battstat applet is missing

Thank you for your bug report. However, the applet was removed deliberately because it uses deprecated technology (see the discussion here: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-desktop/2009-August/002183.html)

The applet uses the obsolete /proc/acpi interface (which is often incorrect and a source of bug reports when the battery status doesn't match what is expected) or HAL (which is also being deprecated as well, and the power functionality replaced with Devicekit-Power instead) for obtaining battery status info. Fedora haven't shipped this for some time either.

If there is functionality missing from g-p-m, it would be better to add it there rather than maintaining obsolete and buggy software which pulls in undesirable dependencies.

I can see that it was removed deliberately, and reading the reasons it seems understandable.

I would like to point out that the battstat applet is a very different thing from the g-p-m. It was an applet that could be moved and rearranged, the current charge could be displayed on the panel, the percentage, time remaining were options, it had a horizontal display option, and so on. The g-p-m appears in the notification area. It is not added by "add to panel." It is not the same type of thing and shows far less data.

Saying it uses deprecated methods or has too many bugs is one thing, but please do not promote the g-p-m as a replacement -- the two are not the same at all.

I ran into this in the beta and RC and was hoping it was a bug -- please, *please* remove "battstat applet" from the list of things provided by the gnome-applets package since it has actually been removed from the things provided by said package. Right now, someone (like me) who runs into this *problem* will think it an accident rather than a deliberate move.

Hi. If you want battstat-applet try next.

$ cd {any tmp directory}
$ apt-get source gnome-applets
$ cd gnome-applets-x.xx.x

Standard build process:

$ .configure
Repeat previous step until no warnings and all dependency libs installed.
$ make
$ sudo make install

Backup your system settings:
$ sudo cp GNOME_BattstatApplet.server ~/

Set new server:
$ sudo cp /usr/local/lib/bonobo/servers/GNOME_BattstatApplet.server /usr/lib/bonobo/servers/

"Restart" gnome-panels
$ killall gnome-panel

Try to add the applet you've built.

I understand, that it's dirty way. And I'm new in Linux and Ubuntu.

I was able to "cheat" by going to the nearest Debian mirror (in my case: http://debian.osuosl.org/debian/pool/main/g/gnome-applets/ ) and installing the appropriate gnome-applets AND gnome-applets-data for my version of Gnome. I ignored warnings that I was installing newer versions of the software than what was in the channel and after some dependencies were installed and I did a quick logout I was able to add back the battstat icon to my panel. This way seems to be better than having to do a complete build of the package manually and works on Ubuntu Karmic.

As has been already stated the Battstat applet is useful to endusers because it gives more accurate reports of battery life status at a glance. If Cannonical would like to remove battstat so badly, perhaps some attention could be given to gnome-powermanagement so it offers comparable features to battstat rather than just arbitarily removing things?

--bornagainpenguin

Hello. I've clashed with this problem too a couple months ago,
and I had my vision of applet for displaying battery status,
so I've started small project, and now I would like to make announce
for first version of public release here. See pages:
http://live.gnome.org/BatteryStatus
http://launchpad.net/battery-status
for more details. Any [constructive] feedback are welcome.
I hope, that this applet will solve problem of showing power state
information in a convenient way.

Update to the dirty hack mentioned above:

You'll need to install the latest version of libnotify1 in order to make this work on Lucid 10.04. You can find that the same way you found the gnome-applets

Hello,

There is a patch that came into Debian Unstable fixing the HAL dependency (using upower instead).
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=580429
From my own experience I can say it's doing pretty well.

Is there any other reason to call battstat-applet "obsolete and buggy software"? Because I definitely support what Ricky wrote here: g-p-m is just too different thing from battstat to be its replacement.

Moreover - battstat applet is the only straightforward (in look'n'feel) replacement of "Battery Maximizer" gauge for Thinkpad laptops users switching from Windows to Linux.

Any chance for the patch to come to Ubuntu and get battstat-applet reenabled?

... And it's also in stable now.