Arch Linux

LonelyStar

Member

Registered: 2007-12-09

Posts: 123

How should laptop mode be used?

Hello,

Looking through laptop_mode manpage and configs, there seem to be 3 modes for it:
1. Battery with Laptop mode
2. AC with Laptop mode
3. No Laptop mode

No, I see people enabling and disabling laptop mode in with acpid according to AC state.

What is the differens between AC with laoptop mode and no laptop mode and should this be used?
I wonder if I should just start laptop mode on startup or if I should control it over acpid.

Thanks!
Nathan

IMG

Member

From: Greece

Registered: 2008-02-22

Posts: 21

Re: How should laptop mode be used?

While running in AC with laptop mode started, you will keep "suffering the penalties" of using it , to reduce power consumption.So your laptop will keep consuming less power  while running on ac but you will have the increased possibility of e.g loosing data on crash, or worse performance on your wifi/cpu etc, according to your configs. You will propably want it started when you run on battery to help your battery last longer, and stop when you run on AC, to minimize possible data loss and other potential penalties you get from using it. I think it has an "auto" option if you have an acpi-enabled laptop, which means if you set it to auto, it will automatically start when running on battery and stop on AC detection.

IMG

LonelyStar

Member

Registered: 2007-12-09

Posts: 123

Re: How should laptop mode be used?

Mmh, ok.
So I do the following:

- I add laptop-mode to the deamons in rc.conf!
- I add "laptop_mode auto" to my /etc/rc.local

Correct? Or does the laptop-mode damon script already put it in auto mode?

moljac024

Member

From: Serbia

Registered: 2008-01-29

Posts: 2,675

Re: How should laptop mode be used?

I don't have my Arch linux laptop with me (since it's being serviced) but you should look in the config file. It should be located somewhere at /etc/laptop-mode

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IMG

Member

From: Greece

Registered: 2008-02-22

Posts: 21

Re: How should laptop mode be used?

Mmh, ok.
So I do the following:

- I add laptop-mode to the deamons in rc.conf!

after that, go to /etc/laptop-mode directory and open the laptop-mode.conf  file, in there you will find many configuration options.
Specifically to make it start when switching to battery mode edit the according line to look like:
ENABLE_LAPTOP_MODE_ON_BATTERY=1
And to set it to stop when you switch to AC power make sure the according line looks like:
ENABLE_LAPTOP_MODE_ON_AC=0

Once you restart your laptop_mode utility, this should now start/stop automatically when changing among battery/AC. Bear in mind that this tool is quite rich in options, so do take your time to explore all the options you have in /etc/laptop-mode/laptop-mode.conf  *and* all the files in /etc/laptop-mode/conf.d/.

Enjoy
IMG