battery monitor applet in kde4.6 beta 2 not working

I’ve installed openSUSE 11.3 updated to KDE 4.6 Beta 2 on an Acer Aspire One.

To my surprise and delight and without my intervention, for the first time ever the battery applet is now all singing all dancing; showing charge state including a little red bar when charge is low.

However on a MSI Mega Book, x86_64 architecture, I don’t get the same level of joy, only an indication seemingly determined at log in, that the AC adaptor is plugged in (which unfortunately remains, even if I unplug the adaptor).

Other than architecture I can’t spot the difference between the two installs.

May I ask if anyone has any ideas?

I’ve asked over on forum.kde.org and part of the solution seems to lie in UPower, possibly DeviceKit-power and dbus

solid-hardware details ‘/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/computer_power_supply_battery_BAT1’
Object::connect: No such signal QDBusAbstractInterface:: DeviceAdded(QString)
Object::connect: No such signal QDBusAbstractInterface:: DeviceRemoved(QString)
udi = ‘/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/computer_power_supply_battery_BAT1’
parent = ‘/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/computer’ (string)
vendor = ‘MSI Corp.’ (string)
product = ‘MS-1058’ (string)
description = ‘MS-1058’ (string)
Battery.plugged = true (bool)
Battery.type = ‘PrimaryBattery’ (0x3) (enum)
Battery.chargePercent = 0 (0x0) (int)
Battery.rechargeable = true (bool)
Battery.chargeState = ‘NoCharge’ (0x0) (enum)

AC adapter removed

solid-hardware details ‘/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/computer_power_supply_ac_adapter_ADP1’
Object::connect: No such signal QDBusAbstractInterface:: DeviceAdded(QString)
Object::connect: No such signal QDBusAbstractInterface:: DeviceRemoved(QString)
udi = ‘/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/computer_power_supply_ac_adapter_ADP1’
parent = ‘/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/computer’ (string)
vendor = ‘’ (string)
product = ‘Generic AC Adapter Device’ (string)
description = ‘Generic AC Adapter Device’ (string)
AcAdapter.plugged = true (bool)

May I ask if anyone has any thoughts?

gerrygavigan wrote:
> May I ask if anyone has any thoughts?

my thoughts are: since it is where other software testers hang out,
you should post all beta software questions in the appropriate forum:

http://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-help-here/pre-release-beta/

however, that said: it is no surprise that the exact same operating
system software on two very different hardware sets might result in
two very different user experiences…

that is to say: if the MSI motherboard’s chip set and BIOS combo does
not ‘report’ battery/power state data in the same way (if at all) to
the kernel, then you will not get the same display on your screen…

perhaps you need a different driver…perhaps the driver for the MSI
board has never been crafted…ask MSI for a solution…

however, a trip though google might be helpful…like this:
http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aopensuse.org+MSI+Mega+Book+battery
turns up some info that might help you, like this might work for you
also: “Battery charge is not determined properly unless acpi=noirq
boot option is used.” see http://en.opensuse.org/HCL:MSI_laptops

and, if you never find the answer maybe you have discovered a bug, if
so log it here: http://en.opensuse.org/Submitting_Bug_Reports


DenverD
CAVEAT: http://is.gd/bpoMD [posted via NNTP w/openSUSE 10.3]
I feel annoyed that I can’t put my wide range of languages on stupid
Facebook. For example, I speak Sarcasm, fluently spoken and written,
and Various Forms of Geek…

Thank you for advice and steer