How to Configure Power Saving on Linux Mint

If you’re looking for different methods to configure power saving on Linux Mint, you’ve come to the right place. Keep reading to find out more!

In the current age of computing devices with explosive growth, managing one’s computer power usage is very critical. Modern operating systems such as Microsoft Windows or Linux as a system utility generally provide power management features. 

The Linux Mint gives us a built-in power management tool where we can configure and optimize power management easily. 

How to Configure Power Saving on Linux Mint?

Power management is a feature provided by most modern operating systems. With it, you can effectively manage energy, and it can also help you save both money and energy. And lately, the importance of power management has increased significantly. 

Power management utility

Keeping a check on the power consumption of your system can not only save battery usage but also help you cut down on energy bills. For this specific reason, the default power management tool is baked into the system. 

We will now discuss the various power management options in Linux that can be used to manage the system’s power more wisely.

Opening power management utility

The following are the options to open a power management utility on Linux:

• First, press the ”Super” key to open the system menu. In the Windows keyboard, this will be the ”Windows” key. Alternatively, you can click on the menu button via mouse.
• Search for power management. The power management utility should then show up in the results.
• Click the power management utility icon or press the enter button.

The utility provides three modes of options. We will be discussing these options one by one.

Turn off the screen when inactive

The first option will ask you to let the screen turn off when you’re inactive for some time. You can specify the value for this option (i.e., “Turn off the screen when inactive for”). The default setting is for 30 minutes. 

Alternatively, you can also disable the feature entirely. This is required if you want the screen to remain on even when the system is not being used.

Suspend option

The second option is to suspend. This will let the system switch to suspend mode when you are inactive. With this toggled on, all documents and applications will remain open. This option only turns the screen and other system components off. 

Tip: The suspend option is ‘off’ by default, but you can enable it by clicking on it.

Specify the behavior on pressing the power saving button

We describe the system’s behavior when the power button is pressed in the third power setting option. The power button may have been pressed unintentionally. The Linux Mint, by default, asks the user what they want to do when the power saving button is pressed. 

You can specify the following options as the behavior: lock the system, suspend the system, shut down the computer, or do nothing.

Power Management with TLP in Linux Mint

TLP is an advanced power management command line utility available for Linux. The following are the main features of this tool:

• The tool provides a command-line utility packed with features
• It saves laptop battery power significantly without any technical configuration
• The default settings work for most of cases for power management. As the default configuration is pre-optimized for extended battery life. 
• It offers high customization. 
• You can create profiles for AC and battery power. 
• It can control power-consuming devices such as Bluetooth, wireless fidelity (WiFi), and WWAN radio devices. 

Installation

The installation of TLP is very straightforward. Open your Terminal by pressing ”Alt + Ctrl + T”. Alternatively, you can open the system Start Menu and search for the Terminal. Add the TLP repository by typing the following command  on the Terminal:

$sudo add-apt-repository ppa:linrunner/tlp

You may be asked for the root password. Specify the root password and press “Enter”.

Now, you can install the TLP application via the following command:

$sudo apt install tlptlp-install-y

Starting the TLP application

Now you can start the TLP application by typing the following command on the Terminal:

$ sudotlp start

Once started, you can check if TLP is working correctly using the following command:

$sudotlp stat

Power management using TLP

TLP provides various profile settings. For instance, it gives two default profiles (i.e., battery mode and alternating current (AC) mode). 

TLP applies the appropriate profile at boot. It can also apply these profile settings when the power source changes. This includes when the charger is plugged in, the charger unplugged, USB Device plugged in, and the system is booting, rebooting, or powered off. 

There are specific settings for each of these situations. In addition, there is a setting when the system suspends the ACPI Sleep States. TLP saves Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and WWAN device states in these settings and cuts the power to specific removable optical drives based on your settings. 

Alternatively, when the system resumes from sleep states, the settings profile about the current power source AC or battery is applied to it. Depending on individual settings, the restoring of charge thresholds and Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and WWAN device states is done.

In this article, we have discussed power management in Linux. Power management is essential as it can extend your portable device’s life, reduce energy consumption, and give you the liberty to work on the fly. 

We discussed how the power management utility of Linux works. We also discussed the power management tool TLP in Linux, like how it’s installed, its features, and how we can use it to save power.

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