linux (2.6.32-10.14) - "delay first lookup of the battery until first use" confuses KDE battery management

Hi zigi,

You noted this is a regression. Can you comment which was the most recent kernel where this wasn't an issue so we can narrow down the window the regression may have been introduced? I'm also changing the tag from "regression-proposed" to "regression-potential" for now. For an explanation of the regression-* tags, please refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/RegressionTracking. Thanks.

With linux (2.6.32-9.13) it was ok. As I mention above: from linux (2.6.32-10.14) changelog:
   SAUCE: acpi battery -- delay first lookup of the battery until first use ... I think this is the problem.

With linux (2.6.32-11) no change.

@zigi -- can you indicate what 'before first use' means in your report here? The patch you indicate does change the battery scanning to delay it until first access. But any use ought to make up to date so its not obvious how not-present would be exposed.

    "KDE4 battery widget status is now "Battery: not present" until first use, which is misleading and confusing."

Ok I think I have a handle on this. In the default lucid install you can see this too. If you boot without the AC connected you will not get a battery icon as expected, inserting the power fixes this. Looks like attaching to netlink is not something we can see and trigger an update for. It seems easier to move just the first update async.

@Andy thank you for your work.

My test case:
Boot system (KUBUNTU - 10.04 Lucid) with AC adapter plugged in.
Baterry widget and PowerDevil report "Battery: not present".
After unplugging AC adapter system detects battery.
Plug AC adapter to notebook.

After boot with AC Adapter plugged in the ACPI - Battery procfs structure exists:

/proc/acpi/battery/:
total 0
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root 0 2010-01-27 07:28 BAT0

/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0:
total 0
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 2010-01-27 07:28 alarm
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 2010-01-27 07:28 info
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 2010-01-27 07:28 state

and after this command the KDE enviroment detects battery:

$ cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info

I will test your fix after release.

This bug was fixed in the package linux - 2.6.32-12.16

---------------
linux (2.6.32-12.16) lucid; urgency=low

  [ Andy Whitcroft ]

  * Revert "SAUCE: acpi battery -- delay first lookup of the battery until
    first use"
  * SAUCE: acpi battery -- move first lookup asynchronous
    - LP: #507211
  * [Config] update configs to cleanup generic configs
  * [Config] disable CONFIG_X86_CPU_DEBUG for amd64
  * [Config] enable USER_NS
    - LP: #480739, #509808

  [ Heiko Carstens ]

  * (pre-stable) driver-core: fix devtmpfs crash on s390
    - LP: #512370

  [ John Johansen ]

  * [Config] for server and virtual flavours make CONFIG_SCSI_SYM53C8XX_2=y
    - LP: #494565
  * [Config] VIRTIO=y for server/virtual flavours
    - LP: #494565

  [ Kay Sievers ]

  * (pre-stable) Driver-Core: devtmpfs - set root directory mode to 0755
    - LP: #512370

  [ Kees Cook ]

  * SAUCE: x86: brk away from exec rand area
    - LP: #452175

  [ Leann Ogasawara ]

  * [Upstream] e1000: enhance frame fragment detection
    - CVE-2009-4536
  * [Upstream] e1000e: enhance frame fragment detection
    - CVE-2009-4538

  [ Sebastian Kapfer ]

  * (pre-stable) Input: ALPS - add interleaved protocol support (Dell E6x00
    series)
    - LP: #296610

  [ Upstream Kernel Changes ]

  * inotify: do not reuse watch descriptors
    - LP: #485556
  * inotify: only warn once for inotify problems
  * revert "drivers/video/s3c-fb.c: fix clock setting for Samsung SoC
    Framebuffer"
  * memcg: ensure list is empty at rmdir
  * drm/i915: remove loop in Ironlake interrupt handler
  * block: Fix incorrect reporting of partition alignment
  * x86, mce: Thermal monitoring depends on APIC being enabled
  * futexes: Remove rw parameter from get_futex_key()
  * page allocator: update NR_FREE_PAGES only when necessary
  * x86, apic: use physical mode for IBM summit platforms
  * edac: i5000_edac critical fix panic out of bounds
  * x86: SGI UV: Fix mapping of MMIO registers
  * mfd: WM835x GPIO direction register is not locked
  * mfd: Correct WM835x ISINK ramp time defines
  * ALSA: hda - Fix missing capture mixer for ALC861/660 codecs
  * V4L/DVB (13868): gspca - sn9c20x: Fix test of unsigned.
  * reiserfs: truncate blocks not used by a write
  * HID: add device IDs for new model of Apple Wireless Keyboard
  * PCI/cardbus: Add a fixup hook and fix powerpc
  * Input: pmouse - move Sentelic probe down the list
  * asus-laptop: add Lenovo SL hotkey support
  * sched: Fix cpu_clock() in NMIs, on !CONFIG_HAVE_UNSTABLE_SCHED_CLOCK
  * sparc64: Fix NMI programming when perf events are active.
  * sparc64: Fix Niagara2 perf event handling.
  * i2c: Do not use device name after device_unregister
  * i2c/pca: Don't use *_interruptible
  * serial/8250_pnp: add a new Fujitsu Wacom Tablet PC device
  * sched: Fix task priority bug
  * vfs: Fix vmtruncate() regression
  * Linux 2.6.32.5
  * x86, msr/cpuid: Register enough minors for the MSR and CPUID drivers
  * V4L/DVB (13900): gspca - sunplus: Fix bridge exchanges.
  * Staging: asus_oled: fix oops in 2.6.32.2
  * Staging: hv: fix smp problems in the hyperv core code
  * tty: fix race in tty_fasync
  * ecryptfs: use after free
  * ecryptfs: initi...

@zigi -- could you try the 2.6.32-12.15 kernel and see if it works better for you. Seems to help on gnome.

@Andy - it works - all my tests passed