Installing pmud
pmud is a collection of Power Management Utilities for PowerBooks. They include pmud (Power Management Daemon), apmd, Batmon (X11Battery Montior), snooze (sleep command) and Bat (Battery Status).
You need to get the pmud RPM or dpkg. You can get the pmud RPM from or the Debian package from apt-get.
To install the RPM: rpm -Uvh pmud-0.6-1.ppc.rpm
To install the Debian Package: apt-get install pmud
Checking the Battery Status
Batmon provides a graphical look at your current battery status. This program must run as root, so you should start it using: su -c batmon or in KDE 2: kdesu -c batmon
It will tell you if you are using AC or battery power, and if you are using battery power, how much battery remains. Batmon also gives you the option of putting you powerbook to sleep, by clicking the sleep button.
Putting the Machine to Sleep
The snooze command puts your Powerbook or iBook to sleep. Again, it must be ran as root to function properly.
If you want all users to be able to run snooze you can do this:
su # become root
ln -s /sbin/snooze /usr/bin/snooze # put a link to snooze in a user's path
chmod +s /sbin/snooze # make snooze suid
If for some reason, pmud is not working right, or you need to go to sleep very fast, you can run sleep -f. This will not spin down the disk or get you the full powersaving abilities.
Changing Your iBook or PowerBook's Backlighting
The fblevel command controls the backlighting brightness level on a PowerBook or iBook.
It can be used to turn on the backlighting, turn it off, or adjust the brightness of it. Examples:
fblevel off # backlighting completely off
fblevel on # backlighting on maxium brightness
fblevel 50 # backlighting dimed to save power
Controlling What Happens Pre-Sleep and Post-Sleep
/etc/power/pwrctl is a script defining what happens based on a change of PowerManagement status (such as a request to go to sleep, Battery to AC Power, AC to Battery Power, and low powerlevels. The defaults should be fine for most people.
/etc/power/pwrctl-local can be created to contain your own PowerBook or iBook wake up settings, like restoring the PowerBook or iBook's touchpad settings or running xrefresh (which may be neccessary on some machines).
