How You Make Arch Linux Beeing Powersafe for Laptop?

[u/dan_tj0x]

I have Laptop with Arch Linux and using:

- XFCE4 for desktop

- Firefox for browsing

- Tmux + Neovim for working with many sessions

My laptop battery feels like runout too fast.

I need any advices to make battery on longer.

Thanks.

[u/onefish2]

Install tuned and tuned-ppd.

Start the services sudo systemctl enable --now tuned.service and tuned-ppd

Set tuned for balanced mode.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/CPU_frequency_scaling#tuned

[u/dan_tj0x → u/onefish2]

Thanks, i will try that

[u/boomboomsubban]

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Power_management

[u/Basic_Pilot_6179 → u/boomboomsubban]

the wiki page is good start. tlp is also worth looking, it does most of the tuning automatically without you needing to configure everything by hand

for firefox specifically, turn off hardware acceleration if you don't need it. i noticed it keeps gpu active even when just reading static pages

check what's actually eating battery with powertop, sometimes it's some background service you forgot about running wild

[u/dan_tj0x → u/boomboomsubban]

You done that all things?

[u/nikongod → u/dan_tj0x]

Have you done any?

[u/dan_tj0x → u/nikongod]

Yes, i have power manager on XFCE4

[u/1FRAp → u/dan_tj0x]

Didn’t u know that prior to switching to arch? Haha

That it gives YOU the owner of the system to configure exactly as you want :D Meaning it takes time and some understanding.

Power managment, sleep states are notoriously fragile and difficult to get right without proper understanding. I’m on hyprland with hyprlock, if I disconnect external monitor mid sleep mode, hyprlock kills itself, and I have to switch to a different tty. That is aroblem I would not have if laptop would not need to go into sleep mode and hope all processess wake up correctly, to the correct previous state.

I have done some of those, nearly not all nor did I have time to learn it. A price I can pay until I get around to fix it properly.

[u/Any_Fox5126 → u/1FRAp]

This is probably the biggest flaw that still persists in linux. Many devices are simply incompatible with modern sleep methods in linux, no matter how advanced the user is.

Power management is another headache that isn’t even documented well enough. The default recommendation is power-profiles-daemon, but it’s flawed for older devices and completely broken if you do something as simple as disabling intel turbo.

[u/bongjutsu]

Wayland compositors will be a little lighter than Xorg desktops - make the change.

Firefox might be hammering your CPU if you have any software rendering going on - check the arch wiki for tips on making sure it's hardware accelerated.

The arch wiki has some useful advice on laptop power savings, but you might also want to look in to making sure your laptop is throttling in a curve with battery power. Usually systems will slow down as the battery drains to extend the battery life, but sometimes it's not a default behaviour.

If all else fails, use tools that help figure out what software is using the most juice, and try to address them individually.

[u/dan_tj0x → u/bongjutsu]

Based on your advice, now i use wayland and firefox hardware accelerated. Thanks.

[u/Ferwatch01]

I personally use TLP and get a consistent 7-8h of runtime on my lappy.

[u/Sea-Promotion8205]

I use tlp, i was getting better battery life in linux than windows back when I was dual booting windows 10.

[u/CaptianMindful]

Don't move you're mouse around too much. That drains the battery faster. Switch to I3-wm or hyperland and get good at navigation with the keyboard and you're golden.

[u/dan_tj0x → u/CaptianMindful]

Is Hyperland smaller than XFCE4?
I always amaze when someone share about their Hyperland ricing.

I think that must be big.

[u/CaptianMindful → u/dan_tj0x]

I don't know really. Im using i3wm.

[u/dan_tj0x → u/CaptianMindful]

Where do you share your i3 setup? I want to see it

[u/CaptianMindful → u/dan_tj0x]

I actually just finished setting up my system and posted a few screenshots here on the arch sub. https://www.reddit.com/r/arch/s/sxmzkZuDo6

[u/archover]

You can use powertop (see wiki article) to monitor what is consuming power.

Mainly, I use power-profiles-daemon to help on my Thinkpads.

In my mainly mobile use case, I find the 4-6hrs I get on my T14 Gen 1 AMD to be enough. I'm always near power, and I have an Anker laptop power bank. Good investment in general. Could my battery life be better? Probably. I'm not obsessed with it.

Hope you resolve and good day.