Hello everybody! I migrated to Linux recently and find it very very nice. That's maybe because I had no serious trouble setting it up and getting apps running ;) However, that is offtopic. My question is how to configure linux with advanced power management. With that I mean how can I solve the following issues: 1) When my battery is in my laptop and the charger is connected then on Linux shutdown the computer does not turn off. Everything is shut down, the screen is blank, etc. but the cooler of the cpu is still running and I need to hold the power button for 4sec. so the computer turns on. When only the AC charger is connected (without the battery in the laptop) it shuts down just fine and turns of itself as supposed. 2)The CPU cooler of my laptop is running all the time. First, it creates noise and second my cooler is depreciating at a faster pace. Is there anyway to configure the system so that it turns the cooler only on heavy cpu load and that most of the time the cooler switches on/off periodically (like in Windows XP). So has anybody ideas how to solve the issues above? Is there a solution at all? Greetings, Maris

There is an error in my text: "I need to hold the power button for 4sec. so the computer turns on" there should be "turns off"

I don't have much experience with linux on laptops, but I think you will need to have ACPI and sub of it's sub-options (eg AC Adapter) enabled in your kernel. It may mean recompiling it yourself....then again I might be completely wrong. A site you may be interested in is www.linux-on-laptops.com

Basically, power management is handled by the BIOS. In Linux, a daemon called apmd, performs the interrupt calls to the kernel's APM layer. There are applets availible for various desktops for apmd. That would be for the older, APM standard. Newer laptops support ACPI, which has (I think) a kernel module. The project and a howto are at ACPI4Linux. Documentation suggests you patch your kernel. Usually, vendors provide tools which configure these options to interface to their specific BIOS firmware (Toshiba comes to mind). ACPI was created to help generalize software access to these services. Therefore ACPI kernel support requires its own daemon, acpid, to give you control over fans, CPU, battery readings, etc. You should have a folder called acpi loaded into /proc. Consult the ACPI4Linux documentation. Now that will handle the fans. I think the shutdown issue can also be handled through ACPI. Usually, there are two settings to make. One in the BIOS, to allow the service to be performed (its probably enabled, maybe acpi=on), and one in acpid. What your Linux box does now is halt. This what something like "shutdown -h now" will get you. By configuring APM or ACPI (you'll have to check the specific docs) you can physically turn off most systems. If your BIOS (its really a motherboard feature in general) supports APM rather than ACPI, you might have an interesting time. APM was well known for causing problems. This thread discusses this. Google has most of the common scenarios indexed.