configure battery power settings in Gnome

Gnome desktop does not allow users to set the values for battery critical state, Power settings will only allow users to set what action is to be taken when the battery is critical. By default it is considered critical when battery backup time is  5 minutes and it will initiate battery critical action when backup time remaining is 2 minutes. This default behavior is questionable because 2 minutes will not be sufficient for all users to find a power source and as most batteries used today are lithium-ion batteries, their life will get significantly reduced by this default behavior when drained so low so often.

Fortunately, this can be changed in configuration editor. systems using older Gnome versions such as Gnome2 desktops had a tool called Gconf-editor to change these configuration settings. Newer Gnome versions such as systems using Gnome3 desktop use a tool called dconf-editor to make changes to these configuration settings.Install this tool by using below command from terminal

sudo apt-get install dconf-editor

After installing open dconf-editor and look for following path in the left pane

/org/gnome/settings-daemon/plugins/power/

In the right pane look for the fields,

time-action

time-critical

time-low

and change the time values for the fields according to your preferences.Note that the time is defined in seconds.

Description for the fields and the type of value it accepts will be available at the bottom pane, when you select the fields.

Alternatively, if you want your system to consider the battery percentage instead of remaining time, uncheck the key

use-time-for-policy

and modify the keys

percentage-action

percentage-critical

percentage-low

to your preference.Now your system should take the values you defined after the next boot or restart your system for the settings to take effect immediately.

disable shutdown and restart confirmation dialogs in ubuntu lucid

In ubuntu versions before lucid when the shutdown or restart button is pressed there will be a confirmation dialog asking to confirm your action and if no action is taken in 60 seconds the system will automatically confirm your action. But in lucid the auto confirmation is removed and you have to manually confirm your action no matter how long it is. However if you dont like your system asking you to confirm your action then there is a simple way to remove the confirmation dialog.

Open Gconf-editor by pressing Alt+F2 in desktop and type gconf-editor in the “Run application” dialog and press enter, the gconf-editor window will appear. In the left panel of the editor window navigate to:

/ -> apps -> indicator-session

In the right pane enable the key suppress_logout_restart_shutdown and close the editor. Now when the shutdown or restart or logout button is pressed there will be no confirmation dialog. If you change your mind and need the confirmation dialog back just uncheck the key value.To know more about the gconf-editor visit this link.

Alternatively you can disable it by typing the typing the following command in the terminal:

gconftool-2 –type bool –set /apps/indicator-session/suppress_logout_restart_shutdown true

To re-enable it just change the key value in the end of the command to false.

Note: double hyphen is used before type and set in the above command.