When you use your laptop on battery power, you want it to last as long as it can. There are a few tweaks that can be done on an Ubuntu system that will help you run your battery more efficiently so you can get longer battery life out of your laptop.

The first thing to use is the built-in power management tool. This will give your computer some instructions on what to do about hibernation, turning the screen on and off, and a few other options. The point is that you can configure your computer to run a little more friendly on battery power to get a little more life if you need to.

Download the program called PowerTOP. This is a free download in the package manager. When you run this, you’ll see which parts of the computer are using the most battery power. Just turn those things off if you can to optimize your machine to run more efficiently.

Dim your screen. While it may not seem like a big change, this will give you more battery life.

Be sure to turn off the sound to get as much battery life as possible. If not, keep the sound lower.

Try to install the updates that are available for Ubuntu. Some of these have improved battery life because the software and hardware work a little better with each other.

Disconnect unneeded devices from the computer. If you have a USB stick that you’re not accessing, for example, make sure you’re not using it at all when running on battery only.

Try to use a limited number of applications. If you leave multiple apps running but unused, your battery will drain. Turn off things that aren’t in use so you can get longer battery life.