The following is taken from debian install instructions
4.7. Advanced Power Management
If your motherboard provides Advanced Power Management (APM),
configure it so that power management is controlled by APM.
Disable the doze, standby, suspend, nap, and sleep modes, and
disable the hard-disk power-down timer. Linux can take over
control of these modes, and can do a better job of power-
management than the BIOS. The version of the operating sys-
tem kernel on the installation floppies does not, however, use
APM, because we've had reports of one laptop system crashing
when the Linux APM driver is configured. Once you've installed
Linux, you can install the kernel-source package and build a
custom-configured version of the operating system kernel to
enable APM and other features.
setterm should, among other things, set power saving mode for the console. try
setterm -h.
> I'm experiencing the same. On my machine, suspend mode usually
> triggers a lockup after some while. Moreover, crontabs won't run and
> the system clock runs slow (well, not the system clock in BIOS
> but the Linux one); I also use the vgetty for faxing and that didn't
> work anymore either.
>
> So, I chose to disable suspend in BIOS and only allow the
> PC to fall into standby mode. Until now, this works.
>
> BTW, I have an Asus TX97 with AMD K6-233.
> The apm utilities work well, (except for "apm -s" :))
>
> If someone has a solution I'd be happy to learn of it.
>
> Felix
> > ___________
> > Felix Chang
> >
> > Hoogovens Research & Development
> > P.O. Box 10.000
> > 1970 CA IJmuiden
> > tel (+31) 251 492927
> > fax (+31) 251 470114
> > [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >
> > ----------
> > From: Jinsong Zhao[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > Sent: dinsdag 22 december 1998 0:31
> > To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
> > Cc: recipient.list.not.shown
> > Subject: APM on Linux?
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > It would be very nice if we can leave the computer on without
> > consuming too much energy. My computer has a CMOS option to turn the
> > APM on system (doze, standby, suspend) and harddisk. If I disable the
> > feature, no problem; but if I enable those features, the computer
> > locked after some time: no response at the keyboard, dead.
> >
> > The APM works fine on X11: the monitor will automatically enter
> > suspend mode after sometime. Hope this feature also works on the whole
> > system.
> >
> > What's the best way to set up the BIOS and kernel? Thanks a lot!
> >
> > Jinsong
> >
