I updated to OS 11.1 from OS 11.0 (running KDE 4.xx). After updating,
and noticing inconsistencies with monitor standby,etc…, I noticed that
3 different power modules are all running with different settings,
KPowerSave is running (as it was under OS 11.0) with one set of
times for power saving functions.
Under Configure Desktop -> Display -> Power Control, is another (and
different) set of times for power saving functions (for the same
functions as the other two modules).
Under Configure Desktop -> Advanced -> Power Management, is another
(and different) set of times for power saving functions (for the same
functions as the other two modules). This is the “PowerDevil” module
which also runs an underlying service module.
What are the pros and cons to each of these (a comparison)? Why are
all three loaded and running by default? I’ve disabled KPowerSave and
am trying to determine whether to turn off PowerDevil or the the other
module under Display.
I’ve also noticed that I have numerous different ways to alter my power
settings. I’m thinking of reducing this to a sinle agent, poehaps
KPowersave? Which one I don’t know yet. But I’m also having problems
with ‘suspend’. Suspend to disk won’t work at all and comes up with an
error message. Suspend to ram sometimes behaves a bit odd. I’d welcome
any input into this problem.
Well, OpenSuSE may not take ownership or care for this issue.
KPowerSave is obviously a KDE program, and the help documentation for
the other modules are KDE as well.
Nevertheless, the PowerDevil module running by itself seemed to do
nothing positive except positively use memory. So I stopped and
disabled the PowerDevil service module.
KPowerSave only seemed to be intermittently consistent, and I’ve given
up (for now) Linux distros’ properly implementing suspend to disk and
RAM, so I saw no need to have it running in memory just to suspend the
monitor (which I think eats up the most power on my system).
So I’ve defaulted to utilizing just the screen power management under
“Display”, and it seems to work perfectly.
I’ve wondered about this myself too… As far as I know, PowerDevil is
the power manager for KDE4 and KPowerSave was for KDE3. In practice,
however, KPowerSave was used at least by openSUSE in KDE4 while
PowerDevil was still in development…
Anyways, this still leaves the display power management in two places
as you mentioned. I tried with different settings and it seems that the
timings in the “Display” section are the decisive ones and the timings
in PowerDevil do nothing. This is using KDE 4.2 RC1 from the build
service.
Additionally, one thing I came across with was that if I have
screensaver starting before the screen is supposed to go into power
saving, it seems that the screen won’t go to power saving state…
Anyone else seeing this?