or a downstream issue, 30% increase in power consumption is pretty big issue no matter what the reason. That's the reason why I am still on Ubuntu 10.10 and haven't upgraded. If they don't fix this before the support window runs out for 10.10 I am switching to something else (maybe even Windows). I use laptop on my battery all the time (in the bathroom, at the library, coffee shop etc.). A 30% reduction in battery life would seriously affect me.
It really did, and he claims it's still in the works... I'm quite bitter as well but he seems confident in his source (no pun intended). It makes sense that it took longer than Valve intended, I just hope it didn't get cancelled.
Or it could mean that the town folk are a bit tired of running out to see no wolf. Phoronix may be on to something with the power issues but the signal to noise ratio is very low. Every article is stretched out to 10 pages full of full page advertisements, contains 90+ links to other Phoronix articles (as if that somehow makes each article more credible), and their forms are overrun with clueless trolls.
I don't blame people from baulking at the mention of Phoronix you just can't tell if it's just another stunt. You'll have to forgive some of us who aren't into fact checking Phoronix. Sure Phoronix is sometimes right but so is fucking 4chan. You can call me "willfully ignorant" for not trying to differentiate the bullshit from those two sources but I consider it a better use of my time to just stick to more reputable sources that don't try to trick me into clicking something.
I think there IS a Steam for Linux, at least inside Valve.
It may be that they are still working on it with plans for a future release.
It may be that its only a test and not actually intended for release. It may be that it was intended for release but was canceled for some reason.
Blizzard for example at one point had a Linux client for World of Warcraft. But the "powers that be" vetoed the release because then they would need to maintain that release and release Linux patches concurrently with Mac and Windows patches which would require more development staff and/or patch delays whilst they finished the Linux work.
The fact of the OSX Steam release gives me hope (if they'll do OSX, they've done most of the work, go after Linux too), but the counter-fact that nothing has been released or announced, despite most of the work being done, takes that hope away again.
Wine still works, though.
The preceding comment is my own, and in no way construes an opinon of the Emperor of Mankind.
Honest question here. Do you know of any other, reputable, sites people can use to see which video cards work best with linux, which SSD's actually deliver on speed, etc? I've long used phronix simply because it was all I knew about, but would love to have some other sites to at least compare notes with.
You must be old here ... sorry could not resist Mr 5 digits ;-)
No, that only worked in cases where the Windows DSDT was standards compliant, much of the time even that didn't. I've done that in the past and it doesn't guarantee you any improvement as MS wasn't validating the DSDT against the official Intel implementation that everybody else had access to.
Nice, that some jackass with mod points felt the need to mod me down without bothering to understand the issue though.
there should be little if any major differences between the linux and osx versions
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
I was wondering the same thing...
Firstly, your logic is with the assumption that Granny uses a laptop. My Dad uses Linux on his Desktop (he has a Laptop also). He is not technically proficient like you claim to be. He has no idea what ASPM or GRUB is. Dad used to use Windows but he could not understand why one day he had some count down box mysteriously appear on his screen (blaster) or why he needs to apply patches or service packs that also seemly make his screen blue. He also had no idea why he needed to pay to upgrade his anti-virus just because he upgraded his OS. My Dad gets aggravated quite easily because he likes that he can turn on his computer and it works. I spent a month talking him around to giving Linux a shot. This was 4 years ago and he is still running the same Debian install on the same PC. Not bad for someone who is not only a Grand Pa but also 70 years old! You're saying that because of some power bug in the Kernel makes the OS fail your "Grandma Test" is a stupid logic and it is broken. Can you honestly say that with all the problems that Windows has had over the years make it Grandma Friendly?? I am not hatting on Windows, just your stupid Logic.
You know what, karma being the slut that it is, you would have logged in and gotten nothing!
Is the bug in Linux kernel? Then you won't ket any fix from Ubuntu!
Is the bug in the userland power manager? Then don't blame the kernel and don't expect any news from Ubuntu!
Is the bug in the Ubuntu packaging? Blame Ubuntu.
So the question is: where the bug actually is?
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
But this is a good example of why Linux isn't ready for the masses. Sure the geeks here, with years of experience and who actually like to hang out at geek heavy sites can use esoteric workarounds, but what about Sally the cashier? Joe the construction worker? your landlady? All of these people will only find that Linux equals shit battery life if they were to use one which they would then tell to all their friends, hurting the image further.
This is nearly 2012 guys, there really isn't any excuse for this Mickey mouse minor league bullshit. Take a lesson from the late Steve Jobs and focus ON THE USER and make damned sure it "just works" OOTB, no workarounds, no tweaks, no bullshit. Updates shouldn't break drivers, you shouldn't need esoteric workarounds just to have usable battery life, c'mon guys, bring your A game!
I mean here it is, you have less than 2 years before hundreds of millions of late model desktops and laptops will be EOLed by MSFT thanks to the killing of XP, and THIS is the best you can do? No sir I don't believe that. From 2000 through 2005 I saw slow but steady progress when it came to Linux but then Canonical came around and it seemed like the whole community just lost their damned minds. Now everyone is on a truly insane 6 month upgrade deathmarch that gives ZERO time for QA, bugs don't get fixed, instead new versions come out that just add new bugs on top of old, it is like you are taking 1 step forward and three steps back.
But Linux has done better in the past and could do better again. Use the 2014 EOL of XP as a rallying point. tell Canonical to stick their crazy upgrade schedule, either make all distros a rock solid 7 year support cycle or make Torvalds STFU and give you an ABI so that upgrades don't shit all over drivers, get rid of the stupid esoteric workarounds, and make users job #1. the only reason Linux isn't on machines in every retail store in America is ignorant bullshit just like this. Bring your A games guys, you can do so much better.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Sadly it won't happen, and here is why: Both Windows and OSX support DRM, Linux don't, its just that simple. More and more of the titles on Steam have DRM on TOP of Steam, so all those titles? poof, gone. can't offer those. So already you've fractured their market. Then of course you have all the "phone home" games, and of course steam itself which is DRM, and we have seen how there is a VERY vocal group in the Linux community that thinks ALL DRM is the most evil thing ever created and thus will go out of their way to publish as many hacks and cracks as they possibly can as soon as it is released.
While i personally would love it if Linux would have a butt simple, easy to use game service like Steam right now the community is split in two. On the one side you have the followers of RMS, who believes that ANY software without the four freedoms is the spawn of Satan, and then you have Torvalds who is more of a "just make it work" kind of guy and isn't militant, hence why he kept the kernel GPL V2. But as long as RMS and his followers hold so much sway I seriously doubt you will have such a high profile DRM service like Steam on Linux, just too much hatred for DRM in the community.
Anyway while it isn't Steam for those Linux guys that would like some cheap games to play Good Old Games has a list of games which run on Linux and of course all are DRM free, enjoy.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Don't be stupid. If they had done that we would all be blasting Linux for making things unstable. The setting that used the power regression was that due to stability issues Linux now by default leaves the power state setting where the BIOS left it with a switch to enable it if you feel brave. This all means that if you have a non buggy chipset Linux will use the power save setting as before. This is the smart play because if the BIOS hasn't set it than it hasn't been tested by the manufacturer.
Phoronix is trolling, if they have a laptop where the setting works fine they need to be complaining to the Laptop manufacturer and have them correct their BIOS to take full support of the chipset.
unexplained fire
Don't you think that's a bit of a flamebait?
Bahdum-tssch! :-D
It's more about being quirk-for-quirk compatible with Windows.
My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
I'm not so sure about this. I enabled the fix as proposed by Phoronix and saw a 15% battery life improvement; I'm now getting almost 5 hours, which is pretty good for this system.But 15% was not "significant" really. So "to regain much of their battery life" seems like an exaggeration in par with the alarmist tone of the articles in Phoronix. Sure, there's a problem, and I certainly appreciate Phoronix's efforts to pinpoint the cause and offer a workaround, but it's certainly not as bad as they've been making it look.
Probably a hare-brained idea, but it would be nice if the Humble Bundle group had enough critical mass to create a Steam-like distribution mechanism.
Sorry, I started dismissing it when they sat on a fairly major bug/regression for a week, and then had a big article about how bugs/regressions do not get fixed in the kernel.
If you find a bug/regression report it to LKML, don't expect the linux devs to watch the output of your little test suite. Don't get me wrong, I really like the testing, just that when they see something like this, and have it narrowed down to a few commits, freaking report it so it can get fixed.
All of the above was encrypted with a Quad ROT-13 method. Unauthorized decryption is in violation of the DMCA.
for SSDs and other such OS independent stuff, i like http://www.silentpcreview.com/ Ony site that i have found with a load cell to test manufacturers claims on PSUs, including the efficiency ones, same goes for fans (both CFM and sound)
As for video cards, Assume that non-bleeding edge desktop cards from nvidia just work, as do intel "cards" but with poor performance. AMD/ATI cards may or may not work, and even if they do only sometimes with the right versions of the kernel, X, and catalyst.
Printers are at openprinting.org (if it is back up), but you could always just get an HP and expect it to work.
I use google to find newegg comments about hardware if i'm looking for something else. Gennerly if it works on ubuntu, i can have it working on gentoo without issue.
All of the above was encrypted with a Quad ROT-13 method. Unauthorized decryption is in violation of the DMCA.
So your answer is use esoteric workarounds? I'm shocked you didn't add stable kernel ABI nonsense just to add to your giant fail and bullshit. And folks wonder why Linux is dead last. MSFT and Apple are bring their A games, your playing hackey sack.
I know its a complete shock but to most people? windows and OSX just work and they do so without fail, without esoteric workarounds, without driver bullshit and WITHOUT EXCUSES, which sadly is all you get from the "community" anymore, along with bullshit, insults, and pages of CLI "fixes" crapola. Oh don't forget to call me an "M$ Ninja shill astroturfer dirty man!" just to seal the fail trifecta. stupid shit like this is why Linux is dead last and frankly? deserves to BE last.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I tried to read the writeup on the website. It launched a pop-up ad (on work PC, must accept...) and then it froze my browser. WTF? I won't let that website near any of my personal PCs if it's going to be that abuisive.
You think all Mac users should run things in X11? Really?
OSX is designed for a single hardware specification, Linux runs on countless of hardware, and we have to reverse engineer some drivers and try to make most hardware work. Your comments are clearly disrespectful, and you should go bitch the hardware manufacturers instead.
Damn kids. Get off our lawn!
(Or at least install Linux on it...)
It was posted 10 years ago on slashdot that MS dictated to all the hardware manufactures that this is the way Windows 2000/XP kernel does APM. Go fix your bios because we aint changing it! Almost paraphrased word by word with buggy ACPI and APM. So because people still run XP, the bios has to work around a Windows specific bug.
It is a two way street when more than manufactor owns the software and a different owns the hardware. Bugs are on both sides and both have 30 years of errata and bugs that emulate off of each other in order to function. Linux sadly, has to produce Windows specific bugs in order to have APM work properly as all the hardware makers care about is Microsoft.
I hate the MS bashing here more than anyone as I prefer MS more and more these days. But it is deserved here. What are you going to do if you are Dell with a great APM but XP doesn't work the way it was designed to spec? Say no, big bad MS our bios is fine go fix XP with a service pack? Imagine how their customers would feel? Would they blame Microsoft? I think not. They would blame Dell and go buy HPs etc.
So Dell reflashes their bios so MS doesn't have to fix their bug etc.
Both Linus and Alan Cox have said this numerous times and is one of the reasons people want to switch to EFI. The bios has 30 years of fixes, updates to bugs, and other nasties. I only assume the Windows kernel does the same exact things to bugs from the 1980s that are there for compatiblity reasons. Shudder
http://saveie6.com/
No My answer is for the BIOS makers to do the right thing and quite frankly, the current situation is hardly Microsoft's "A" game when an estimated 70% of windows problems are due to driver crashes. The only reason MicroSoft allows this to continue is because it works against their competitors and if they gave a flying crap about their own customers they would have demanded hardware makers all conform to a set of standards that MicroSoft can write drivers for a long time ago.
Oh, and if your favored platform has so many fiddly tweaks they they have generated a cottage industry of tool makers (PowerTweak etc) you don't get to call out the competition for "esoteric workarounds"
Riiight, it works for MSFT but it is everyone ELSE'S fault when Linux doesn't work, couldn't be bad OS design, right? you DO know what excuses and assholes have in common, yes? The USER don't give a shit WHY it don't work, and BTW in Win 7 a good 85%+ of the drivers? They JUST WORK. bring your A game or sit on the bench, your choice.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
OSX is designed for a single hardware specification, Linux runs on countless of hardware, and we have to reverse engineer some drivers and try to make most hardware work. Your comments are clearly disrespectful, and you should go bitch the hardware manufacturers instead.
In that vein, a registry of some kind that told you what hardware was compatible with your Linux distro would be a godsend. I mean, I've seen various half-hearted attempts to start something like this, but they've always petered out. Then when you find them on Google, you get your hopes up, only to have them dashed by lists upon lists of laptops, video cards, sound cards, etc. that were EOL'd years ago.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
I find that most hardware works just fine these days, I have access to 6 computers and most of the hardware in those computers is all different. Linux detects all the hardware just fine.
Take a look at the nouveau driver for example, it accelerates 2d and even 3d and it's all reversed engineered and created without documentation. What I suggest is that you try Linux with your hardware and if you have any problems, always report the bugs to the developers so they can fix it.
Hardware probing can get you some sane hardware IDs, thing is, the package system has to be able to handle kernel patching as a part of the installation process, as well as configuration management, see Electra initiative. Where should I submit the feature request?
I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.
If you want a just works linux machine, then call up System67 and friends. Works like a well oiled machine, just as well as any Mac. Windows has plenty of problems with weird hardware, though it just gives you the finger, and no way to fix it, so - not much better than linux, either.
I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.
So then please be the first to join in on any "You can replace that Windows machine with Linux" posting on /. and point out IT IS A TOTAL LIE and by your VERY OWN WORDS Linux is NOT a usable replacement for Windows but for Macs instead!
You see it is THIS, this right here, kind of hypocrisy and bullshit that has made sure Linux stays right where it is, dead last. They say "Its a drop in replacement for Windows!" and when you point out articles like TFA that show if you drop in your system goes to shit? They say "Well duh! By drop in we meant throw out all your hardware and start over with a more expensive system just like the Apple guys do!" Well riddle me THIS friend: Then why the fuck wouldn't I just buy an Apple, where I get better quality, resale, and battery life huh? what do YOU have OTHER than "Free as in freedom, fight the power!" to offer? BTW the whole "free as in freedom" thing? Nobody gives a shit. just look at sales of the iShiny, one of the most locked down devices in history, for an example of how little folks give a shit about freedom to tinker.
So I'm sorry but your post is just another example of how when Apple and MSFT bring their A games Linux has excuses and hackey sack. Yours is a classic example of what I call "moving the goal posts" where you say "Point A is true!" and when pointed out point A is false you then go "But if you do point b-f THEN point A is true!" yeah and if Xena rode up naked on a purple pony wanting to rock my world I'd be a happy camper, doubt its gonna happen though.
Final tip: If Linux won't run on the stuff we already have money in? Nobody gives a fuck enough to go out and hunt for some niche specialty Linux vendor. That is just like "use esoteric workarounds" (which nobody on windows but the tweakers bother with) or the whole "open up bash and type" after spending three hours doing the forum dance. nobody frankly gives a shit about linux to go through all that horseshit, as the numbers plainly show. Where was Linux 5 years ago? 1%. Where was it two years ago? 1%. Where will it be in 5 years if it stays on the same path? why it don't take Kojak to solve THAT mystery friend, that would be 1%.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Well, it works just fine on non-selected hardware for many people, and I believe it has a bright long term future - emphasis on believe - but why do we have to argue this over and over - I think I speak for the majority of slashdot when I say - if you don't like Linux, don't use it, and don't pester us, ok? We got the constructive criticism, and there is apparently not enough political will for change, not when retaining technical merit on other fronts, so there is no point in reiterating, ok?
I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.
i take windows machines that microsoft chooses to no longer support and put current versions of linux on them with very few problems. these machines still run their older version of windows fine, but would struggle to run Vista or Win7 (if you could even get them to install)
:)
its fine to get on your soapbox and rant, but what is your ranting worth to someone with experience to the contrary? answer: they just think you're a ranting dickhead.
people who try to keep their microsoft software up-to-date keep having to buy new hardware with each new version with windows
because of this, i get free computers that still work just fine for Linux
even works for laptops. if people have trouble with windows, i get them for free and have little/no trouble putting new linux on. i have an old (8 years) laptop that had a dvd drive fuck up so i couldn't use the recovery disc any more. i could fork out money to buy a new dvd drive (or a new laptop) but i can boot it off my linux boot server and install linux using a sd card and a netinstall.
moral of story: linux vendors not required
br btw, you don't have to feel threatened by linux. i'm sure its quite happy coming last (whatever that means). its not engaged in any sort of race in which it could come first. it just exists. there are of course people who don't understand this, but i'm sure you agree they are just fucktards who compare linux with windows. in reality the two are not comaprable. they perform a similar function, but for entirely different reasons.