Ubuntu / Linux news and application reviews.

Quick Updates: Guake 0.8.7, WebTorrent Desktop 0.12.0, TLP 0.9

| Date: August 23, 2016 | View Comments | Tags: bittorrent, guake, laptop, terminal, tlp, WebTorrent

Guake 0.8.7


Guake terminal

Guake is a drop-down terminal emulator for GNOME (GTK2). The application is inspired from consoles in computer games, such as Quake, in which the console slides from the top of the screen when a key is pressed. In the same way, Guake can be invoked and hidden using a single key (though Guake can also automatically hide when it loses focus).

Power Management Tool `TLP` 0.8 Released

| Date: August 13, 2015 | View Comments | Tags: battery, laptop, linux, tlp, tweaks, ubuntu

Ubuntu Laptop

TLP 0.8 was released recently, bringing various ThinkPad improvements, systemd "predictable network interface names" support along with other changes and bug fixes.

For those not familiar with TLP, this is an advanced power management tool that applies various settings and tweaks to help your laptop save battery power. The app tries to do everything automatically, depending on your Linux distribution and hardware (it runs in the background and doesn't come with a GUI) however, you can manually change its settings by editing the TLP configuration file: /etc/default/tlp

Advanced Power Management Tool `TLP` Sees New Release

| Date: February 02, 2015 | View Comments | Tags: battery, laptop, linux, tlp, tweaks, ubuntu


TLP 0.7 was released recently, bringing an option which allows setting the minimum and maximum Intel P-state performance, better ThinkPad support and various other changes and bug fixes.

For those not familiar with TLP, this is an advanced power management tool that applies various settings and tweaks to help your laptop save battery power. The app tries to do everything automatically, depending on your Linux distribution and hardware (it runs in the background and doesn't come with a GUI) however, you can manually change its settings by editing the TLP configuration file: /etc/default/tlp

Fix Brightness Getting Reset (To A Very Low Value Or Maximum) On Reboot In Ubuntu

| Date: October 24, 2014 | View Comments | Tags: brightness, customization, fix, laptop, linux, ubuntu

If your laptop's brightness is not saved and is set to a very low value or to maximum, each time you reboot and / or when you log out, read on for a fix / workaround.

Ubuntu brightness

Advanced Power Management Tool `TLP` 0.6 Released, Install It In Ubuntu

| Date: October 08, 2014 | View Comments | Tags: laptop, linux, power, tlp, ubuntu

Ubuntu laptop

TLP was updated to version 0.6 recently, receiving some fixes for Linux Kernel 3.15 and 3.16 along with systemd improvements and other changes.

Also, with this release, TLP is no longer disabled when laptop-mode-tools is detected and instead, a warning is displayed about possible conflicts.

For those not familiar with TLP, this is an advanced power management tool that applies various settings and tweaks to help your laptop save battery power. The app tries to do everything automatically, depending on your Linux distribution and hardware however, you can manually change its settings by editing the TLP configuration file: /etc/default/tlp

Laptop Mode Tools 1.65 Released With Intel PState Support, Other Changes [PPA]

| Date: June 19, 2014 | View Comments | Tags: battery, laptop, linux, power, tweaks, ubuntu

Laptop Mode Tools is a package that should extend your laptop's battery life by enabling the Laptop Mode Linux kernel feature along with other power-related tweaks.

The latest Laptop Mode Tools 1.65, released yesterday, includes important changes and bug fixes such as support for Intel PState driver and a more robust Runtime Power Management Framework that deprecates the usb-autosuspend module. That means that there should be less issues with USB devices such as mice / keyboards not working properly with LMT (if such issues still occur, you'll need to blacklist the device id or disable the runtime-pm and usb-autosuspend modules using the Laptop Mode Tools GUI).

Prevent Your Laptop From Overheating With Thermald And Intel P-State [Updated]

| Date: April 08, 2014 | View Comments | Tags: intel, laptop, linux, power, thermald, ubuntu

intel logo

Linux Thermal Daemon (thermald) is a tool developed by Intel's Open Source Technology Center which monitors and controls the CPU temperature, preventing it from overheating.

How To Enable AMD Radeon Dynamic Power Management (DPM) In Ubuntu 13.10

| Date: January 24, 2014 | View Comments | Tags: amd, graphics drivers, laptop, linux, power, tips n tricks, ubuntu


The open source AMD Radeon driver got dynamic power management support with Linux Kernel 3.11. With this, the GPU and memory clocks adjust dynamically based on load, useful for saving power.

This feature is not enabled by default, at least in Ubuntu 13.10 (it will probably be enabled by default in Ubuntu 14.04) so here's how to enable it.

Install Laptop Mode Tools 1.64 With Configuration GUI In Ubuntu

| Date: January 09, 2014 | View Comments | Tags: battery, laptop, linux, tweaks, ubuntu

Laptop Mode Tools is a package that allows you to extend the battery life of your laptop by enabling the Laptop Mode Linux kernel feature along with other power-related tweaks.

This was a command line only tool until version 1.64, which introduces a GUI that lets you toggle individual power saving modules. The new GUI configuration tool isn't exactly pretty as you can see in the screenshot below, but it's definitely an useful addition because it no longer requires users to work with various configuration files.

Things To Do After Installing Ubuntu On A Chromebook Using Crouton

| Date: December 06, 2013 | View Comments | Tags: chrome os, chromebook, crouton, laptop, linux, ubuntu, unity, xfce

Yesterday I wrote about installing Ubuntu on your Chromebook using Crouton. However, Crouton only installs a few apps so here's what you should install on your new Ubuntu installation running on top of Chrome OS and a few thing that you may want to fix, like the brightness and volume keys or how to get Ubuntu Software Center to work.

Note: Below I'll only cover Unity and Xfce but there are some generic tips as well.

Install Ubuntu On Your Chromebook Using Crouton

| Date: December 05, 2013 | View Comments | Tags: chrome os, chromebook, crouton, laptop, linux, ubuntu, unity, xfce

HP Chromebook 11

I recently got a Chromebook and decided to install Ubuntu on it. There are two ways (that I know of) of doing this: using Crouton, which uses a chroot environment and lets you run both Chrome OS and Ubuntu in the same time and you can switch between the two using a keyboard shortcut, and ChrUbuntu, which works you can dual boot with Chrome OS but it only supports x86-based Chromebooks.

Since I have an ARM-based Chromebook (HP Chromebook 11 - it's not on sale currently due to some issues with the charger), I've used Crouton. I actually prefer Crouton for the way it allows switching between Chrome OS and Ubuntu without having to restart.

If you own a Chromebook and want to install Ubuntu using Crouton, here's how to do it. I've tested this on HP Chromebook 11, but it should work on any Chromebook.

Touchpad Indicator 0.9.5 Brings Important Bug Fixes

| Date: August 28, 2013 | View Comments | Tags: appindicator, laptop, touchpad, ubuntu

Touchpad Indicator is an Ubuntu AppIndicator which, like the name suggests, allows you to easily enable or disable your laptop touchpad. This is useful if your laptop doesn't have a touchpad toggle key or if the key doesn't work.

touchpad indicator ubuntu

The application comes with an optional keyboard shortcut to enable/disable the touchpad, can automatically disable the touchpad when a mouse is plugged in and more.

Improve Power Usage / Battery Life In Linux With TLP

| Date: April 16, 2013 | View Comments | Tags: battery, cli, laptop, linux, power, tweaks, ubuntu

There are various tweaks that you can apply to your laptop to save battery power, but many of them depend on the hardware, Linux distribution, some are outdated or too hard to apply for regular users and so on. TLP is an advanced power management command line tool for Linux that tries to apply these settings / tweaks for you automatically, depending on your Linux distribution and hardware.

Ubuntu laptop

How To Use Hybrid Suspend In Ubuntu

| Date: November 16, 2012 | View Comments | Tags: battery, laptop, linux, suspend, ubuntu

Firstly, here's what hybrid suspend does:
  • initially, the computer is suspended to RAM, which is quick to suspend / resume but it also uses some power
  • if the computer doesn't wake up after a configurable amount of time, suspend to disk is used so the computer stops using any power (it's the same as if it was powered off) - this is also known as hibernation

Basically, using the hybrid suspend method from this article, the system initially enters suspend which is quick to resume and after the time you set, the system hibernates so it no longer uses any battery power. This is useful if for example you close the lid when you move from one room to another (between meetings, classrooms, etc.) and you need the system to resume quickly, but you also want to preserve battery power if you don't use it.

Install PowerTOP 2.1 In Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin Via PPA

| Date: August 28, 2012 | View Comments | Tags: battery, cli, laptop, linux, powertop, ubuntu

powertop

PowerTOP is a command line tool that helps diagnose issues with power consumption and provides suggestions on how to improve power usage.

Android-X86 4.0.4 (ICS) RC2 Released With ARM Translator, More [Android For Netbooks Or Laptops]

| Date: July 17, 2012 | View Comments | Tags: android, android-x86, laptop, linux, netbook

android-x86 4.0.4 RC2

The Android-X86 project provides Android optimized for X86 so you can install Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich on your netbook or laptop just like any other OS.

Android-x86 4.0.4 RC2, based on Android Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0.4 has been released today with a few exciting changes, like an ARM translator that lets you run some ARM applications on Android-X86.

Calise Sets The Screen Backlight Based On Ambient Brightness

| Date: June 27, 2012 | View Comments | Tags: calise, camera, laptop, light, linux, ubuntu


Calise (Camera Light Sensor) is an application that uses your computer's camera as a light sensor for obtaining the ambient brightness and then calculates and sets the correct backlight according to an user defined scale.

Calise features:
  • command line, GUI (with tray icon) interfaces and daemon mode
  • profiles support
  • DBus service optimized with automatic dawn/sunset recognition and weather information by using latitude and longitude.

Bumblebee Ubuntu 12.04 Workaround [Cannot access secondary GPU - error: XORG NVIDIA(0): No display devices found for this X screen]

| Date: April 06, 2012 | View Comments | Tags: bumblebee, fix, laptop, linux, ubuntu

nvidia optimus

I've recently got a Dell XPS L702X laptop and I was trying to get Nvidia Optimus GPU switching to work in Ubuntu 12.04, through Bumblebee but when running "optirun", I was getting this error:

[ERROR]Cannot access secondary GPU - error: XORG NVIDIA(0): No display devices found for this X screen.

After trying various different solutions available on the Bumblebee wiki and other websites, I've finally found one that worked, so I though I'd share it with you, in case you encounter the same issue as me.

Jupiter Applet Officially Switches To Python [Quick Update]

| Date: March 13, 2012 | View Comments | Tags: jupiter, laptop, linux, netbook, ubuntu

Update: Jupiter has been discontinued. I suggest trying TLP instead.

A quick update for Jupiter users: Jupiter 0.1.2 has been released and it now uses Python by default instead of C#. The latest Jupiter comes with an Ubuntu AppIndicator as well as a notification area applet for those who don't use Ubuntu, so there's no need to use PyJupiter anymore. 

Jupiter Applet Ported To Python, Gets Ubuntu Indicator Support

| Date: March 09, 2012 | View Comments | Tags: jupiter, laptop, linux, netbook, pyjupiter, ubuntu

Update: Jupiter has been discontinued. I suggest trying TLP instead.

py-jupiter applet indicator ubuntu

Jupiter is an applet designed to improve laptops / netbooks battery life. It can be used to switch between maximum, high performance and power saving modes, change the screen resolution and orientation, enable or disable bluetooth, touchpad, WiFi (if available) and so on. If you own an Asus EeePC netbook, there's also a separate package that adds support for Asus Super Hybrid Engine (SHE) as well as some other EeePC tweaks.

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