A while ago I had a Lenovo X121e as a lightweight “surf anywhere” system. Because I also create content and I like my freedom, a tablet is not really an option for me. Because of (amongst other things) its advertised battery of up to 10 hours life I chose the X121e.

Of course the pre-delivered OS got replaced by Debian immediately. But what a shock, the battery only lasted about 3 hours! I was really disappointed, but then came across TLP, an advanced Power Management tool for Linux. Using TLP the battery lifetime more than doubled on the X121e. Still no 10 hours, but I can live with that. The amount of extra battery life is still dependent on your system, I think twice as much battery life is really not what TLP can do on every system

For the official installation instructions, please refer to the official site. I just summarize the necessary Debian steps.

1. Make sure to use a sane and up-to-date sources.list
2. Update your package lists:

   # apt update

3. Last but no least, install the necessary packages:

   # apt install tlp tlp-rdw

Done already! Enjoy your extra battery life.