SAVING BATTERY LIFE ON MOBILE DEVICES RUNNING LINUX

1. TLP AND POWERTOP
   Linux by default doesn’t offer a lot in the way of battery saving as of yet. This isn’t as bad a problem in Android and IOS devices as they have built these platforms around a battery as a power source rather than the desktop version the operating systems are partially based on as these were designed for desktop computers. That’s not to say that Linux hasn’t come a long way with their kernels, that said, there are a few utilities and tweaks that can really help in regards to squeezing an extra hour or so out of that battery. TLP allows the user to recalibrate the battery reading within the OS for optimum percentage reading. This sounds more complicated than it really is, but in Androids there is a file that gives the system the percentage of the battery which may or may not be correct sometimes for different reasons, this file gets corrupted and can no longer give optimum battery readings. The same is somewhat true in Linux for Laptops. Linux uses its kernel to handle hardware controlling and enabling, therefore, it should be no surprise that this same system handles battery readings within the OS. TLP allows users to help the kernel get correct readings of battery use and percentage and then runs as a daemon to help maintain consistency of battery drain over time.
   Powertop is another utility that helps users see and manage watts used and what is using them. Powertop does not give users control to stop or start the process from the program directly, however, it does act as a guide for power users or people who are a bit more advanced. I would have placed this in the advanced category, but the main function of this program is to get system readings and guage adjustments made thereafter.
2. CONSIDER SWITCHING TO LIGHTER APPS
   Linux is all about choice, that said, Linux has different apps for the same task based on different users’ needs. For some users who only browse and read email, apps like Pale Moon and Sylpheed could work just fine, but power users and Mozilla fans can use things like Evolution and Thunderbird respectively. While Firefox and Thunderbird are getting better and faster opposed to previous years, these applications are not always the lightest, or the best in terms of battery life. Also, as for reading and writing simple word documents, consider using Abiword within Linux as this is slightly less featured, however, it does one thing and it does it well, a very GNU/Linux idea. In the same vein as Abiword, Gnumeric handles spreadsheets with a smaller memory footprint.
3. SSD
   SSDs or Solid State Drives are the complete opposite of Mechanical Hard Disk Drives or HDDs. SSD performance is unrivaled as of late and the cost effectiveness is becoming larger and larger. SSDs typically used to not last as long as mechanical drives and were often overlooked due to high price ranges. These days, however, the cost and endurance of these flat cards are outlasting even some standard hard drives with speed being downright unheard of before by taking advantage of modern technologies such as SATA II and SATA III. While SATA is still not the fastest, there is even a newly developed M2 style which takes advantage of PCI Express throughput on some supported devices. SSDs secret is that they have no moving parts and act essentially as RAM on user systems.
   4. REMOVE UNUSED PERIPHERALS AND LOWER SCREEN BRIGHTNESS

USB drives and keyboard/mouse combos are rarely necessary on laptops unless you aren’t really used to the touchpad and small flat keystroke style, but learning a new skill like typing on one of these can be a good thing. Laptops are meant to be all in one and portable so unnecessary add-ons like USB devices only drain power from the default power source to work. USB devices are ever evolving like our computers, becoming faster and faster with every couple of years. The faster these devices become, the more power they will need to drain in order to give users that blistering performance. Ejecting or safely removing these drives or devices can greatly increase the battery life that you have to devote to worshiping Pewdiepie or watching cat videos.

Screen brightness is another thing that really works on mobile or battery driven devices. Most devices use regular LCD screens but OLEDs are now becoming popular. OLED screens can be hacked with a simple black wallpaper as black pixels don’t require lighting up. This can drastically save on power on the screen side of things, but also tuning screen brightness based on needs and environment is another possible help with regards to battery life on all mobile devices regardless of screen type. When installed on a mobile device, Ubuntu and some other distros have a way to control this in the system tray or in power settings. Depending on inside lighting, it is recommended to set the screen manually to about 30 or 50 percent, but note that this will probably not work as well outside.

5. CONSIDER HOW OLD YOUR BATTERY IS 

Most people who bought their laptops in college, or at least a good while back, will be most likely using Windows and an older version of the operating system running on an archaic mechanical drive. These systems are probably also running on old and worn batteries with weakening and aging cells. As batteries age, the overtime begin to wear out and fade as the cells can barely or no longer hold a charge. Generally, a battery that is new will drain consistently over all the cells at a similar or balanced rate. This rate becomes less stable over time and eventually individual cells will wear and die until the entire battery will need replacing. The rate of this decay is also dependent upon several factors. One tip that will help you to increase your battery’s efficiency for a number of years will be to not over charge, another useful tip will be to not let the battery die completely either. While this last one can help to recalibrate a mobile battery within a cellphone, it is widely advised against as this does wear on life-cycles for the battery as a whole. Sometimes, replacing is the best option. Replacing a worn battery with a new one can add pep and help with performance of any electrical device. Replacing the battery with a new one will ensure that the battery will probably outlast the hardware that uses it. Replacing batteries in Dells and most other brands shouldn’t be hard as these big brands often have a surplus of extra parts, though some are easier to get in touch with than others, Dell, obviously being one of the better and more well known ones.
6. ADVANCED: CONSIDER CPU FREQUENCY SCALING

Cpu frequency scaling is a practice in which one simply tunes the speed of the processor down for power saving measures, or up for high performance gaming. Cpu frequency scaling isn’t the same thing as overclocking or underclocking, however, it does share similarities in that you are directly throttling the cpu power and speed based on a prefered power setting, similar to what Windows lets you do with three power modes of Power saving, Balanced and High Performance. Most processors these days sometimes might have more than what you need to watch a small video file or check emails and or read word documents, so being able to control how much performance you have on a laptop is essential. In windows, you’d simply tune the setting to power saving, however, in Linux it isn’t quite as cut and dry. There are graphical ways of doing this, but the best and most used methods are done in the terminal by power users, this is why I categorized this as an advanced step.

7. TWEAKING FOR PERFORMANCE AND UPDATING CAN HELP
One of the best things about Linux is the amount of customization that you can do with it. Customizing everything from the wallpaper, themes, even to the management of system services and features. While these are sometimes done to help with looks, speed and security, the benefits won’t end there. While most users want a faster user experience these days, optimizing the performance of your device can also improve on the amount of power availability for other operations. Disabling services that you don’t need will dramatically improve battery life, but don’t just go turning off everything as your system still needs services to function. Disabling Bluetooth and Wifi when not in use can help, but also turning off screensavers can save you battery life as well. Accessibility is a hard one to recommend shutting off if you need these things, but if you’re capable of reading and hearing perfectly fine, turning these services off and preventing them from starting up can greatly increase battery life and efficiency. Also, some Linux distributions come with an automatic backup service enabled, but you don’t necessarily need this if you are on a none mission critical device or if you know how to backup your settings via the terminal or manually by way of gui. A new backup tool called Timeshift has been implemented in Linux Mint which is reminiscent of old Windows Restore which made an image of your files from a previous and pristine state before updates and system changes. While these types of things are good for new users and mission critical devices, advanced users can shut those off and make weekly backups via the terminal with usually pre-installed tools such as tar and rsync.

Updates are yet another thing that can help improve battery life on mobile devices. Updates improve the memory and cpu footprint of apps, especially those that run in the background. Most Android phones don’t receive timely updates because of chaos between Google and Cellular data companies who also sell the phones. Nevertheless, you can update the individual apps on your device regularly to maintain performance and battery consumption consistency. This lack of Android updates is a none issue with Linux devices as they are constantly receiving updates. IOS and Mac on the other hand will receive updates at least until the planned device obsolescence. Most users will replace their phones within a couple of years, but laptops are not so frequently replaced so picking a good Linux distribution that focuses on security and LTS support or Rolling support is key. Updates typically happen once a week or more often if needed on Ubuntu/Linux Mint and Solus usually about once a week consistently. Most distributions offer a graphical way to update, but I’ve seen that Solus does best through the terminal at this time. So check for updates regularly and grab those software updates because they keep the software patched from a security standpoint and they also improve the speed and resource consumption of the system overall, regardless of which distribution you choose. Also in Ubuntu, check for unattended upgrades, while not great for new users, for more advanced Linux users, this can greatly impact security and performance of the system.