[ltp] Two batteries wonkiness

Henrique de Moraes Holschuh linux-thinkpad@linux-thinkpad.org
Fri, 8 Jun 2007 10:44:59 -0300


On Thu, 07 Jun 2007, Chris Schumann wrote:
> tp_smapi appears to be a right pain to install in FC6. Any hints or 
> tips? I'm using FC6, and found a tpctl rpm on dries, but it needs 

No idea, I use Debian with my own kernel.

> What's "the EC"?

Embedded Controller, a Renesas H8S microprocessor that is the real brain in
the thinkpad.  And it is not very bright, because whomever wrote the
firmware in that thing is not taking care of it properly :p

> Do you mean I should tell tp_smapi to switch batteries? Will that make 

Yes, if you don't want to junk it with 6 months of use.  AFAIK Li-Polimer
and Li-ION should be taken care of by the same protocol.  Now, if
Li-Polimer was to be taken core of as one does Ni-MH, then yes, draining it
dry would be the right thing to do.

> the Gnome desktop stop suspending when the bay battery gets low?

Only if Gnome is even more of a bad-written trash than I always thought it
was.

> Windows appears to drain the bay battery first, too. Is it in fact just 
> draining to 10% or so?

No idea.  But nobody uses Windows in a ThinkPad without the IBM/Lenovo
battery manager thing, and it is pretty capable of switching from one
battery to the other.

-- 
  "One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
  them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
  where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
  Henrique Holschuh