What is Reddit's opinion of TLP – Linux Advanced Power Management?

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I personally use TLP. Laptop mode tools or powertop would probably work equally. I've been able to get 2-3 more hours of battery life with a decent configuration.

I would think everything battery related is controlled by the EC (embedded controller) and not a program running in the OS.

Maybe Lenovo has a tool to signal the different charge states. TLP should help here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/TLP http://linrunner.de/en/tlp/tlp.html

Out of the box, most distributions have no power management set up. These days, you can use TLP and it will do all the setup for you. I'm getting 15h+ on a T450s i7 with the big battery pack.

Install TLP

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:linrunner/tlp sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install tlp tlp-rdw Since you have a thinkpad you need this too:

sudo apt-get install tp-smapi-dkms acpi-call-dkms

source: http://linrunner.de/en/tlp/tlp.html

X240 all the way. The ULV Haswell processor it has isn't nearly as powerful as the one in the X230, but it's significantly better in the battery department.

Get the 6-cell external battery (the bigger one) for the X240. That, coupled with the internal 3-cell should give you pretty long runtimes, even up to ~15 hours or so of normal use (YMMV).

The X230 idles at around ~10-15W while the X240 idles at something like ~4-6W.

To maximise runtime on Linux use tlp.

I imagine you know about TLP? It's in the openSUSE repos, you just install it and enable the service, and it automatically tunes a bunch of parameters to automatically reduce power usage considerably. It's by far the most effective change you can make to reduce power usage.

Got a T430, and aside from Optimus it was the same experience. Thinkpad + Linux is an amazing combination.

If you haven't already, you should check out TLP. It's a program that lets you do a whole bunch of power saving tweaks, and it has a few thinkpad exclusive features such as setting battery charge thresholds. Anyone with a laptop should check it out, but I'd consider it essential for Thinkpad owners.

Try using tlp. FWIW, I get pretty much the same battery life as I get on Windows (6 to 7 hours on an almost 2 year old battery, vs 7 to 8 hours on Windows when the battery was brand new) on my laptop (not an XPS). I'm not sure if it's because of tlp, though, since I just installed it when I installed my distro.

I'm not sure what graphics card the XPS uses, but it also could be a driver issue.

Play around with your config file, and read up on what the options mean on the website. The config files has lots of commented out explanations, but the website explains why.

http://linrunner.de/en/tlp/tlp.html

sudo nano /etc/defaults/tlp

[Yes I'm using nano, deal with it]

I'm gonna point you in what I think is the right direction, but I could be wrong.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UnderstandingSuspend

Specifically some troubleshooting found here.

• try suspend from console (via /etc/acpi/sleep.sh)
• make sure you're logged out of Xorg (or run sleep.sh with "force" argument)
• if the video BIOS isn't left in a sane state, returning to Xorg may hang the hardware
• tests capslock on resume (if no capslock, kernel hung)
• if backlight doesn't come back on, video BIOS probably didn't reinitialize
• if screen is blank, but has a backlight, try hitting enter or switching between virtual terminals
• try in single-user mode (via appending "single" to the grub kernel boot options)
• for details on actions, try bash -x /etc/acpi/sleep.sh >/root/sleep.log 2>&1
• look at dmidecode information that matches settings in /usr/share/acpi-support/*.config

You could look into an advanced power management program like TLP

http://linrunner.de/en/tlp/tlp.html

There is no front end, but it gives you some flexibility.

Check on tlp page: http://linrunner.de/en/tlp/tlp.html how to properly configure it. Tlp-stat will suggest you eventually missing packages, and with powertop you will see the most power consuming processes. Hope this helps.

It seems that your comment contains 1 or more links that are hard to tap for mobile users. I will extend those so they're easier for our sausage fingers to click!

Here is link number 1 - Previous text "TLP"

^Please ^PM ^/u/eganwall ^with ^issues ^or ^feedback! ^| ^Delete

I replaced Windows 10 entirely on my 9350. I'm a photographer and I was not liking the Adobe Lightroom performance on my core i5. Had no other reason to stay on Windows so I switched. I went from Ubuntu with GNOME to Manjaro and now I am very happy with Linux Mint. It's very stable. It does come with some issues.

Really can't put it to sleep some of the time, because it would just turn off or stay on with a black screen.

Sometimes when I am connecting my XPS to the Dell USB Type-C Dock to my monitor, it would freeze and would have to do a hard restart.

Bluetooth sucks so I don't use it at all.

Battery life isn't bad. TLP is useful.

So with the installing, I just follow the usual guides online. In my BIOS settings, I disabled SecureBoot and have Legacy. Now I do not know about having a separate partition for UEFI. I didnt have that issue for my Dell, but had it on my Sony VAIO. It took a lot of trial and error. This might help.

I use Mint for WebDev work, Linux Systems programming assignments, lot of anime. I would love to get a Mac and use that for creative projects. Linux has Darktable (Lightroom alternative) but it's quite clunky.

Hope it helps.

Before testing battery life, install TLP. It massively increases battery life and is a must with any laptop Linux install. It's a "set it and forget it" kind of thing, no extra configuration needed (although it's highly configurable if you're into that :).

Ubuntu 17.10 should have it in the default repos, so a simple

sudo apt update && sudo apt install tlp tlp-rdw tp-smapi-dkms acpi-call dkms

should do it.

If not, you can follow the instructions on the website I linked.

By using TLP. I set it so it only uses 50% of the CPU max on battery. I lower the brightness as much as I can tolerate.

With 4000 mAh and 12.4 V, that's 49.6 Wh. With 5W, that's 9.92 hours. With 4W, that's 12.4 hours.
With 2.70 W, it's 18.37 h. It's simply a matter of lowering your laptop's power consumption. 5W is my normal power consumption with stuff open though.

Hopefully, I can answer some questions you might have: - It depends on the device. The language that Google Play Music is built on, Polymer, requires quite a bit of CPU power. As a result, it depends what kind of CPU the device is. However, no matter the device, Google Play music is usable, though doesn't always match the performance target of 60FPS.

• Some devices have fans - others don't. Overheating is only really an issue with the Bay Trail-based devices or the older Sandy Bridge / Ivy Bridge devices. Yes, ARM devices get hot, but are far better at performing under hot conditions than the Bay Trail devices.

• Laptop based i-series (XXXXu, Haswell is 4XXXu, X's are dependant on the chipset model) devices, as well as Celeron devices, require fans because of the specifications defined by Intel. Chromebooks with ARM typically don't have fans, however it depends on the manufacturer. For instance, another ARM device, the NVIDIA SHIELD, requires a fan to dissipate heat.

• Yep, you can use SD or Micro SD cards as a Downloads folder, just change the Downloads folder location to the SD Card. However, I'm not sure if it is persistent across boots of the device.

• Sadly, I don't know about the battery life running a distro on the device. Are you planning a full install or Crouton? Crouton will use the ChromeOS kernel, so it should have the same performance as running more processes on ChromeOS. If it is running a full distro, then I would strongly recommend TLP to get the most out of the device.

Hopefully, this might answer your questions. If you have any more, feel free to ask more. :D

I have an ASUS laptop, get 4,5 hours of it. On windows maybe i can get a little more, but not much.

I use tlp, http://linrunner.de/en/tlp/tlp.html and lower the cpu freq and screen brightness, that's all.

I have an x230 that I used to run both Linux Mint and Ubuntu Gnome respin on. Using TLP and powertop I got the battery life to be the same or better as on Windows 7. That was a year ago though, so my memory is fuzzy.

EDIT: Make sure to get the ThinkPad extensions aswell.

You should be aware of TLP. It's the new hotness (coolness?) for power management and is intended to replace and surpass laptop-mode-tools and similar:

http://linrunner.de/en/tlp/tlp.html

Don't let the website scare you, for the vast majority it's basically install and go these days.

• First, you need to uninstall laptop-mode-tools (also Jupiter if you happen to have it installed, but you probably shouldn't). Trust me, it's worth it, and you can always uninstall all of this and go back if you change your mind.

• Second, add the PPA:

  ppa:linrunner/tlp

(Here's how: http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/how-to-add-a-ppa-to-software-sources-in-ubuntu)

• Third, run this command in a terminal window to install the packages:

  sudo apt-get install tlp tlp-rdw

• Finally, reboot and enjoy better power management. That's it. :)

It seems that your comment contains 1 or more links that are hard to tap for mobile users. I will extend those so they're easier for our sausage fingers to click!

Here is link number 1 - Previous text "TLP"

^Please ^PM ^/u/eganwall ^with ^issues ^or ^feedback! ^| ^Delete

TLP is a utility that allows for advanced power management under Linux. It's extremely configurable, but even just installing it massively increases battery life.

IMO it's a must-have for anyone with a laptop that runs Linux.

http://linrunner.de/en/tlp/tlp.html

basically just a background service you can install from the main repo and run that acts as a basic power saving service.

Some of what it does can potentially cause data loss, but that's very very rare and depends on how you use a system and what kind of SSD you've got.

You are right, linux will destroy your battery if you don't implement a fail-safe method. Fortunatelly for you, ThinkPads have great support for TLP, the tool you will use to implement chargin thresholds.

Works great on other laptops too.

I recently bought an Asus Zenbook UX305FA. Ditched W10 and now run Mint 18 Cinnamon on it — flawless (almost: some, or all, not sure, Fn keys don't work, which doesn't bother me). Battery life 8-9 hours at least with TLP, resume works. Once Loki is out, I'll put it on to see how it goes.

http://linrunner.de/en/tlp/tlp.html

TLP really does make a huge difference with power management. Battery life on my x220 increased by over 50% after installing TLP in Ubuntu 15.10

Install tlp and tlp-rdw. Some configuration might be needed; this depends on the specs for your computer. But most of the time the default configuration will do.

Link to TLP: http://linrunner.de/en/tlp/tlp.html

OS: Archlinux (with Plasma 5 as Desktop Environment) The battery holds at least 3 hours, with TLP installed. I can't ask more, being used and probably with a fried cell (the capacity drops instantly from 30% to 6%). In the meantime I'm saving for a brand-new 9 cell battery, which sadly costs around 100€.

If I were you I wouldn't "nuke" anything, especially the recovery partition as you will need that to fix any problems that may come up in the future or restore the laptop if you ever need to sell it. I suggest creating a recovery USB to have just in case anything comes up, formatting the drive and clean installing Ubuntu from a bootable USB. You can then use VirtualBox in Ubuntu to run Windows without the hassle of installing drivers etc. Again that's only my opinion. Personally I think that Ubuntu is a much more reliable OS to have than Windows. As for a Linux-based power manager you can try TLP.

Install tlp.

When I was still on Kubuntu, battery life was 50% of what I got with Win 8.1.

After installing tlp, battery life stopped sucking. Still wasn't as great as on Windows, but it was getting there (75-90% IIRC).

When I moved to Manjaro I didn't even try its defaults, just installed TLP and was done.

Useful blog from a Ubuntu kernel dev, that covers what efforts have been made to improve power usage and also lots of links to info on how to monitor and configuration recommendations: http://smackerelofopinion.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/improving-battery-life-in-ubuntu.html.

There is also TLP - http://linrunner.de/en/tlp/tlp.html - which offers an easy way to configure common settings that affect power management of various devices.

The first thing i want to say is, you dont have to learn terminal commands to make ubuntu work. Yes it makes the whole process faster but really, as an average user you can do everything you want with a GUI program.

So, let's get this started.

If you dont like the default theme, install unity tweak tool, and search for some cool themes. Some of these might interest you. You can also enable workspace, which is turned off by default in 14.04, but i think it's a cool and nice feature of Ubuntu. Another software you might need is TLP, which helps saving power for your laptop. If your laptop comes with a optimus Nvidia card, you might also want to check Bumblebee for further power saving.

If you'd like to play some games, check PlayDeb. There are also many games on Steam.

If you cant find a linux equivalent of a windows software, or you simply don't like all the linux equivalents, you can try wine and PlayOnLinux, both can help you install and run windows program on a linux OS.

If you need a tool to manage all your ppa, try Y PPA Manager

If you're looking a windows gadget/widget equivalent, give screenlet a shot.

Finally, there are also quite many "10 things to do after install Ubuntu xx.xx" articles out there, you can go check some of them.

TLP (homepage, archwiki entry) is another option. Lotsa documentation, AUR package from the dev himself, and it's made with Thinkpads in mind.

Make sure you install BOTH tp_smapi and tpacpi-bat if you're playing around with battery charge thresholds. On my x220, I found that just tp_smapi didn't support all battery functions and tpacpi-bat filled in the gaps! If you go this route, be aware that you do not need to enable the tpacpi-bat service. TLP calls on it directly.

Like /u/Jinwood said, Thinkpads have great Linux support (barring the fingerprint sensor).

Mint is a good choice for a beginner, and KDE is a good, polished (and familiar-looking) desktop environment. Installation should be fairly smooth; just make sure to install Linux after installing Windows, as the Windows installer doesn't play nice with existing OSes...

In order to get a good Linux experience on your Thinkpad (or any laptop for that matter) install TLP. It runs in the background and improves battery life and power consumption. You can also use it to set charge thresholds for your batteries, to reduce wearing them down.

Installing TLP is simple; assuming you have the latest version of Linux Mint (or any other Ubuntu-based distro) copy and paste the following:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install tlp tlp-rdw tp-smapi-dkms acpi-call-dkms && sudo tlp start

If you have any other questions, feel free to comment here :)

not sure. It seems like a message from systemd. Maybe that sleep service only runs when the system enters sleep mode.

I think you probably don't need TLP to get your computer to sleep when you close the lid. TLP is a whole big framework for power management, so it's a bit tough to troubleshoot. If you want to use it then you can really dig into it here: http://linrunner.de/en/tlp/tlp.html

I've been running Solus (Budgie) for about the last 15 months or so, before that MX Linux. I've also installed TLP to conserve battery (which also helps to manage heat) in both cases. I've not had any significant heat problems, the fan kicks in occasionally if there's a lot of animation. I haven't had any screen tearing recently, if it's a problem you just need to add the "TearFree" option in xorg.conf, there is some advice here (not specific to Arch).

I haven't tried the HDMI output yet, though.

Look into using either TLP or setting up <code>powertop --auto-tune</code> to automatically start.

6GB RAM should be enough for office/schoolwork. Same goes for the i3. I'd get a good 250GB SSD, and use Linux exclusively (Windows installs tend to get bloated and slow over time); here are some replacements for programs you need:

Steam and GOG (depending on specific titles, indie games generally support Linux) and Chrome are all available on Linux. Xubuntu is a great choice, just make sure to install TLP for massively better battery life.

Thanks, I bought a T450. Very happy with it: linux support is great (notably the battery charge thresholds, thanks to TLP) and it turns out that one of the 2 batteries is removable.

Encouraging to hear things are working well for you, I'm considering getting one myself. Have you tried installing TLP (http://linrunner.de/en/tlp/tlp.html), I got pretty good battery improvements with it on an older Thinkpad X220T, it's available in the Ubuntu repositories so is pretty easy to get setup.

Firstly, ideally, for longer periods of time, a Li-ion battery should be between around 10-90% charge. Any more or less and they tend to deteriorate quicker. Therefore, if your 3-cell is at 100% for days while the 6-cell gets all the use, it's not optimal. In such a case, the 3-cell should be kept at around 90% or less.

Secondly, the less number of cycles a battery does, the better. Therefore, if you're cycling your 6-cell all the time, it'll die faster than the 3-cell.

Keeping that in mind, in an ideal situation, you'd want to discharge your 6-cell down to 10-15%, and then switch over to the 3-cell. You'd also never want to charge the laptop until the 3-cell runs down to 10-15%, to ensure that both batteries get equal use.

Now, I don't have a powerbridge laptop, so I have no idea how software control for this works, but I have a feeling that Lenovo's software for Windows won't allow you to control charge thresholds in this way. If you're using Linux, however, you can set thresholds using tpacpi-bat or tlp. They both have options to choose between two batteries, so I'm assuming it'll work the way one would expect on an X250.

To recap, charge both batteries to ~90%. Discharge the 6-cell to 10% and switch over to the 3-cell. Discharge 3-cell to 10%. Rinse and repeat.

Edit: apparently the Lenovo power manager supports charge thresholds in the "Battery maintenance" tab. If you don't have the Lenovo power manager, you can set thresholds directly in the registry.

form http://linrunner.de/en/tlp/tlp.html:

> TLP brings you the benefits of advanced power management for Linux without the need to understand every technical detail. TLP comes with a default configuration already optimized for battery life, so you may just install and forget it. Nevertheless TLP is highly customizable to fulfil your specific requirements. >

>Is there any way to get acpi to output a more accurate estimate of the battery's status?

Yes, you have to calibrate your battery again.

As you have a Thinkpad you can use tlp.

(Which is also quite useful for the power saving features and battery thresholds!)

Try the recalibrate command.

A thought, might want to look into TLP settings as well, assuming you have it installed. I know there are some settings related to USB in it that might be causing you issue: [TLP}(http://linrunner.de/en/tlp/tlp.html)

True. Especially the T and X series work great out-of-the box. I'd avoid the nvidia graphics though, if it's possible. It might be possible to work with that, but it's not worth the hassle if you're not using it. And then there's TLP to tweak power settings.