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BLTK(1) Battery life tool kit BLTK(1)

NAME

bltk - tool kit is used to measure battery life and performance under different workloads on Linux.

SYNOPSIS

bltk [-hVvaNAcCBXswiIRPOYZyQzxul] [-t sec] [-r results_dir] [-m {0,1}] [-U path] [-g setup] [-J pid] [-T time] [-F file] [-W app] [-L title] [-K comment] [-e app] [-E app] [-p percent] [-d percent] [-o {0,1,2}] [-q file] [-b percent] [-f command] [-k num]

DESCRIPTION

The BLTK can be used with various workloads to simulate different types of laptop usage. The following workloads are currently implemented:

collect statistics only (mostly used to measure battery life)
simulates text reading on laptop (mostly used to measure battery life)
simulates laptop entertaining usage (produces constant average load on the system)
simulates laptop usage for different office activities (based on OpenOffice.org office suit)

When started, test collects platform/OS initial info and if it's OK prompts user to unplug AC adapter. After cable unplugged, workload started. During the workload execution test harness collects various system information (e.g. CPU load, battery drain, display state, CPU frequency, etc...). After battery completely discharged user should plug the AC cable back and boot the system. When it is done the results are available.

There are several tools for result evaluation. They allow creating report file for test run, to gather results into a table for system comparison, and to draw graphs for different purposes.

Results - after the battery dies and the system booted back, the results are available. They are stored in 'bltk/<wokload_name>.results' directory (or in the directory, specified in -r option). If target directory already exist the tool will add numeric extension to its name (.001, .002 e.t.c.) The results consist of the following files (see below for detailed description):

In this file 'bltk' command with arguments are stored
Here initial system info is stored. Another two files (info1.log, info2.log) contains system info after AC adapter was unplugged, and on 5% battery capacity remained. They are used to check whether any changes occurred during test execution.
Statistics generated by bltk harness are stored here. One statistic line generated per 1 minute (or per number of seconds, specified in -t option).
When -k 1 is used, the system information is stored under this directory. The numbers at the end of directory name have the following meanings:
0
initial system info
1
system info after AC adapter was unplugged
2
system info on 5% battery capacity remained
this file contains version information
the file contains info about workload
There are stored any error messages
Contains warnings
Strings generated by USR1, USR2 signals from workload. String format is the same as in the 'stat.log' file.
when test fails

OPTIONS

Help; display a help message and then exits.
Version; display version number and then exits.
Verbose
ignore ac adapter state check (on/off)
disable time statistics
disable ac adapter statistics
disable cpu load statistics
disable cpu additional statistics
disable battery statistics
Disable display state statistics
disable hard drive state statistics
frequency of report line generation in seconds
name of results directory
disable all statistics
disable workload statistics
dump statistics directly on disk or keep in memory, if statistics are kept in memory, it will be dumped on disk at low battery capacity, or at the test end
0
disk
1
memory (by default)
idle test
idle workload
reader workload
playback workload
office productivity workload
user-specified workload (path to executable)
setup routines for user-specified workload
battery discharge mode
battery charge mode
make jobs number
workload time
workload file
workload program name of player (player workload, default 'mplayer') name of web-browser (reader workload, default 'firefox')
title of web-browser document
enable time and cpu load statistics only
demo/debug mode, one iteration only
demo/debug mode, 'show-num' iteration
demo/debug mode, 'show-cnt' sub iteration
demo/debug mode, debug time
user comment for report
run program before test starting
run program as root before test starting
auto 'yes' answer to all questions
debug workload (see cpu-load and disp-load below)
debug workload, the time cpu loaded in percent
Debug workload, the time display on in percent
direct workload output:
0
file
1
file and console
2
/dev/null, other - console
debug option
debug option - debug variables file
debug option - try to use display power management
debug option - try to find out unexpected system activity
debug option, laptop simulation
debug option, battery critical capacity, default 5%
the output of user-specified command being added to statistics Example: -f "cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/TZ01/temperature | awk '{print }'"
debug option, save system files, default 0

EXAMPLES

idle workload running
reader workload running
office workload running
player workload running
idle test running for 60 seconds, stats interval 1 second

SEE ALSO

bltk.conf(5), bltk_report(1)

AUTHOR

Konstantin Karasyov   <konstantin.a.karasyov@intel.com>
Vladimir Lebedev      <vladimir.p.lebedev@intel.com>
15 July 2008 BLTK