Use of update_interval_on_battery in default conky scripts

ghorvath · 2018-06-17 09:19:22

On laptops it would make sense to use the

update_interval_on_battery

option along with the usual

update_interval

setting.

For a laptop I would not want my conky draw that much resources, because I would want to use the battery life for more important things, but it is still useful to have some kind of a feedback from conky every once in a while. Right now the default conky setting is

update_interval = 1,

and I would say that when on battery, 2-3 seconds updates are more than enough not to drain the battery too fast with conky.
So my suggestion would be to add the extra line

update_interval_on_battery = 2,

into the default conky scripts. This would not make a difference for desktop machines, only for laptops when on batteries.

johnraff · 2018-06-20 03:42:31

This sounds sensible.
Does conky take a significant % of total power consumption in a default BL system?
Any comments from conky people?

ohnonot · 2018-06-20 04:07:54

my conky (a much expanded verison of the default, but no fancy lua stuff, just some conky graphs) runs at around 0.5% CPU on an intel i3 quad-core (ranging from 1 - 2.5 GHz).
measured with both conky and htop, 0.5% is my average. both apps report way below 1%.

Last edited by ohnonot (2018-06-20 04:08:08)

cloverskull · 2018-06-20 08:31:53

Is there some way, maybe with powertop, that we can profile the actual power consumption over a set period of time?

sleekmason · 2018-06-20 14:55:33

Is there some way, maybe with powertop, that we can profile the actual power consumption over a set period of time?

Here are a few ideas that could be expanded upon.
You can isolate the process in top by first getting the pid(s):

pgrep conky
930
931

and then:

top -p 930

top - 09:46:20 up 57 min,  2 users,  load average: 0.21, 0.39, 0.48
Tasks:   1 total,   0 running,   1 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
%Cpu(s):  7.2 us,  2.3 sy,  0.0 ni, 90.3 id,  0.2 wa,  0.0 hi,  0.0 si,  0.0 st
KiB Mem :  2008572 total,   226904 free,   861072 used,   920596 buff/cache
KiB Swap:  2148348 total,  2148348 free,        0 used.  1206040 avail Mem 

  PID USER      PR  NI    VIRT    RES    SHR S  %CPU %MEM     TIME+ COMMAND         
  930 sleek     20   0  839920  12296   9196 S   0.0  0.6   0:15.05 conky

To get really involved, you could use perf:

$ perf stat conky
conky: desktop window (b3) is root window
conky: window type - normal
conky: drawing to created window (0x2e00001)
conky: drawing to double buffer
conky: forked to background, pid is 10723

 Performance counter stats for 'conky':

         38.982774      task-clock:u (msec)       #    0.665 CPUs utilized          
                 0      context-switches:u        #    0.000 K/sec                  
                 0      cpu-migrations:u          #    0.000 K/sec                  
             1,165      page-faults:u             #    0.030 M/sec                  
        45,404,196      cycles:u                  #    1.165 GHz                    
        42,228,333      instructions:u            #    0.93  insn per cycle         
         8,468,147      branches:u                #  217.228 M/sec                  
           257,336      branch-misses:u           #    3.04% of all branches        

       0.058600452 seconds time elapsed

Here's a bunch of perf examples.
Examples-for-perf

unklar · 2018-06-20 21:26:08

ghorvath wrote:

update_interval_on_battery = 2,

I think there's been a misunderstanding.
The command tells Conky to check the charging status of the battery every 2 seconds.
This has nothing to do with saving electricity.
If I am, then the order should be:

update_interval_on_battery = 20,

that's how I know, because Conky only does a correct evaluation after this time.

Generally I know that Conky causes a higher power consumption in syntax 1.10 than in syntax 1.9. However, this is negligible and depends on how many LUA scripts are used.

ohnonot · 2018-06-21 06:06:42

unklar wrote:

I think there's been a misunderstanding.
The command tells Conky to check the charging status of the battery every 2 seconds.

sorry, but you are wrong there.
the documentation for both 1.8 and 1.10 clearly says:

update_interval_on_battery Update interval when running on batterypower

unklar · 2018-06-21 08:39:57

Yeah, that's right.
That's exactly what I wrote.

Excuse me for not being a native speaker. :8

ohnonot · 2018-06-21 23:27:06

i wasn't blaming you or anything.
i'm not a native speaker myself.

just to clarify:
the update_interval_on_battery changes the update_interval to the value specified when running on battery.

if that's what you meant all along, then no harm done, eh?
"Doppelt genäht hält besser"

Last edited by ohnonot (2018-06-21 23:28:26)

unklar · 2018-06-22 10:01:47

@ohnonot

absolutely right!
I dare not contradict you.

Laadna · 2018-11-29 14:53:59

Hello,

On my labtop the variable update_interval_on_battery does not work. It does not change anything when I also have update_interval (battery plugged or not), and behaves exactly like update_interval if left alone.

I think that is because my battery is BAT1 (tested with ${battery_time BAT0} and ${battery_time BAT1}, the first one displays nothing and the second one a proper timer). It looks like update_interval_on_battery checks only for BAT0.

Any advice ?

Last edited by Laadna (2018-11-29 14:55:40)

unklar · 2018-11-29 21:28:44

I have no definite statement about your problem...
https://github.com/brndnmtthws/conky/issues/190

But, look here, maybe it's helpful. You have to do handicrafts yourself
https://forum.archlabslinux.com/t/simpl … -conky/594
https://forums.bunsenlabs.org/viewtopic … 931#p66931

Laadna · 2018-11-30 00:01:51

Thanks. This command

 ls /sys/class/power_supply/ | grep BAT | head -n 1

definitly did something. Although, update_interval_on_battery keeps behaving the same way.

I may not be that smart. What do you suggest me to do with the two last links ?

Last edited by Laadna (2018-11-30 00:02:29)

damo · 2018-11-30 07:54:48

Laadna wrote:

...
I may not be that smart. What do you suggest me to do with the two last links ?

Read the code and see how the user is accessing the battery ( BAT0 or BAT1) in their conky

ohnonot · 2018-12-01 07:21:02

unklar wrote:

I have no definite statement about your problem...
https://github.com/brndnmtthws/conky/issues/190

read all of it.
do you use
https://github.com/brndnmtthws/conky/pull/406
?

#1 2018-06-17 09:19:22

Use of update_interval_on_battery in default conky scripts

#2 2018-06-20 03:42:31

Re: Use of update_interval_on_battery in default conky scripts

#3 2018-06-20 04:07:54

Re: Use of update_interval_on_battery in default conky scripts

#4 2018-06-20 08:31:53

Re: Use of update_interval_on_battery in default conky scripts

#5 2018-06-20 14:55:33

Re: Use of update_interval_on_battery in default conky scripts

#6 2018-06-20 21:26:08

Re: Use of update_interval_on_battery in default conky scripts

#7 2018-06-21 06:06:42

Re: Use of update_interval_on_battery in default conky scripts

#8 2018-06-21 08:39:57

Re: Use of update_interval_on_battery in default conky scripts

#9 2018-06-21 23:27:06

Re: Use of update_interval_on_battery in default conky scripts

#10 2018-06-22 10:01:47

Re: Use of update_interval_on_battery in default conky scripts

#11 2018-11-29 14:53:59

Re: Use of update_interval_on_battery in default conky scripts

#12 2018-11-29 21:28:44

Re: Use of update_interval_on_battery in default conky scripts

#13 2018-11-30 00:01:51

Re: Use of update_interval_on_battery in default conky scripts

#14 2018-11-30 07:54:48

Re: Use of update_interval_on_battery in default conky scripts

#15 2018-12-01 07:21:02

Re: Use of update_interval_on_battery in default conky scripts

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