Advanced Power Management in Ubuntu

Posted by Ruhaan Ahmed 5 August, 2008

The default power management system that is present in ubuntu is very basic and provides very limited functionality. If you need more advanced features i will show an application called Kpowersave which is part of the KDE gears package. Kpowersave is easily found in Ubuntus repositories so instaling it is not too difficult.

When you first launch Kpowersave you get an icon in your panel like so:

Clicking on the icon shows you an information dialog box showing you various options such as.

1) The power scheme selected

2) The CPU frequency policy set

3) Remaining Battery Power and voltage consumption

To configure Kpowersave right click on the icon and click on “Configure Kpowersave” doing so will show you an interface similar to this:

On the left are the various profiles available you can add more if you like and each profile is customizable to what you like. One feature i love about Kpowersave is the ability to set the CPU scaling frequency i.e you can set your CPU to run at a lower clock so that less heat is generated and battery life can be conserved if you are using a notebook. On my notebook i have seen a 43% increase in battery life after downscaling the CPU.

To select which policy is used in what case click on the general settings Tab. Then click on the default schemes tab.

Another nifty feature of Kpowersave is to select to turn off the computer when it is unplugged and running only on battery power. To configure it click on the Battery Tab