Configuring APM on the ThinkPad 390E



Ingredients for APM Support


Compiling an APM-Capable Kernel



Making the most of APM

The above sounds involved, and it is (albeit instructive)! But being able to use the suspend and resume features of your laptop is very cool indeed. You can work weeks, months without ever rebooting your computer! And your work is always right where you left it. :) I recommend it highly.

A few notes on using APM:


Summary: APM works pretty darn well, with a few minor cosmetic glitches. Linux properly idles the processor after about 300 ms of idle time, and so battery performance is quite good. Running the CPU full-bore, with a mixture of light text editing, numerical simulations and compiling/developing, battery life is about 4 hours. It can be extended with judicious use of the CPU and shutting off the backlight. Running the hard disk, floppy, or CDROM appears to be the most substantial battery drain, followed by the LCD backlight, followed by the CPU. This is purely empirical; I have not evaluated the actual current draw of these devices.



Back to Linux on a TP 390E

Craig Kulesa
Last modified: Fri Apr 14 01:18:58 MST 2000