pbbuttons-users — Everything regarding pbbuttons' usage and develpment

Re: battery monitor client

[Frank L. <fr...@li...>]

On Mon, Aug 02, 2004 at 03:26:33PM -0400, Brian Sammon wrote:
> Are there any battery monitor apps that work with pbbuttons?
> I'd like an application that displays the power level in percent.  Ideally, something that looks like xapm (or as a second choice, batmon).

I use xpmumon

> Also, I'm thinking about modifying xapm to use pbbuttons.  They only way I could think of to do it was to have it read from /proc/pmu/ .
> Any better ideas?  Any suggestions?
> 
> I'm running debian.  The debian pbbuttons maintainer believes that pbbuttons 
> is enough of a replacement for pmud that he has put "Conflicts: pmud" in the 
> configuration of the pbbuttons package.

I've recently taken over the maintainance of the pbbuttonsd package.
I haven't had the time yet to investigate if one could drop this
conflict. Please note that the whole discussion in #249501 was
between a user and the upstream maintainer, not the Debian one.

Gruesse,
-- 
Frank Lichtenheld <fr...@li...>
www: http://www.djpig.de/

battery monitor client

[Brian S. <pbb...@br...>]

Are there any battery monitor apps that work with pbbuttons?
I'd like an application that displays the power level in percent.  Ideally, something that looks like xapm (or as a second choice, batmon).

Also, I'm thinking about modifying xapm to use pbbuttons.  They only way I could think of to do it was to have it read from /proc/pmu/ .
Any better ideas?  Any suggestions?

I'm running debian.  The debian pbbuttons maintainer believes that pbbuttons 
is enough of a replacement for pmud that he has put "Conflicts: pmud" in the 
configuration of the pbbuttons package.

Re: [OT] CVS branches

[Matthias G. <mat...@us...>]

Am Donnerstag, 29. Juli 2004 09:04 schrieb Matthias Grimm:

Hi,
It is now a branch called 'devel' in CVS which will contain the latest work in 
progress. Be carefull using this version in production environments. The code 
is not finished yet and may contain errors. Also the documentation may not 
cover the new features.

I will ensure that the source will compile and doesn't crash immediately after 
startup ;-) Keep in mind: This is work in progress.

 Best Regards
    Matthias

Re: [OT] CVS branches

[Matthias G. <mat...@us...>]

Am Mittwoch, 28. Juli 2004 14:58 schrieb Wolfram Quester:
> Hi alltogether!
>
> I just discovered this List while I tried to experiment with the
> suspend-to-disc features in pbbuttonsd, but I had no success. Then I
> realised that the "new code has been moved to unstable (not in CVS)",
> which I found a little annoying. Would it be possible to use branches in
> CVS like "RELEASE" where the code considered stable is located and
> "HEAD" for more experimental features?
> I know that this kind of question is a little OT on a user ML.
> BTW, is it planned to have a "resume-disc" and "resume-ram" parameter on
> calls of external scripts?

Sorry for the inconvenience. I had this feature already implemented but not 
fully tested. Then came this annoying bug which crashed pbbuttonsd and I had 
to release a bugfix first, so the new untested features were temporarely 
removed.

I thought already about an unstable branch but I hadn't time to realize it 
yet, sorry. In the meantime I could send you the unstable package by mail if 
you like.

  Best Regards
      Matthias

[OT] CVS branches

[Wolfram Q. <wo...@mi...>]

Hi alltogether!

I just discovered this List while I tried to experiment with the
suspend-to-disc features in pbbuttonsd, but I had no success. Then I
realised that the "new code has been moved to unstable (not in CVS)",
which I found a little annoying. Would it be possible to use branches in
CVS like "RELEASE" where the code considered stable is located and
"HEAD" for more experimental features?
I know that this kind of question is a little OT on a user ML.
BTW, is it planned to have a "resume-disc" and "resume-ram" parameter on
calls of external scripts?

With best regards,

Wolfi

Re: pbbuttonsd new problems - Problem solved

[Matthias G. <mat...@ht...>]

Am Mittwoch, 14. Juli 2004 20:12 schrieb Matthias Grimm:

In the last time a lot of error reports arrived that pbbuttonsd would crash 
from time to time on new 2.6 kernels. The phenomenon occoured after
triggering sleep. In some cases the machine continue to work and pbbuttonsd 
didn't react at all. It hanged.

This problem was difficult to track because the phenomenon was not 
deterministic and could only be reproduced by chance.

But now I got it. To my regret it is a bug in pbbuttonsd. :-(

The problem occour in conjunction with ALSA and is not limited to kernel 2.6.
Since Kernel 2.6 ALSA is official part of the kernel and many people uses 
kernel 2.6 together with ALSA (so am I) so the problem occours more often on 
this platform.

As quick sollution I attached a patch for pbbuttonsd 0.6.2 to this mail. Unzip 
it to your pbbuttonsd 0.6.2 source directory, change to this direchtory and 
type:
                        patch -p1 <pbbuttonsd-0.6.2_1.patch
After compiling and installing the problem should not occour again. An 
official release will follow after some additional test time. Look for it on 
sourceforge.net because my web site is currently off-line until I moved it to 
a new home, sorry. My web host has quited.

Due to an error in the ossmixer module the mixer device could remain open 
after first use (usually changing the volume with hotkeys). Normally 
pbbuttonsd opens the mixer device only as long as it would be needed. After a 
sleep request pbbuttonsd started the pmcs script and this script 
launched /etc/apm/alsa on systems using ALSA. This script sent a uncatchable 
stop signal to all processes that uses a sound device. If the mixer device 
was still open the script /etc/apm/alsa would stop pbbuttonsd. The script 
ends normally but the daemon hangs. Sleep mode would not be triggered 
anymore. The problem was so difficuil to hunt down because certain conditions 
must come together. First pbbuttonsd had to run as daemon, Alsa including the 
script /etc/apm/alsa had to be installed on the system, the pmcs-script 
'apm-compat' had to be active and the volume had to be adjusted with the 
hotkeys. If all this conditions come true and sleep was triggered (with key, 
cover or timer) pbbuttonsd would crash and the machine wouldn't go to sleep.

That was a lot of explanations and I will finish now. Have a nice weekend, I 
will :-)

  Best Regards
    Matthias

PBButtons website temporarely off-line

[Matthias G. <mat...@us...>]

Sorry, but some days ago my web host has quit his business and switched off 
all his servers. I thought I had some more time to search for a new location 
but now it's over.

As result my PBButtons web site will be offline until I moved it to a new 
home. I hope this will not last long. The archive on sourceforge.net is still
available and new versions will be placed there as usual.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

  Best Regards
   Matthias

Re: pbbuttonsd beta in CVS - suspend-to-disc suported

[<pd...@t-...>]

Hi Matthias,
seems to work for me. Thanks alot !

A few things that I encountered:

- had to update my autoconf and automake packages. Before that there
were errors during autogen.sh

- the script in suspend.d apparently never gets called. I just made a
script based on scripts.d/skeleton instead and put a symlink in event.d

- the pbbuttonsd package breaks in several places when installed to
/usr/local (which is the default when configure is called without
--prefix)

- make install did not create pmcs-config

- a broken symlink named CVS was installed in event.d

- all in all the error handling could be improved. pbbuttonsd always
says "skript called and exited normally" when in fact there were errors
and the skript did not run all the way through. Also, one could actually
test for the existence of files and directories before trying to open
them and log an error. This would have helped me to better identify the
problems with the missing pmcs-config and the /usr/local/etc vs. /etc
directories.

- pbbuttons.conf has an option to select what to do in an emergency. It
says "sleep" but we don't have that anymore. pmcs-pbbuttonsd ignores
this configuration item anyway, I believe.

Anyway, now I can just slam down the lid, machine suspends to disk and
powers down. Nice.

Regards,
Reiner

Am Mo, den 05.07.2004 schrieb Matthias Grimm um 19:49:
> Hi,
> I just uploaded a beta version of pbbuttonsd to CVS:
>       http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=47862
> 
> This beta supports now suspend-to-disk. The configuration
> has changed. Please see pbbuttonsd.conf for new options.
> 
> If suspend-to-disk has been configured, the pmcs-script
> will be called with the argument 'suspend-disc'. Nothing else
> is done by pbbuttonsd. All suspend work have to be done
> in the script.
> 
> Some of the scripts have not been updated to support the new
> arguments. Check the scripts before you use them for more than
> testing.
> 
> The powermanagement configuration become more flexible.
> The Timer, the cover and the sleepkey could now trigger
> independent actions: none, suspend-to-ram (the former sleep),
> suspend-to-disc and blankscreen. Each for 'ac' and 'battery'. 
> 
> I have no suspend-to-disc running yet so I'm very interested in
> feedback.
> 
>   Best Regards
>     Matthias
> 
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------
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Re: pbbuttonsd beta in CVS - suspend-to-disc suported

[<pd...@t-...>]

Thanks, I'll check it (next weekend if all goes well) and let you know
how it went.

Regards,
Reiner

Am Mo, den 05.07.2004 schrieb Matthias Grimm um 19:49:
> Hi,
> I just uploaded a beta version of pbbuttonsd to CVS:
>       http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=47862
> 
> This beta supports now suspend-to-disk. The configuration
> has changed. Please see pbbuttonsd.conf for new options.
> 
> If suspend-to-disk has been configured, the pmcs-script
> will be called with the argument 'suspend-disc'. Nothing else
> is done by pbbuttonsd. All suspend work have to be done
> in the script.
> 
> Some of the scripts have not been updated to support the new
> arguments. Check the scripts before you use them for more than
> testing.
> 
> The powermanagement configuration become more flexible.
> The Timer, the cover and the sleepkey could now trigger
> independent actions: none, suspend-to-ram (the former sleep),
> suspend-to-disc and blankscreen. Each for 'ac' and 'battery'. 
> 
> I have no suspend-to-disc running yet so I'm very interested in
> feedback.
> 
>   Best Regards
>     Matthias
> 
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------
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> Attend Black Hat Briefings & Training, Las Vegas July 24-29 - 
> digital self defense, top technical experts, no vendor pitches, 
> unmatched networking opportunities. Visit www.blackhat.com
> _______________________________________________
> pbbuttons-users mailing list
> pbb...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/pbbuttons-users

pbbuttonsd beta in CVS - suspend-to-disc suported

[Matthias G. <mat...@us...>]

Hi,
I just uploaded a beta version of pbbuttonsd to CVS:
      http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=47862

This beta supports now suspend-to-disk. The configuration
has changed. Please see pbbuttonsd.conf for new options.

If suspend-to-disk has been configured, the pmcs-script
will be called with the argument 'suspend-disc'. Nothing else
is done by pbbuttonsd. All suspend work have to be done
in the script.

Some of the scripts have not been updated to support the new
arguments. Check the scripts before you use them for more than
testing.

The powermanagement configuration become more flexible.
The Timer, the cover and the sleepkey could now trigger
independent actions: none, suspend-to-ram (the former sleep),
suspend-to-disc and blankscreen. Each for 'ac' and 'battery'. 

I have no suspend-to-disc running yet so I'm very interested in
feedback.

  Best Regards
    Matthias

New debian maintainer

[Matthias G. <mat...@us...>]

Hello,

The project pbbuttonsd and its related packages powerprefs and gtkpbbuttons 
have a new debian maintainer: Frank Lichtenheld.

The former debian maintainer Jan-Hendrik Palic is still named as 
co-maintainer, but he told me that he is too busy to furtheron build packages 
for pbbuttonsd. So I thank Frank Lichtenheld that he recently took over 
maintainace.

He has just uploaded pbbuttonsd 0.6.2 to the debian archive and closed most of 
the pending bugreports.

Best Regards
  Matthias

Re: Suspend to disk

[Matthias G. <mat...@us...>]

Am Freitag, 2. Juli 2004 19:58 schrieb Reiner Klenk:
> Hi,
> thanks for considering. I don't think it has to be very complicated. I
> use the pmdisk approach on 2.6.7. This needs a kernel patch on ppc but
> that wouldn't be pbbuttonsd's responsibility. Once the patched kernel is
> running all I have to do to suspend to disk is:
> echo disk > /sys/power/state
> ALSA modules need to be unloaded first but things like this could be
> handled much the same way as they are now for the sleep function: have
> swsuspend and swresume as possible arguments for the scripts and/or
> create /etc/power/swsuspend.d and /etc/power/swresume.d to place scripts
> that are run before and after swsuspend.

Yes, I think you are right. I am working on that already but it will take some 
more time and will change the suspend configuration completely. This become 
necessary because I can't choose between multiple suspend modes with yes/no 
parameters. I give more information after the first running code is commited 
to CVS.

Best Regards
 Matthias

Re: Suspend to disk

[<pd...@t-...>]

Hi,
thanks for considering. I don't think it has to be very complicated. I 
use the pmdisk approach on 2.6.7. This needs a kernel patch on ppc but 
that wouldn't be pbbuttonsd's responsibility. Once the patched kernel is 
running all I have to do to suspend to disk is:
echo disk > /sys/power/state
ALSA modules need to be unloaded first but things like this could be 
handled much the same way as they are now for the sleep function: have 
swsuspend and swresume as possible arguments for the scripts and/or 
create /etc/power/swsuspend.d and /etc/power/swresume.d to place scripts 
that are run before and after swsuspend.

Thanks,
Reiner

Matthias Grimm wrote:
> Am Donnerstag, 1. Juli 2004 20:03 schrieb Reiner Klenk:
> 
> 
>>solved my run-parts problem by downloading and compiling debianutils.
>>Now I have a feature request: current powerbooks do not support suspend
>>to RAM. However, suspend to disk can be made to work with recent 2.6.X
>>kernels. It would be nice if pbbuttonsd would support this. In addition
>>to the "sleep mode" we would have a "suspend to disk mode" together with
>>a new set of tags to configure it.
> 
> 
> I thought already about that but don't know how pbbuttonsd could support this 
> yet.
> 
> I look at the swsusp patch which is controlled by a huge script (about 40 kB) 
> and take a lot of details into account. It checks a lot of driver issues 
> which must be suspended and reloaded appropriately. I haven't any idea yet 
> how pbbuttonsd could control such a complicated system.
> 
> I must confess I haven't spent much time on this issue. If anybody have good 
> ideas or suggestions please let me know.
> 
>  Best Regards
>     Matthias
> 
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------
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> Attend Black Hat Briefings & Training, Las Vegas July 24-29 - 
> digital self defense, top technical experts, no vendor pitches, 
> unmatched networking opportunities. Visit www.blackhat.com
> _______________________________________________
> pbbuttons-users mailing list
> pbb...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/pbbuttons-users

Re: Suspend to disk

[Matthias G. <mat...@us...>]

Am Donnerstag, 1. Juli 2004 20:03 schrieb Reiner Klenk:

> solved my run-parts problem by downloading and compiling debianutils.
> Now I have a feature request: current powerbooks do not support suspend
> to RAM. However, suspend to disk can be made to work with recent 2.6.X
> kernels. It would be nice if pbbuttonsd would support this. In addition
> to the "sleep mode" we would have a "suspend to disk mode" together with
> a new set of tags to configure it.

I thought already about that but don't know how pbbuttonsd could support this 
yet.

I look at the swsusp patch which is controlled by a huge script (about 40 kB) 
and take a lot of details into account. It checks a lot of driver issues 
which must be suspended and reloaded appropriately. I haven't any idea yet 
how pbbuttonsd could control such a complicated system.

I must confess I haven't spent much time on this issue. If anybody have good 
ideas or suggestions please let me know.

 Best Regards
    Matthias

Re: run-parts

[Matthias G. <mat...@us...>]

Am Mittwoch, 30. Juni 2004 21:59 schrieb Reiner Klenk:
> Greetings,
>
> pbbuttonsd assumes that run-parts can be called with arguments that are
> passed on to the scripts it executes. On my (Redhat and Yellowdog)
> systems run-parts is a simple script (included in the cron package) and
> it accepts only one argument (the script directory). Therfore, nothing
> at all happens when policy or powersource are changing. Could someone
> point me to a site where I can download the source for a run-parts
> version that does what pbbuttonsd requires ?

Hi,
You find a run-parts program that work in the package debianutils on 
debian.org.

 Best Regards
   Matthias

Suspend to disk

[<pd...@t-...>]

Hello,
solved my run-parts problem by downloading and compiling debianutils. 
Now I have a feature request: current powerbooks do not support suspend 
to RAM. However, suspend to disk can be made to work with recent 2.6.X 
kernels. It would be nice if pbbuttonsd would support this. In addition 
to the "sleep mode" we would have a "suspend to disk mode" together with 
a new set of tags to configure it.

Regards,
Reiner

run-parts

[<pd...@t-...>]

Greetings,

pbbuttonsd assumes that run-parts can be called with arguments that are 
passed on to the scripts it executes. On my (Redhat and Yellowdog) 
systems run-parts is a simple script (included in the cron package) and 
it accepts only one argument (the script directory). Therfore, nothing 
at all happens when policy or powersource are changing. Could someone 
point me to a site where I can download the source for a run-parts 
version that does what pbbuttonsd requires ?

Thanks,
Reiner

Kernel 2.6.7 Oops when suspending

[Matthias G. <mat...@ht...>]

Hi,
Recently a problem occured when pressing the power key to suspend the
machine on kernel 2.6.7. This might be interesting for some of you so
I forwarded the mail describing the problem and attach a second that
explain the solution:

----- The Problem -----

From: Jaume Sabater <jsa...@li...>
To: su...@bu...
Reply-To: Jaume Sabater <jsa...@li...>, 25...@bu...
Subject: Bug#256818: pbbuttonsd: Kernel 2.6.7 oops when suspending
Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2004 11:56:37 +0200
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux ppc; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040624
    Debian/1.7-2

Subject: pbbuttonsd: Kernel 2.6.7 oops when suspending
Package: pbbuttonsd
Version: 0.6.0-1
Severity: important

*** Please type your report below this line ***

Hi.

I am running kernel 2.6.7 vanilla on an iBook G3 800 MHZ (rev. 2.2
afaik). When I suspend the iBook (or when it tries for itself) I get a
(long) kernel oops.

Here you are the kernel oops:

[... , register dump removed, MG]

Any hints?

----- The Solution ---

From: Jaume Sabater <jsa...@li...>
To: 25...@bu...
Reply-To: Jaume Sabater <jsa...@li...>, 25...@bu...
Subject: Bug#256818: Problem solved: it was the kernel
Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2004 22:02:16 +0200
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux ppc; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040624
    Debian/1.7-2

I have found, thanks to Warren A. Layton (zeevon at debian dot org) from
the debian-powerpc list, the solution of the problem. The kernel config
parameter CONFIG_SERIAL_PMACZILOG has to be deselected. It seems it's a
bug from the kernel which is not yet solved as of 2.6.7.

----------------------

Best Regards
  Matthias

-------------------------------------------------------

PBButtonsd 0.6.2 released - minor bug fix

[Matthias G. <mat...@us...>]

Hi,
Pbbuttonsd 0.6.2 is out.

This release fixes some bugs in keyboard illumination control code. Manual 
adjustments with automatic adjustment enabled work again. Further on missing 
keycodes for keyboard illumination keys were added. 

Best Regards
  Matthias

Re: pbbuttonsd feature request

[Matthias G. <mat...@us...>]

Am Samstag, 29. Mai 2004 23:04 schrieben Sie:

Hi Lucas,

> I'm sending you this mail since I can't get my mail to land on the
> mailing list you created for pbbuttonsd. And I read on debian-powerpc
> that your TODO list was empty, so here I come with my requests :)

The reason for that is that you have to be subscribed to be able to send mails 
to the list. I apoligize any inconvinience but there is no other way because 
spammer would flood each open list within seconds and I won't invite this 
dammed creatures to abuse my list.

I forwarded your mail to the list.

> First of all, I find pbbuttonsd great, since it's as good as OS X,
> except for two things :
>
> - when I'm watching a video, the dimming of the screen still works, so I
> have to move the mouse or push a key every now and then.
>
> - my iBook goes to sleep when I'm listening to music and I'm on battery.
>
> That's quite annoying, actually. Would it be possible to turn that off
> without having to stop pbbuttonsd, like OS X does ? I know there is an
> option to prevent sleep within a certain cpu load, but I think a dynamic
> or "intelligent" behavior would be great. Well, just an extra option
> would please me

There is a simple workaround for your problem. With pbbuttonsd there comes a 
small utility that is able to send commands to pbbuttonsd. For example to 
switch of screen dimming you could write:
 sh> pbbcmd config onactimedim 0
 sh> pbbcmd config onbatterytimedim 0

You could  use the same utility to query the values to able to restore them 
later. If you put this lines into a small script and for example add a button 
into your taskbar (if you use KDE or GNOME) to call this script. you could 
switch dimming on/off with a single mouseclick.

The same is possible with all other pbbuttonsd options.

If you have any idea to make the sleeplooks work better, you mentioned an 
intelligent algorithm, please let me know. Im always looking for new ideas 
and features that will ease life.

> Last thing, OS X has 15 levels of sound, when pbbuttonsd has 100. I know
> you can hit Shift+sound key to turn it up or down faster, but an option
> to configure how many levels corresponds to a keypress would be great.

Pbbuttonsd uses 100 Steps because OSS and also ALSA in compatibility mode uses 
0-100% to adjust volume. It might be possible to ask the sound system how 
many volume steps are available in real, but I don't know yet. If so 
pbbuttonsd could handle your request automatically and no additional option 
is necessary. I put this to my todo list :-)

> Well, that's all I have to ask, hope it's not too much. Thanks for
> your work, regards.

 You are welcome :-)

 Best Regards
   Matthias

Fwd: pbbuttonsd feature request

[Matthias G. <mat...@us...>]

Pbbuttonsd 0.6.1 released

[Matthias G. <mat...@us...>]

PBButtonsd 0.6.1 released - major bug fix

This release is mainly a bug fix release. Sometime pbbuttonsd won't start and 
report that it is already running. This happend if something went wrong 
during program initialization caused by a bug in the daemonize code. This 
won't happen anymore. Further on a bug in the display module was fixed and a 
lot of small changes and corrections have been made to the new PMCS script 
system.

For all details please see the Changelog.

The release is available on http://www.cymes.de/members/joker/index.html
or http://sourceforge.net/projects/pbbuttons/

 Enjoy and Best Regrads
   Matthias

[pbbuttons-users] Noch'n test

[Matthias G. <mat...@us...>]

Test Test

[pbbuttons-users] Test

[Matthias G. <mat...@us...>]

TestEtst

[pbbuttons-users] Test

[Matthias G. <mat...@us...>]

Test