I have installed Linux Mint 22 in a DELL laptop with a buggy ACPI implementation (the kernel complains about it during boot). The laptop hangs if it goes to sleep (I tried various Linux distros/kernel-versions, the result is the same).

Because of that, I have disabled SLEEP in the firmware (latest version for that laptop btw). So basically, when you close the lid, nothing happens (it just locks the screen).

However, sometimes you might be in a hurry and you close the lid to do something else, and then you forget about it. The result would be for the battery to run dry, which eventually destroys the battery.

My question is: what would be the best way to setup an audible alarm if the battery reaches 20%?

  • Eugenia@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
    9·
    10 months ago

    Ok, I managed it by myself after a bit of tinkering. This is the bash script:

    #!/bin/bash
while true
    do 
        battery_level=`cat /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/capacity`
        battery_status=`cat /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/status`
        if [ $battery_status = "Discharging" ] && [ $battery_level -lt 21 ];
        then
            /usr/bin/aplay  /home/eugenia/Music/alarm.wav
        fi
       sleep 120
    done

    Obviously change the path the .wav audio file to suit yours (I downloaded mine from the internet). Then, save the file (in my case, I named it battery.sh), make the script file executable ( chmod +x battery.sh via the terminal, or via the file manager).

    Then add it to the Startup Applications settings panel on your distro (usually gnome and cinnamon have one). The alarm will sound if the battery reaches below 21%.

    • Deckweiss@lemmy.world
      3·
      10 months ago

      Since you say

      change the path the .wav audio file

      fyi, the sys BAT paths are also different per laptop. Just in case it doesn’t work for somebody else or for you on a different laptop.

  • fish@feddit.uk
    7·
    10 months ago

    You could look into using scripts with tools like acpi or upower. A simple shell script checking battery levels every few minutes could work: if it’s below 20%, play a sound. Schedule it with a cron job or a systemd service for consistency. I’m no script guru, but there’s lots of good examples online!

  • IanTwenty@lemmy.world
    3·
    10 months ago

    I seem to get pop-up notifications for free in GNOME/Fedora by setting these levels in /etc/UPower/UPower.conf:

    UsePercentageForPolicy=true
PercentageLow=50
PercentageCritical=20
PercentageAction=10

    I think you can also configure the system to take action when it reaches the lowest level with e.g.

    # The action to take when "TimeAction" or "PercentageAction" above has been
# reached for the batteries (UPS or laptop batteries) supplying the computer
CriticalPowerAction=PowerOff

    However I don’t know how to get these GNOME “Power” notifications to play an audible sound (without turning on notification sounds for ALL notifications). The best I could find is this: David Bazile / gaudible · GitLab

    There’s talk of better control of sound notifications in GNOME 47+, but looks like nothing much has landed yet: Notifications in 46 and beyond – GNOME Shell & Mutter