When you use your laptop on battery power, you want it to last as long as it can. There are some tweaks that can be made on an Ubuntu system that will help you run your battery more efficiently so that 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 with hibernation, turning the display on and off, and a few other options. The point is that you can set 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 any 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 devices you don’t need from your 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 power alone.
Try to use a limited number of apps. Leaving multiple apps running but unused will drain your battery. Turn off things that aren’t in use so you can get longer battery life.