HOWTO monitor your battery from the console

[bones]

So, you've installed some version of LinuxBBQ on your laptop, and you're wondering how to monitor your battery life without some fancy-pants widget on a panel? You've got a couple of options.

For a very comprehensive output, without installing anything extra, open up a terminal window and enter:

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upower -i /org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0

For a more simplified option, you could install acpi:

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sudo apt-get install acpi

To check the state of the charge of the battery:

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acpi

The output could be something like this:

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Battery 1: discharging, 44%, 00:18:48 remaining

To check the battery temperature:

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acpi -t

And the output could be:

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Battery 1: discharging, 37%, 00:15:59 remaining
Thermal 1: ok, 49.0 degrees C

If you need it in Fahrenheit:

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acpi -t -f

To check the AC power status:

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acpi -a 

The output could be:

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Battery 1: discharging, 30%, 00:13:31 remaining
AC Adapter 1: off-line

You can check all the states together:

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acpi -V

The output could be:

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Battery 1: discharging, 27%, 00:11:29 remaining
Thermal 1: ok, 50.0 degrees C
AC Adapter 1: off-line

Remember kids, xfce4-power-manager is bloat!

[machinebacon]

Bump :)

Thanks for that - some version of the Q come with upower, others with acpi, others without any of them, so it was indeed a good idea to mention the possibilities there.
Maybe we should collectively write a little applet that can replace *-system-monitor and *-power-manager ...

[DebianJoe]

Maybe we should collectively write a little applet that can replace *-system-monitor and *-power-manager ...

Got a preference in languages? ;)

As much as I like writing about hacking emacs, I could use to get back on my new Elektra install and whipping out some little projects.

edit: @Ghost Pidsley, I'll get on those lisp-based WMs right now. Even though now that post doesn't exist, and you're starting to make me think that I'm crazier than has already been affirmed.

[pidsley]

^ damn. I thought I deleted that post about the WMs before you saw it. No pressure. I don't really care, and obviously no one else is beating down our doors because stumpwm doesn't work.

(edit) sorry about that. I tried to delete the post before you saw it. I need to go to sleep.

[paolo]

Thanks Bones !

[machinebacon]

@DebJoe: anything goes, I guess. Of course I like it as frugal as possible, so a nice bash wrapper for the TUI and something with a GUI. If it's bash, we can use yad (which I really like as interface for simple on/off/select/deselect switches)

I'll open a thread later today or tomorrow in the Dev section and link to it from here. Thanks!

[dkeg]

nice bones, thanks for that.

I've been working on a small script to output conky information through dunst and set to a keybind. Call it when you need it. Still work in progress.

[bones]

I love that a guy like me with nil programming skills can post something like this, and then you guys take it and run with it, brainstorming the hell outta that shit. :D