ubuntu – Make Laptop Sleep at Low Battery Threshold

batterypower-managementsuspendUbuntu

I'm using Ubuntu, but I have i3 as my window manager instead of a desktop environment.

When my battery reaches 0%, the computer will just abruptly shut down, no warning or anything.

Is there a simple script or configuration I can set up so that it goes to sleep at, say 4% battery?

Best Answer

Here's a small script that checks for the battery level and calls a custom command, here pm-hibernate, in case the battery level is below a certain threshold.

#!/bin/sh

###########################################################################
#
# Usage: system-low-battery
#
# Checks if the battery level is low. If “low_threshold” is exceeded
# a system notification is displayed, if “critical_threshold” is exceeded
# a popup window is displayed as well. If “OK” is pressed, the system
# shuts down after “timeout” seconds. If “Cancel” is pressed the script
# does nothing.
#
# This script is supposed to be called from a cron job.
#
###########################################################################

# This is required because the script is invoked by cron. Dbus information
# is stored in a file by the following script when a user logs in. Connect
# it to your autostart mechanism of choice.
#
# #!/bin/sh
# touch $HOME/.dbus/Xdbus
# chmod 600 $HOME/.dbus/Xdbus
# env | grep DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS > $HOME/.dbus/Xdbus
# echo 'export DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS' >> $HOME/.dbus/Xdbus
# exit 0
#
if [ -r ~/.dbus/Xdbus ]; then
  . ~/.dbus/Xdbus
fi

low_threshold=10
critical_threshold=4
timeout=59
shutdown_cmd='/usr/sbin/pm-hibernate'

level=$(cat /sys/devices/platform/smapi/BAT0/remaining_percent)
state=$(cat /sys/devices/platform/smapi/BAT0/state)

if [ x"$state" != x'discharging' ]; then
  exit 0
fi

do_shutdown() {
  sleep $timeout && kill $zenity_pid 2>/dev/null

  if [ x"$state" != x'discharging' ]; then
    exit 0
  else
    $shutdown_cmd
  fi
}

if [ "$level" -gt $critical_threshold ] && [ "$level" -lt $low_threshold ]; then
  notify-send "Battery level is low: $level%"
fi

if [ "$level" -lt $critical_threshold ]; then

  notify-send -u critical -t 20000 "Battery level is low: $level%" \
    'The system is going to shut down in 1 minute.'

  DISPLAY=:0 zenity --question --ok-label 'OK' --cancel-label 'Cancel' \
    --text "Battery level is low: $level%.\n\n The system is going to shut down in 1 minute." &
  zenity_pid=$!

  do_shutdown &
  shutdown_pid=$!

  trap 'kill $shutdown_pid' 1

  if ! wait $zenity_pid; then
    kill $shutdown_pid 2>/dev/null
  fi

fi

exit 0

It's a very simple script, but I think you get the idea and can easily adapt it to your needs. The path to the battery level might be different on your system. A little more portable would probably be to use something like acpi | cut -f2 -d, to obtain the battery level. This script can be scheduled by cron to run every minute. Edit your crontab with crontab -e and add the script:

*/1 * * * * /home/me/usr/bin/low-battery-shutdown

Another solution would be to install a desktop environment like Gnome or Xfce (and change your window manager to i3). Both mentioned destop environments feature power management daemons which take care of powering off the computer. But I assume you deliberately don't use them and are seeking for a more minimalistic solution.

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