Re: envstat wrong: who's at fault?

[Jukka Ruohonen <jruohonen%iki.fi@localhost>]

On Mon, Jul 26, 2010 at 03:47:16AM -0400, der Mouse wrote:
> The actual application-level program I've built (or rather, which I've
> built the first version of) does use the envsys(4) ioctls.  I guess
> I'll have to measure the discharge rate rather than believe what that
> field is returning, then, if it turns out I care about it (in the
> current version, I don't care about it, but some of the changes I've
> been thinking about would need it).

I've tried to gather some power consumption measurements as well. While
doing this, I quickly came to the conclusion that the discharge rate, and
acpibat(4) generally, can deliver only very coarse approximations.  If you
need accuracy, an old-fashioned power meter is your friend.

> In passing, would it be appropriate and/or useful to suggest
> improvements to that API?  When I was writing code, I found the
> envsys(4) ioctls to be deficient for my purposes.  (Not cripplingly so,
> but annoyingly so.)  Would it be useful to outline what I as an
> application author would like to see, and, if so, should I do it here,
> or in a change-request PR, or what?

The envsys(4) framework was modified in 5.0, so now it is actually "envsys 2
framework". I believe Paul Goyette is the current maintainer, so he is the
one to talk to. Note that backwards compatibility can be an issue.

- Jukka.