[LINK] Kogan Agora Laptop Better with Classic Interface and Flash Disk

[Karl Auer]

On Wed, 2011-06-22 at 08:15 +1000, Tom Worthington wrote:
> However, more of a problem was the new "Unity" interface of the Ubuntu 
> Linux software installed.

Unity is the new Ubuntu default interface, almost universally panned.
However, it is very new, and will no doubt get better (bugs, in
particular, will be fixed with time).

As you found out, switching to the classic GNOME interface is pretty
easy and solves the problem for those who don't want to be part of
improving Unity :-)

> The laptop still has limitations, the major one being the limited 
> battery life (now 2 hours and 45 minutes and less than the claimed 3 
> hours and 30 minutes).

Lithium Ion batteries are a story unto themselves - that 3.5 hours is
probably what you get from a brand new battery, or from booting the
thing and leaving it severely alone. Lithium Ion batteries lose a
percentage of their charging capacity just sitting on the shelf, and a
three-year-old battery will probably need replacing.

Besides which, when was the last time a laptop actually ran for as long
on one charge as the advertising said? Never in my experience :-)

>  I tried a number of other Linux power saving 
> tips, but most of these seem to have already been incorporated into the 
> newest versions of Linux.

One that people seem strangely loath to use is simply suspending the
thing, manually, when you stop working on it, even for a few minutes.
Modern laptops running Linux (and netbooks even more so) suspend and
resume in seconds.

If the laptop has interfaces that you don't use, turn them off in the
BIOS. Parallel ports and serial ports are pretty much a thing of the
past on modern laptops, but there are still USB ports, ESATA ports,
FireWire interfaces, all of which chew a a little power even when not in
use. Similarly, if you use 3G for your connectivity, get into the habit
of turning off the wireless - most laptops have an external switch that
will do this. In general, in fact, turn off the wireless whenever you
are not actually connected via wifi.

If (like me) you often leave things running unattended, then set the
laptop up to NOT suspend, but to just blank the screen when you close
the lid, then close the lid whenever you don't need to see the screen.
The laptop will keep running with the lid closed, but using much less
power.

Get yourself a car charger, the type that works off a cigarette lighter,
and get in the habit of charging the laptop whenever you get the chance.
If you or your family have multiple laptops, then get one of those can
inverters, so you can charge anything off a standard power outlet. I
carry around a double adapter too, so wherever there is power I can
recharge.

Linux has a processor speed control. Set the processor speed to half or
minimum. It will take a little longer to get things done, but the
battery savings from running your CPU(s) at half speed can be impressive
- apart from anything else, the fan will run less.

A second battery is generally quite small, especially for netbooks, and
will of course double your work time provided you swap them whenever you
are on mains power, so that both stay charged for when you need them.

Regards, K.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)                   +61-2-64957160 (h)
http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer/                   +61-428-957160 (mob)

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