Laptop-specific features have the main goal of reducing battery usage, in order to extend battery life, thereby increasing the mobility of the system. Other laptop-specific features simplify the usage of common features such as playing a music CD. Most laptop-specific features make use of ACPI, so make sure it is enabled in the bootloader configuration (see Section 2, “Changing your Boot-up Configuration” for more information).
Procedure 17.1. Enabling Laptop Support Tools
Install Required Software
Launch KLaptop
Enable ACPI Control Software
Select Features to Enable
Put a checkmark on each of the features you want to enable. Here you have a short explanation on the most important ones:
When entering standby some components, mainly the screen, are powered off to reduce power usage. When mouse or keyboard activity is detected, the system returns to the normal mode of operation almost instantaneously.
Hibernation allows you to “put your laptop to sleep”, and “wake it up” later when you need to continue using it. RAM contents are copied to the hard disk when entering hibernation and then copied back to RAM when leaving hibernation, so you can continue using your laptop from the state it was when put to hibernate.
To further reduce battery usage, the speed of the processor can be stepped down. Nowadays, most processors are powerful enough to browse the web, manage emails and use office applications, while full processor power may only be needed for multimedia, gaming, and other processor-intensive applications.
Accept Settings
KLaptop's control icon is shown
on the panel. The icon shows whether the laptop is plugged in to
the mains or running on batteries, and the charge level. When you
right click on it a menu pops up allowing you to throttle the CPU
down, put the laptop into hibernation, etc. Select the
item to set power
control, low battery warnings, hibernation and CPU throttling
parameters.
Figure 17.1, “KLaptop — Battery Controls” shows options for monitoring the battery (how often its status should be checked, which is its current status, and others). Make sure the Show battery monitor option is checked to have KLaptop's control icon shown on the panel. Check the Use a blank screen saver when running on batteries option to save even more power.
Figure 17.2, “KLaptop — Power Controls” shows options for power control, where you define what to do when the laptop enters automatic power down mode. The example shows that when the laptop is running on batteries (Not Powered) the CPU is to be throttled down 50% after 5 minutes of inactivity; while when the laptop is running on the mains (Powered) the CPU is to be throttled down 87% and the system put into hibernation after 20 minutes of inactivity, but only if the system's load (or level of activity, LAV) is less than 80%.
Figure 17.3, “KLaptop — Lid Switch Controls” shows options for what to do when the laptop's lid is closed. In the example we've chosen to throttle the CPU down 87% and to put the system into hibernation. When the lid is opened again, the system will return to normal speed of operation.
Many laptops have multimedia keys
usually allowing you to control the CD/DVD player and also the
sound volume. Choose
+ + + → from the main menu to configure
support for them.
Check the Enable keyboards layout option and select your laptop's keyboard model using the Keyboard model pulldown list. Figure 17.4, “Selecting a Laptop Keyboard Layout” shows an example for Dell Inspiron 6xxx and 8xxx laptops.
You can also use the Mandriva Linux Control Center, Hardware section, keyboard icon (see Section 4, “Changing your Keyboard Layout”). The list shown is the same as the one above; however, the tool described above provides more options.