From Bug #386778 reported by Patrick (patrick-voegeli): Using Karmic, gnome-power-manager doesn't work fine. It won't detect that the battery is discharging or even running on battery. Also, when pluging in the AC to charged, it acts flacky. When running on battery: atrick@patrick-laptop:~$ acpi -ab --details Battery 0: Unknown, 34% Battery 0: design capacity 5200 mAh, last full capacity 4587 mAh = 88% Adapter 0: off-line When running on ac: patrick@patrick-laptop:~$ acpi -ab --details Battery 0: Charging, 34%, 01:12:51 until charged Battery 0: design capacity 5200 mAh, last full capacity 4587 mAh = 88% Adapter 0: on-line Running on battery and plugging the AC: patrick@patrick-laptop:~$ lshal -m Start monitoring devicelist: ------------------------------------------------- 20:27:54.653: computer_power_supply_battery_BAT0 property battery.remaining_time = 1569 (0x621) (new) 20:27:54.659: computer_power_supply_battery_BAT0 property battery.charge_level.percentage = 33 (0x21) 20:27:54.662: computer_power_supply_battery_BAT0 property battery.charge_level.rate = 0 (0x0) 20:27:54.665: computer_power_supply_battery_BAT0 property battery.charge_level.design = 56976 (0xde90) 20:27:54.668: computer_power_supply_battery_BAT0 property battery.charge_level.last_full = 50259 (0xc453) 20:27:54.671: computer_power_supply_battery_BAT0 property battery.charge_level.current = 17060 (0x42a4) 20:27:54.688: computer_power_supply_battery_BAT0 property battery.reporting.current = 1557 (0x615) 20:27:54.689: computer_power_supply_battery_BAT0 property battery.rechargeable.is_discharging = true 20:27:54.690: computer_power_supply_battery_BAT0 property battery.reporting.rate = 0 (0x0) 20:27:54.691: computer_power_supply_battery_BAT0 property battery.voltage.current = 10957 (0x2acd) 20:27:54.770: computer_power_supply_ac_adapter_ADP1 property ac_adapter.present = true Running on ac and unplugging: patrick@patrick-laptop:~$ lshal -m Start monitoring devicelist: ------------------------------------------------- 20:28:26.272: computer_power_supply_battery_BAT0 property battery.remaining_time = 4357 (0x1105) 20:28:26.279: computer_power_supply_battery_BAT0 property battery.charge_level.current = 17504 (0x4460) 20:28:26.280: computer_power_supply_battery_BAT0 property battery.reporting.current = 1577 (0x629) 20:28:26.282: computer_power_supply_battery_BAT0 property battery.voltage.current = 11658 (0x2d8a) 20:28:26.367: computer_power_supply_ac_adapter_ADP1 property ac_adapter.present = false Both acpi and hal will detect the change from battery to charging IMMEDIATELY, but gnome-power-manager won't. It doesn't detect it's running on battery at all: the icon is like when running only on AC (only the plug icon), and if under preferences "running on ac" tab I pull the brightness down, it will decrease the brightness. In the general tab, the icon will only display if Display always is checked, the other 3 options hide the power-manager icon. Also, as stated before, when pluging the ac, it will first display discharging (even though it acts as when on AC, icon displayed is a battery) and after half a minute it will show the correct charging state (battery with the plug) When unplugged: root@patrick-laptop:~# cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/state present: yes capacity state: ok charging state: charged present rate: 3808 mA remaining capacity: 2236 mAh present voltage: 10717 mV root@patrick-laptop:~# cat /proc/acpi/ac_adapter/ADP1/state state: off-line When plugged (just after plugging in, gnome-power-manager still has the battery only icon) root@patrick-laptop:~# cat /proc/acpi/ac_adapter/ADP1/state state: on-line root@patrick-laptop:~# cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/state present: yes capacity state: ok charging state: charging present rate: 2488 mA remaining capacity: 2187 mAh present voltage: 11591 mV