Laptop

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This page should contain links to pages needed for configuring a laptop for the best experience.

Contents

[edit] Cpufrequtils

Cpufrequtils is a CPU Frequency Scaling, a technology used primarily by notebooks which enables the OS to scale the CPU speed up or down, depending on the current system load and/or power scheme.

[edit] Pm-utils

Pm-utils is suspend and powerstate setting framework.

[edit] Networkmanager

Networkmanager provides automatic network detection and configuration for the system.

Note: this is being phased out in favor of network_profiles

[edit] Lapsus

Lapsus is a set of programs providing easy access to many features of various laptops. It currently supports most features provided by asus-laptop kernel module from ACPI4Asus project, such as additional LEDs, hotkeys, backlight control etc. It also has support for some IBM laptops features provided by IBM ThinkPad ACPI Extras Driver and NVRAM device.

[edit] Suggestions for saving power

[edit] Install powertop

This handy util from Intel will tell you what hardware/processes are using the most power on your system, and provides instructions on how to stop/remove power-wasting services. Works great for mobile Intel CPUs; provides the current CPU state and suggestions for power saving. Also works on AMD systems, but does not provide as much information about the CPU state. 

pacman -S powertop

[edit] Laptop mode tools

Install laptop-mode-tools: 

pacman -S laptop-mode-tools

Configure in /etc/laptop-mode/laptop-mode.conf, then add laptop-mode to the DAEMONS line in /etc/rc.conf

See this thread

[edit] Disk-related tweaks

Disable file access time: every time you access (read) a file the filesystem writes an access time to the file metadata. You can disable this on individual files by using the chattr command, or you can enable it on an entire disk by mounting with the noatime option in your fstab, as follows: 

/dev/sda7          /chroot          ext2          defaults,noatime          1  2

Source

Run 

/usr/bin/hal-disable-polling –device /dev/scd0

to allow the CD/DVD rom to spin down after a while.

[edit] Other tweaks

These are some generic suggestions that will work with most laptops.

Add 

options usbcore autosuspend=1

to /etc/modprobe.d/options

Add 

vm.dirty_writeback_centisecs=1500
vm.laptop_mode=5

to /etc/sysctl.conf

Add 

/sbin/iwpriv eth1 set_power 5

to /etc/rc.local and make sure that it gets executed at boot time.

Stolen from here

[edit] Hard drive spin down problem

Documented here

To prevent your laptop hard drive from spinning down too often (result of too aggresive APM defaults) do the following

Add 

hdparm -B 255 /dev/your-hard-drive

to /etc/rc.local

Add 

#!/bin/sh

if [ -n "$1" ] && ([ "$1" = "resume" ] || [ "$1" = "thaw" ]); then
	hdparm -B 255 /dev/your-hard-drive > /dev/null
fi

to /etc/pm/sleep.d/50-hdparm_pm and run "chmod +x /etc/pm/sleep.d/50-hdparm_pm" to make sure it resets after suspend

Now APM should be turned off for your hard drive.

Retrieved from "http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Laptop"
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