[plug] Ubuntu Feisty and an APC UPS

[Brad Campbell]

G'day mobsters,

A mate of mine relocated countries recently and decided his APC Back-UPS CS 650 was just to heavy to 
bother with, so he left it for me. It's been sitting around as a doorstop for a couple of months and 
I finally got sick of tripping over it and decided to try and put it to use.

Now this device defies all known norms and uses a USB interface, which random google searches would 
have me believe are a bit odd to set up. Better still, there was no manual or data cable with the 
device.

Having found a pinout on the net and discovering to my dismay (at 8pm on a weekend when the techie 
stores are closed) that it uses a 10 pin RJ50 rather than an 8 pin RJ45 I did what any self 
respecting geek trying to avoid buying anything would do and broke out the soldering iron.

After ripping it to bits and butchering an old USB cable I managed to cobble it back together and 
hoped I'd got it right.

Thinking I'd plug it into the PC and at least see if I could get anything from lsusb before I 
started the task of figuring out how to configure nut (this will ultimately end up on my server 
which runs current debian stable), I powered it up off its internal battery and plugged the USB 
cable into the back of my mini (running Ubuntu Feisty).

Before I had a chance to open a console and do a lsusb, gnome power manager told me I was running on 
battery power and had 36 minutes of runtime left! Could have knocked me down with a feather. No 
configuration, no hassle, just plug and play!

It makes gnome power manager behave just like it would on a laptop battery and you can configure all 
the shutdown/hibernate times and options just like you would a laptop.

Its runtime estimate is deadly accurate, but its charging time estimates leave something to be 
desired, other than that I'm just blown away.

Colour me impressed.

Brad
-- 
"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability
to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable
for their apparent disinclination to do so." -- Douglas Adams