How can a mini PC be stopped from being detected as a laptop with a battery?
I'm an upstream kernel developer and the author of the kernel-patch linked from the original post.
I just discovered this thread today, this is a known issue with some of these Intel Atom x5-Z83xx based boxes, they use an AXP288 PMIC and often the BIOS does not turn off the fuel-gauge (battery monitoring) part of this chip.
The driver for the AXP288 fuel-gauge contains a list of devices like this: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/power/supply/axp288_fuel_gauge.c#n679
And it will automatically disable itself for devices on this list.
So the proper fix for this, which will make future Linux versions work out of the box, without needing manual configuration, is to add your device to this list.
I can do this for you, but I need some information about your model to be able to do this.
Please as a regular user in a terminal run:
grep . /sys/class/dmi/id/* 2> /dev/null
On the device and then copy and paste the output here, or send me an email with it at "Hans de Goede [email protected]".
That will give me the info which I need to add your device to the no-fuel-gauge list.
I think I fixed it. At the very least, the battery gauge is gone from GNOME.
In responding to @trond hansen's comment, and trying to find my wattage, I found I had an "axp288" something-or-other, and searching more about that, I found that the axp288 could be blacklisted in the kernel. (Perhaps check under /sys/class/power_supply to see what you have, if you are experiencing a problem like this.) It seems to be on a model-by-model basis, though - perhaps the axp288 is part of a legitimate battery sometimes. Anyway, I wanted to see if I could somehow add my own mini PC to that list, ideally without having to modify and compile the kernel myself!
But for now, you can just disable the battery gauge on your one machine:
sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-axp288.conf
Type in blacklist axp288_fuel_gauge then Ctrl+X to exit, Y to save changes, and Enter to confirm the filename. Then reboot. I hope this is the end of the misery. If I never come back to this thread, you can assume it was.
Shoutouts to the openSUSE forums for the fix! https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/531934-Leap-15-on-Intel-Atom-power-supply-fuel-gauge-driver-failed-endless-errors