Laptop Mode Tools is an application that gives users complete power over their laptop in an effort to enhance the overall life of the battery.
The battery is probably the most precious commodity for laptop users and we always find ourselves looking at the battery indicator. Sometimes we need to preserve any shred of power for something important or maybe we just need to be able to keep our laptop unplugged from a power source for longer.
No matter the reason, you can be sure that users will respond favorably if you ask them if they need a tool to help them manage their chosen device. For some strange reason, there are very few tools like this one on the Linux platform, and I don’t even know if there is an equivalent for Windows. If there is such an app for Windows users, then it probably costs a lot.
Laptop Mode Tools has been around for a long time, and more experienced users are quite familiar with it. It's usually used inside the terminal, but that’s a little bit more difficult to comprehend by regular users or by beginners. Fortunately, there is also a GUI available, even if it’s not the friendliest.
Installation
I tested Laptop Mode Tools in Ubuntu 15.10, and it’s available in the official repos. You can use the Ubuntu Software Center to install it, and in this case, it’s quite useful because it also provides the option to install a couple more packages, one for Ethernet devices settings and the other one for Advanced Power Management (APD).
You’ll be surprised to see that Laptop Mode Tools doesn’t show up in the installed application or it doesn’t run. Most likely it will ask to be started with kdesudo, which is not the case in Ubuntu. The idea is that no matter where you start this tool, you’ll need to be root in order to make any kind of changes.
Usage
Now that we’ve determined that you can run it from the launcher (it doesn’t even have an icon), how can we take advantage of what this application has to offer? The answer is simple. You will have to use the terminal, but firstly, you’ll have to enable it. A restart might be required:
Run this command in a terminal, as root: