PowerDevil

System Software

Source (link to git-repo or to original if based on someone elses unmodified work): Add the source-code for this project on opencode.net

2
5.0
Description:

--- ATTENTION ---

This page will be no longer updated, just like 4.1 backports, now that 4.2 is out. PowerDevil is now in kdebase module, so from 4.2 on there is no need to download/install it as a separate application. Please use bugs.kde.org for bug reports/feature requests/whatsoever. Thanks for testing and trying PowerDevil in 4.1, we have a rock solid powermanager in 4.2 mostly thanks to you!

PowerDevil is an utility for KDE4 for Laptop Powermanagement. It consists of a Daemon (a KDED module), a KCModule to configure it, and will feature a Plasmoid soon.

With PowerDevil you can set up preferences for lid Closing, Brightness, CPU scaling, Idle time, both when connected to AC and when on Battery. It is built upon Solid, and it's very lightweight and won't overkill your system resources. If you missed KLaptop or KPowersave, this might be the tool you were looking for.

PowerDevil is part of kdebase from 4.2 on. This means it's included in kde core releases and you no longer need to compile it as an external application.

Though, I keep a branch and a tarball updated for people on KDE4.1. Enjoy it!

-- Changelog for the 4.1 branch --

1.4.2
* Another round of critical fixes. Packagers, again, please update as soon as possible.

1.4.1
* Fixes 2 critical bugs in 1.4.0. It's a critical upgrade, packagers, please upgrade as soon as possible

1.4.0
* Yet another backport from trunk

1.3.0:
** Now PowerDevil is hosted on KDE FTP **
* Fixed a lot of bugs
* GUI/Feature Improvements, backported everything that was in trunk

1.2.0:
* Solved some bugs
* Moved config to KSharedConfig
* Added sensible defaults

1.1.1:
* Solved a critical bug that caused kded4 crash on startup

1.1:
* Backported fix for profile import
* Backported GUI improvements
* Backported various fixes

79 comments
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lesserdevil

11 years ago

A daemon has absolutely nothing to do with religion or the occult. It's pronounced "day-mun." Personally I'm embarrassed for anyone who implants loaded meanings into the words they read.

For example: A dust devil has nothing to do with religion. It's a tiny cyclone in the desert dust. And just so everyone knows, I've been going by lesserdevil for 12 years.

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Manolete

11 years ago

Sorry to correct you, but "daemon", "demon", "daimon", whatever you want to transcript "δαιμόν" (daimón) is indeed related to religion/superstition: a deity.
Interestingly it's etymologically related to democracy, and epidemic.

A different matter is its use in computer-related world, of course even those who don't know a word of programming know that it isn't that the forces of Evil Darkness have taken over our computers, XD.

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alabarym

11 years ago

I've just finished emerging kde-4.2 on gentoo. powerdevil plasmoid is ok, I can change monitor brightness.
However when I try to hibernate or suspend - there is no actions at all.
Where can look for errors? What are the logs powerdevil use?
does it uses kded4 daemon?
Thanks in advance

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BrainWorker

11 years ago

> PowerDevil
And what about more neutral name? Why so horrible names? And what is the purpose of giving such names?

Honestly, I'm always embarrassed with these daemons, devils and so on.
Can't you people give normal, neutral names reflecting the real purpose of your soft?

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timlepes

4 years ago

This information has been available online for those willing to look...

http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/D/daemon.html

With regard to the comment that the problem is a "lack of culture"... It is exactly the opposite. It is a part of computer culture and established "jargon" to call these sorts of programs daemons. A daemon refers to a kind of program that sits in the background waiting for some sort of event or input to trigger it. One of the earliest was a program named "DAEMON" that monitored a print spool directory waiting for new files to process. You (or your program) put a new file in the spool folder and the daemon program would notice and process it for you. There were, early on, other terms used for these sorts of programs including "dragon".

So since PowerDevil is a type of program commonly known in Computer Science tradition and specifically in the UNIX and Linux traditions (i.e. culture) as a "daemon", the name PowerDevil is also a play on words with regard to it's archetype. It is a background program that waits for some other program or condition to trigger it into action.

Having said all that, it seems that there is some connection to the idea of a hidden or lurking spirit that magically does something behind the scenes. But if you are so bothered, you are probably just a little too hung up on the meanings you read into it. And a little lazy for not doing your homework. The jargon file has been around on-line for ages and ages. It is not hard to find the reference with some light seraching.

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Manolete

11 years ago

Basically because of lack of culture.
Not much time ago technical names were taken from Greek and Latin words (audiovisual, telephone, cybernetic, microscope, etc, etc); that was the scientific way. Since scientists and technicians don't study rudiments of classic languages applied to their disciplines, and since people don't read real literature, their classical culture sucks and can't create neologisms which make sense and are easily translatable, therefore we have arbitrary names and definitions which are just understood for their inventors.
But don't dare to say anything against this, they will stone you to death, XD.

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sandsmark

11 years ago

PowerDevil is just a play on the power-tool brand, afaik.
It's sometimes dangerous to read to much meaning into naming, without knowing enough about the popular culture that one lives in :p

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C

drf

11 years ago

Honestly, I'm always embarassed with those kind of comments

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ari197

11 years ago

Hi .. I'm using powerdevil from kubuntu interpid.. Powerdevil can't control the screen brightness.. Also there are times where powerdevil detected the battery power level was 'zero percent' than goes back to the original level after several seconds.. these symptom happens even when I was plug-in to the power adapter.

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devsk

12 years ago

does powerdevil support the UPS as a battery on a desktop?

I am running KDE 4.1.96 and powerdevil is running (in service manager) but there is no battery found. The battery applet says "Battery: not present".

Just wanna mention that upsmon, knutclient and gnome-power-manager do see my battery.

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devsk

11 years ago

Can someone please help me with this? One strange thing is that although the window, that pops up when I click on the battery icon in panel, says, Battery not present, when I go into capabilities, it says it has two batteries present. The second one is wireless mouse (as shown in gnome-power-manager).

hald seems to be running fine and has no problem finding the UPS.

root 8700 8659 0 21:14 ? 00:00:00 828 264 19 S hald-addon-hid- hald-addon-hid-ups: listening on /dev/usb/hiddev0

What exactly is needed for powerdevil to use my UPS as battery so that I can set some rules for shutdown/suspend in case of power failure?

Thanks,
devsk

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devsk

10 years ago

Anyone know answer to this? This seems to be the case with 4.4 as well...:(

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zpintar

10 years ago

I have the same problem as you, with my APC UPS.

GNOME's applet and apcupsd-gui normally see UPS but Battery monitor plasmoid do NOT.
PowerDevil reports battery well.

Only what you can do is to change NUT's or apcupsd's config scripts and put them commands to send d-bus messages to powerdevil.

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billux13

12 years ago

Hi,
I'd tried to compile the lasted PowerDevil's version (1.4.2) and, after runing cmake and make, I have a compilation error :
make[2]: *** Pas de règle pour fabriquer la cible « /usr/local/share/dbus-1/interfaces/org.freedesktop.ScreenSaver.xml », nécessaire pour « daemon/screensaver_interface.cpp ». Arrêt.
(no rule to create target /usr/local/share/dbus-1/interfaces/org.freedesktop.ScreenSaver.xml)
It's me or there is an error into the generated makefile ?
thanks to answers.

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brauliobo

12 years ago

kpowersave did something interesting, in fact, the only thing i miss on powerdevil
when the lid closes, if turned the screen off, maybe running 'xset dpms force off'

maybe also a option to set the cpu frequency policy, independly from the profile.

thank you and congrats for this great applet!

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cRoMo

12 years ago

I second that. I just tried to find such an option in PowerDevil but I couldn't. This is really important, as currently locking the screen after closing the lid doesn't do any power reduction at all.

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KotBehemot

12 years ago

Those keys for suspend or hibernation doesn' work for me i hit them and nothing happens if i try to check them on xev i got XF86Standby or XF86Sleep but dunno what's wrong

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rakekniven

12 years ago

Hello,

PowerDevil will be the follower of kpowersave, right?

How to use PowerDevil?

Is there a website for PowerDevil?
If not I would start a page for it in Userbase (http://userbase.kde.org/)
What do you think?

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C

drf

12 years ago

There is user documentation for the KCModule, though I will surely write on userbase as soon as I have more time.

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rakekniven

12 years ago

Send the docs to me.
I can start the page and I am really curious about PowerDevil :-)

Cheers

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Beno1

12 years ago

Another item on the wishlist: Would it be possible to somehow integrate PowerTop into the upcomming Plasmoid? That would be great!

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C

drf

12 years ago

I don't know how this could be done, though if you're keen on it you could open a wishlist ticket on bugs.kde.org

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Loacoon

12 years ago

When trying to compile powerdevil, i'm having this error :

[ 88%] Building CXX object workspace/ksysguard/gui/CMakeFiles/kdeinit_ksysguard.dir/SensorDisplayLib/SensorLoggerDlg.o
/home/loacoon/Documents/Downloads/SVN/KDE4/KDE/kdebase/workspace/powerdevil/daemon/PowerDevilDaemon.cpp: In member function ‘void PowerDevilDaemon::restoreDefaultProfiles()’:
/home/loacoon/Documents/Downloads/SVN/KDE4/KDE/kdebase/workspace/powerdevil/daemon/PowerDevilDaemon.cpp:1295: error: ‘DATA_DIRECTORY’ was not declared in this scope

It's happening for a long time now so I'm reporting it.

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C

drf

12 years ago

It should not happen, since kdebase compilation happens correctly on the dashboard and for all distros, so maybe your environment is somehow corrupted

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Loacoon

12 years ago

That's possible since after erasing everything (sources and compilations), and recompiling from scratch, it worked again.
Sorry to have bothered you.

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Mar 01 2009
Yaba
Feb 01 2009
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updated Feb 01 2009
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