Linux 3.1 Kernel Draws More Power With Another Regression

[Thatguy]

I'm sorry but the kernel developers do their own testing, if you find a bug and report it they will usually request you bi-sect it. It's a relatively easy process, saves the developer time (that won't be the only bug in their queue) and pin point the commit on your machine which is exhibiting the problem - it could be hardware or bios specific rather than a problem that affects everyone

Michael generates revenue from these articles, he makes a living from the opensource ecosystem, reporting these issues really aught to be his way of "paying back" the community.

I've reported quite a few problems in the past, both in the kernel and in user space. Git-bisect is a great tool for users to help developers fix issues. If you can't code or submit patches then it's one of the easiest ways to give back to the community

Oh dear now I sound like I'm ranting - oh well...

The real problem is that the Linux kernel code base is so big and complicated, its unlikely they know exactly what broke it. though many can speculate.

[gregzeng]

kernel (2.6.35) on my Sandy Bridge notebook - seems ok

I have questions:
* Which Sandy Bridge notebook was tested in article?
* I have Sandy Bridge notebook with discreate Radeon card and I do not see integrated Radeon in lspci (module i915 is not loading). Should be problem on my notebook too?
* What Sandy Bridge functionaly was added to kernels 3.0 and 3.1? Can I use old kernel (2.6.35) on my Sandy Bridge notebook?

Have been doing this since it was released for notebooks. Numerous distros (RPM, DEB), many recent version numbers. Will now add on kernel 3.1 -- hoping & risky.

Luckily my top-of-the-line HP Pavilion notebook is setup, offering XP-64, W7-64 & 4 Linux distros to choose to boot from. Each boot option use the same NTFS-MS partitions for archival, data & program storage on the two 750 GB HDDs, plus the esata (RAID0) & usb off-line drives.

Hope to try Ubuntu software-raid0 with the 2 HDDs of the notebook. Again another risk, if W7, W-XP can also work with multi choice boot options, as exists now. Luckily my $(AUD)99.00 2TB USB2 offline drive can backup my 1.5TB HDD notebook.

[DebianAroundParis]

Strange coincidence : my desktop computer with an integrated Intel G33 GPU works fine with kernel 2.6.37, but with any more recent kernel, after some hours the same problems appear : colors are replaced with wrong colors one by one, and after a little time I have to reboot since I cannot read clearly what is on my screen.

[ua=42]

Hmm, on my atom netbook, .37 is the last one without crippling power regressions. I just tried the 3.0 kernel a week ago and the nettop was running it's fan at max speed at idle and lost a couple hours of battery life compared to .37. Which is annoying since there are driver updates in the newer kernel that would actually make the bluetooth chip work. So it's the traditional, decide what you want to be broken since you can't update individual drivers issue. :-(

[Rynm]

Has anyone tried to test an E-350-based netbook yet? I'm going to buy one and I'm really curious how/if it is affected by these regressions.

[F.Ultra]

Yes Power is important for server farms, but usually this means that one uses virtualization techniques to pack each server more resource wise so that you can completely shut the idle ones down (and then wake them on lan when usage requires more servers). Also one has to consider whether IBM, Google and Red Hat even uses the kernels in question yet.

[Jonimus]

The Linux kernel is being developed for servers. It's time for a fork that creates a desktop oriented kernel.

Maybe Canonical should stop patching the official kernel and start that fork.

There are already Desktop oriented forks and see how popular they are, oh wait.

Also Power consumption is very important in severs, lower power means less heat and lower operating costs for the datacenter. The issue here was that the power saving features or w/e "rc6" is was buggy on sandybridge they disabled it so that you could actually use your laptop, which is much more important than how long the battery lasts.

[Aleve Sicofante]

The Linux kernel is being developed for servers. It's time for a fork that creates a desktop oriented kernel.

Maybe Canonical should stop patching the official kernel and start that fork.

[pali]

I have questions:
* Which Sandy Bridge notebook was tested in article?
* I have Sandy Bridge notebook with discreate Radeon card and I do not see integrated Radeon in lspci (module i915 is not loading). Should be problem on my notebook too?
* What Sandy Bridge functionaly was added to kernels 3.0 and 3.1? Can I use old kernel (2.6.35) on my Sandy Bridge notebook?

[Shining Arcanine]

I found another issue with setting everything to auto. My laptop no longer shuts down properly. I am trying to identify the cause.

Edit: It doesn't seem like only 1 device is causing this problem and I don't have time to understand it better right now. For the moment, I have configured a shutdown script to set everything to "on" immediately prior to shutdown, which allows my laptop to shutdown properly.