Request: Improve documentation on unsupported hardware

[jluttine]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

When battery care is not supported, it'd be nice to know more about the reason or what can be done if anything. The documentation could be a bit more explicit about this.

I'm referring to this section: https://linrunner.de/tlp/settings/bc-vendors.html#unsupported-hardware

Describe the solution you'd like

I'd like to see a bit more information in that section on what "unsupported hardware" means.

• Does it mean that there is no way to ever get the battery care features because the hardware is missing something?
• Does it mean that TLP currently doesn't support the hardware but support could be added?
• Does it mean that some other component (e.g., kernel, driver, firmware) is missing support for the hardware features but they could be added in those components?

Now, I'm a bit lost what I can do if anything. "Unsupported hardware" is a bit vague term to me.

So, could this information be added to that section?

Also, the section says that for unsupported hardware, the output of tlp-stat -b looks like this:

+++ Battery Care
Plugin: generic
Supported features: none available

But in my case, the output is:

+++ Battery Care
Plugin: asus
Supported features: none available
Driver usage:
* natacpi (asus_wmi) = inactive (laptop not supported)

So, they are different because Plugin is not generic but asus. So, I'm not sure if my output is what unsupported hardware output is expected to be. I suppose so, but maybe if Plugin can be something other than generic, the example output in the docs could be given as:

+++ Battery Care
...
Supported features: none available
...

instead of fixing Plugin to be generic if it doesn't need to be. Here, ... means that there can be anything and the only thing that is relevant is the line Supported features.

Describe alternatives you've considered

-

Additional context

-

[linrunner]

Plugin: asus indicates that an ASUS laptop has been detected via the loaded asus_wmi driver, but the driver does not provide a working stop charge threshold sysfile /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/charge_control_end_threshold (https://github.com/linrunner/TLP/blob/main/bat.d/15-asus#L100). But TLP cannot find out on which level - hardware, firmware, kernel driver - the problem lies. The required kernel version is given in the TLP documentation.

I am not convinced that detailed explanations about possible causes really help. Of course, no user likes it when a feature is not supported. But if you really want to delve deeper, you have to have corresponding engineering knowledge anyway.

[jluttine]

Ah, ok, well that's already good information to know that the problem can be on any level (hardware, firmware, kernel driver). I mean, if one can say what are the possible causes, that already helps a lot. So, if those are the levels where the issue can be, then perhaps that could be stated in the docs? Thanks anyway!

[linrunner]

I have expanded the documentation. Thanks for the suggestion.