How to Improve Laptop Power Management in Ubuntu/Linux Mint

TLP is a power management tool for Linux. TLP is a pure command line tool with automated background tasks, It does not contain a GUI. It brings you the benefits of advanced power management without the need to understand every technical detail. TLP does not replace but enhance the existing power management of  installation. TLP applies it's settings upon system startup and on every change of the power source.

Settings depending on the Power Source:

• Kernel laptop mode and dirty buffer timeouts
• Processor frequency scaling including "turbo boost" / "turbo core"
• Power aware process scheduler for multi-core/hyper-threading
• Hard disk advanced power magement level and spin down timeout (per disk)
• SATA aggressive link power management (ALPM)
• PCI Express active state power management (PCIe ASPM) – Linux 2.6.35 and above
• Runtime power management for PCI(e) bus devices – Linux 2.6.35 and above
• Radeon KMS power management – Linux 2.6.35 and above, not fglrx
• Wifi power saving mode – depending on kernel/driver
• Power off optical drive in drive bay (on battery)

Additional functions:

• I/O scheduler (per disk)
• USB autosuspend with blacklist
• Audio power saving mode – hda_intel, ac97
• Enable or disable integrated wifi, bluetooth or wwan devices upon system startup and shutdown
• Restore radio device state on system startup (from previous shutdown).
• Radio device wizard: switch radios upon network connect/disconnect and dock/undock
• Disable Wake On LAN
• WWAN state is restored after suspend/hibernate
• Untervolting of Intel processors – requires kernel with PHC-Patch
• Battery charge thresholds – ThinkPads only
• Recalibrate battery – ThinkPads only

Every new Linux kernel brings improvements regarding laptop power management. TLP offers many power management benefits to based laptops without any complicated instructions. Basically TLP doesn't replace any existing power management in Linux but it improves current power management.
To install TLP in Ubuntu/Linux Mint open Terminal (Press Ctrl+Alt+T) and copy the following commands in the Terminal:

• sudo add-apt-repository ppa:linrunner/tlp
• sudo apt-get update
• sudo apt-get install tlp tlp-rdw smartmontools ethtool

If you are using IBM Thinkpad then use following command to install (first add above PPA):

• sudo apt-get install tlp tlp-rdw smartmontools ethtool tp-smapi-dkms acpi-call-tools

To start TLP service use following command:

• sudo tlp start

To check if TLP service is working properly, use following command:

• sudo tlp-stat

You will see such output:

 +++ System Status
 TLP power save = enabled
 power source = ...

 

Complete configuration instruction are available here.
That's it

Source: TLP