Ubuntu doesn't save power on it's own

[Muelli]

When I run powertop on my Thinkpad X61s, it suggests me a couple of things I expected ubuntu to do on it's own.

e.g.

Suggestion: Enable wireless power saving mode by executing the following command
:
  echo 5 > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/iwl4965/0000:03:00.0/power_level

Suggestion: Enable USB autosuspend by pressing the U key or adding
usbcore.autosuspend=1 to the kernel command line in the grub config

Suggestion: Enable SATA ALPM link power management via:
  echo min_power > /sys/class/scsi_host/host0/link_power_management_policy

[Uwe L. Korn (uwelk)]

Some of these power saving improvements may influence the performance or the stability on certain machines, so that are not enabled by default, if you think a certain suggestion would be able to implement an on all systems without a loss of stability and performance, file a new bug considering only this issue and assign it to the specific package which needs to be changed in future.

[Muelli (ubuntu-bugs-auftrags-killer)]

Hey,

On 15.08.2008 20:06 Uwe L. Korn wrote:
> Some of these power saving improvements may influence the performance or
> the stability on certain machines, so that are not enabled by default,
Which ones are you thinking of?

I don't care about performance anyway. I care about the stamina of my
laptop and I want to maximize that. I'm fine with manually activating an
init-script or answer a installation-time question from an "laptop-mode"
or at any time ubuntu detects that I'm running a laptop.

[Uwe L. Korn (uwelk)]

For example, the increase of VM writeback time which is always suggested as first when I use powertop increases performance, too, but if your system crashes there might be a loss of the data of the last 15 seconds instead of the last 5 seconds, so

> I don't care about performance anyway.
That's just for you and some others and not all, so I your proposed option would be nice, maybe a some additional options should be added to 'gnome-power-manager', so that endusers could control this simpler.

[Scott Howard (showard314)]

Thank you for taking the time to make Ubuntu better. Since what you submitted is not really a bug, or a problem, but rather an idea to improve Ubuntu, you are invited to post your idea in Ubuntu Brainstorm at http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/ where it can be discussed, voted by the community and reviewed by developers. Thanks for taking the time to share your opinion!