A new panel app can help you squeeze more power out of your Linux laptop battery, all thanks Slimbook.
The Spanish Linux laptop seller makes (and regularly updates) a battery optimizer tool for the Ubuntu desktop. It’s simple to use, easy to set up, and may help extend your battery life by several hours.
The tool is called Slimbook Battery and it lets you switch between different pre-configured performance modes, including a power-friendly ‘energy saving’ mode and ‘maximum performance’ option for those times you need more oomph.
Those who want even more control can dive in to the ‘Advanced’ settings panel to configure, modify and enable other battery optimizations.
A Battery Saver App for Ubuntu
Slimbook’s open source desktop tool designed to help improve battery life on Ubuntu laptops. While the tool is aimed at those who own one of Slimbook’s Linux laptops it works on any laptop regardless of brand, so long as it’s running Ubuntu (or an Ubuntu-based derivative, like Pop!_OS or Zorin OS).
There are two parts to the tool:
The first part is a tray-based applet. This gives you a menu where you can pick from three energy modes: “energy saving”, “balanced” and “maximum performance”.
There is also an ‘Off’ setting (self-explanatory) an ‘Advanced Mode’ option (more on that in a moment). The ‘Exit’ option closes the app fully and deactivates whatever energy saving mode you had selected.
The second part is an advanced configuration panel. This panel has 7 separate tabs, each providing access to different toggles and preferences for altering the behaviour of (potential) power-sapping features.
Using the ‘Slimbook Battery Preferences’ (aka ‘Advanced Mode’) app you can adjust or fine-tune the behaviour of the three power modes available in the applet, e.g., override a specific setting, re-enable a specific feature, etc.
You can also adjust charging behaviour and alerts (Cycles), and see battery information, such as manufacturer, battery type, current capacity, and original capacity.
Optimizes Battery Usage, But YMMV
This battery optimizer will disable unused hardware features when necessary
Keep in mind that using this tool is not guaranteed to increase your battery life in Ubuntu. That said, you are likely to get some improvement using this tool versus doing nothing at all.
Other simple ways to improve battery life on Linux distros include using a lower screen brightness, removing any unused USB devices, turning off Wi-Fi and using ethernet.
Like the (often intimidating) command line tool TLP Slimbook’s battery optimizer app will disable unused hardware features as and when necessary (giving you an option to override) thus making it a super useful battery saver tool for laptop users to install.
How to Install Battery Optimizer for Ubuntu
You can install Slimbook Battery 4 on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS and above. Just add the official Slimbook PPA to your list of software sources, update, and install.
First, add PPA:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:slimbook/slimbook
Then install the battery optimizer applet itself.
sudo apt update && sudo apt install slimbookbattery
Once everything is downloaded and installed you can go ahead and oep the app from your distribution’s app launcher.
Do keep in mind that this utility only works when it is running and an energy mode is specified. If you forget to launch the app it cannot provide any power optimisations, so consider adding it your Startup Applications incase you forget!
Thanks Costales!