Powersaving; OpenSUSE 12.3; Gnome; Toshiba Laptop; AMD A6-4400m APU radeon graphics, 16GB ram

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PS I believe the pertinent system specifications are in the title.

The brightness keys work the brightness control panel works but neither set values that are maintained across a poweroff-reboot? Is there some way to set the initial brightness to something other than full on? MY CPU seems to be in stepped up mode when relatively inactive. I read the powersaving description for 11.x about automatic controls instead of manual controls and I do not find the arguments totally persuasive. If running a task at night low power and longer execution can minimize fan noise (quieter for sleeping in a hotel room) as just one example. Keeping the laptop cooler when editing files with the unit is on you lap is another reason – I have had the fan full on with heat spewing when gediting a text file on battery power that one would not casually believe to be a CPU intensive task. Even with automatic stepping control of the CPU would the possibility of aggressive up-stepping, aggressive down-stepping and a balanced approach be reasonable possibilities. Should a “turbo mode” cpu like mine recognize the turbo operation level (seems somewhat like overclocked) to be a mode to be more aggressive in terms of either dropping out of or not engaging when powersaving is desired – possibly turned off when operating on a battery? Turbo mode in the case of the AMD processor is running in excess of the stated maximum for this processor. By this I believe the stated maximum can be exceeded for a period of time as recommended by the manufacturer but at some point for some reason should be reversed – ie too much heat generation disabling the turbo mode until the excess heat dissipates.

Manual, webpages, etc are acceptable references I am willing to read and test options-- at this point most documentation I have seen is for the wrong version in terms of OpenSuSE 12.3 (ie 11.x) and I have a feeling the desktop manager has an impact on dealing with those settings – potentially different choices for KDE, Gnome, etc. Inquiring the system as to the CPUstep changes and setting could be helpful to understand/document the problem.

Thanks in advance for reading this.

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IMO AMD A6 APU are poorely supported in SuSE linux.
Personally I have a Satellite M50D-A-10Z for a couple of days now, and I’m facing the following:

  • touchpad (Elantech) not recognized - some threads say it’s fixed in kernel 3.11
  • web camera not recognized (seems it’s a Chicony, although reported as Toshiba)
  • (some) function keys not working - including those which control brightness
  • yast-sound reports 2 audio boards: ATI and AMD; one is audio-0 the other audio-1. I could not set volume on audio-0 (no controls), but could see volume controls for audio-1. Strange enough, upon setting audio-1 as primary, the volume settings disappeared, and were again available for audio-1 (no matter which is audio-0 ATI or AMD)
  • battery not recognized

I also tried other live distributions:

  • ubuntu did not recognize video - could only be started w/ low resolution; after boot - same as above
  • fedora started, but again no touchpad or web cam or audio

To be frank, I tried 3 laptops, and came to the conclusion that Toshiba is the best option (tried Lenovo Z500 and Dell 3537), even w/ the above problems. Currently I’m waiting for openSuSE 13.1 and hope for the best.

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On 11/18/2013 06:56 AM, simplemarius pecked at the keyboard and wrote:

Purchased a Toshiba L75D-A7288 two weeks ago. openSUSE 13.1 RC2
installed and with all the latest updates.
> IMO AMD A6 APU are poorely supported in SuSE linux.

AMD A8, I have not experienced any issues.

> Personally I have a Satellite M50D-A-10Z for a couple of days now, and
> I’m facing the following:
> - touchpad (Elantech) not recognized - some threads say it’s fixed in
> kernel 3.11

Working fine.

> - web camera not recognized (seems it’s a Chicony, although reported
> as Toshiba)

No problem with the web cam.

> - (some) function keys not working - including those which control
> brightness

I too have that experience but can adjust the brightness using the
control provided when on battery. I’m confident a update will fix the
issue soon.

> - yast-sound reports 2 audio boards: ATI and AMD; one is audio-0 the
> other audio-1. I could not set volume on audio-0 (no controls), but
> could see volume controls for audio-1. Strange enough, upon setting
> audio-1 as primary, the volume settings disappeared, and were again
> available for audio-1 (no matter which is audio-0 ATI or AMD)

That issue existed update updates fixed the problem.

> - battery not recognized

Not an issue.

>
> I also tried other live distributions:
> - ubuntu did not recognize video - could only be started w/ low
> resolution; after boot - same as above
> - fedora started, but again no touchpad or web cam or audio
>
> To be frank, I tried 3 laptops, and came to the conclusion that Toshiba
> is the best option (tried Lenovo Z500 and Dell 3537), even w/ the above
> problems. Currently I’m waiting for openSuSE 13.1 and hope for the best.
>
>
I have not found any issues yet with this laptop and would recommend it
to friends.

Ken

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WOW!
I’m a bit puzzled as I tried openSuSE 13.1 Live. Most probably the latest fixes didn’t make. I can hardly wait for the official release (due in the following hours)- this machine is too good not to be fully supported by SuSE. I’ll report back.

Thanks for the tips Ken,
marius

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@Ken

I spent all afternoon/evening/half the night installing openSuSE 13.1, installing ATI proprietary driver, and struggling w/ the touchpad.

Power Management: still no luck. I cannot change brightness unless I use AMD Catalyst Control Center.

Touchpad: the same old story:

> dmesg | grep lant
    1.932405] psmouse serio1: elantech: unknown hardware version, aborting...
    2.177298] input: PS/2 Elantech Touchpad as /devices/platform/i8042/serio1/input/input1

Sound: same story.

Looking over the web I found countless links for ubuntu and elantech. So I installed 13.10 (saucy), and ruined the night :frowning: I tried various suggestions: patched kernel, elantech-v7 DKMS module, settings in xorg.conf, etc. None worked for me. One of the DKMS modules installed was supposed to display the fw_version which is

> dmesg | grep lant
   11.434254] psmouse serio1: elantech: unknown hardware version 0x381f01, aborting...

(the hex number above is the fw_version as per code, do not be misleaded by the message)

I am confident that a fix will be provided at some point. For the time being:

  • touchpad: will try to create some shortcuts (and script) to disable/enable it completely - the keyboard and touchpad are too close, and it ‘steals’ the mouse while typing
  • audio: I do not care too much about audio on a laptop.
  • battery and power management: it will be an issue only while travelling
  • video: works in VLC so there should be a solution for skype also
    Talking about skype. openSuSE 13.1 release notes talk about a problem w/ pulse, but also offer a solution - did not test it though.