I installed x86-64 OpenSUSE 11.0 (KDE 4.1 repos in use)to HP Compaq 6715s Sempron 3800+ laptop, but powermanagement won’t work. I have tried acpi=noirq and noapic settings but they cause machine to be unasable slow (responds very slowly to commands), even mouse cursor won’t move properly using usb-mouse with touchpad cursor moves well. How i fix this problem without using acpi=off setting, i would want powermanagement work and machine to be usable?
Hi.
I hate to be a party spoiler, but you apparently forgot we are talking linux here. I mean, linux is a great OS, an OS OS (open source operating system), it is even a free OS - but it’s also a no warranty OS. Permanently “under development”, so to say. It’s the linux production cycle, you know. It’s based on user feedback, because the linux community doesn’t have the resources to pay testers and thoroughly debug software “in-house” (as a matter of fact there’s no main “in-house” to speak of, which is one of linux’s greatnesses). It’s a great philosophy, but it implies you shouldn’t go with the newest software unless you’re prepared to contribute to the linux community by filing bug reports etc. Here’s where great “monolythic” distributions, such as SuSE or Mandriva or Ubuntu come into play: they’re exactly what a newbie (or let’s say, a non-developer) linux user needs - a simple-to-install production environment that manages to hide and compensate the inherently diffused, agglomerate structure of linux by integrating and tuning hundreds of individual daemons, utilities and tools into a working, seemingly organic system - the stress is on “seemingly”.
Now for the power management problem in SuSE. The good news is, it works out of the box. You DON’T need to disable any ACPI, APIC or other thingies. The bad news is, it will only work partially on your laptop: the fans will be detected correctly and activated-deactivated depending on the housing temperature, you will be able to suspend to disk, the processor clock will be managed correctly (halved when not needed), the display brightness will be set according to your wishes et caetera. BUT:
- you will need the KPowerSave package to achieve all that, and
- you will not be able to suspend to RAM, only to disk.
Now there are some MANDATORY prerequisites for achieving all the foregoing:
The first thing u do is go with the 32-bit edition. Yes, I AM sorry to say, but 64-bit linux still has some way to go before it becomes ripe for a production environment. Then, get rid of KDE 4.x and revert to KDE 3.x (just install it from the repositories - should be listed in YAST as “KDE3 desktop” or something like that). KDE 4.x is largely experimental and will not be ready for prime time (i.e. for real productivity) any time soon. I have a very similar model laptop (6715b) and KDE 4.x just keeps crashing all the time. Literally all the time - every two to five minutes, depending on what I do. Now, KDE 3.x is the PERFECT OPPOSITE: it’s stable, it’s proven and it’s almost rock solid (if you’re coming from Win XP you’ll appreciate that - in fact, SuSE 11 with KDE 3.x is just maybe a notch less stable than Win XP). So, after you switch to KDE 3.x, there’s only one thing more to do: install KPowerSave from the repositories (if it’s not already installed); you guessed it, it’s the KDE Power Options applet. Then set all the KPowerSave options to your liking and wait. That’s right, WAIT. At least that’s what I did. At first, power management was very flaky on my 6715b and I couldn’t suspend to disk OR RAM. But after several automatic updates from the repositories, my suspend to disk just began to work. So I would say SuSE maintenance team is doing a great job in the background, and every update really IS an update. All you must do is sit back and wait for them to fix it. Because believe me: sooner or later they will.
Now, this answer of mine, although only meant to be point-of-fact, my seem harsher than intended, so I must say that I support and actually LOVE linux (and SuSE) wholeheartedly and am a firm believer in what Stallman once said about open source software (and I quote by memory, so bear with me): Free software should be preferred over closed-source software EVEN IF it didn’t achieve quite the level of quality of certain closed-source solutions.