TuxTime

With their laptops Toshiba supply software to control the power saving options of the laptop. Traditionally this has been a Microsoft Windows® program called MaxTime®. This has allows the user to set things such as LCD backlight settings, hard disk auto off times, speaker volume etc. Whilst this is fine if you use Microsoft Windows® as your operating system, if you use Linux you have been high and dry.

TuxTime is the name of my Linux replacement for MaxTime®. It provides a complete replacement of MaxTime® enabling you to do all the things MaxTime® lets you do but under Linux.

TuxTime consists of two components. The first is a small applet program that displays the remaining capacity of the batteries etc. It also detects any changes in the power source and modifies the power saving options accordingly. I plan to have at least three versions of the applet program one for WindowMaker one for GNOME and one for KDE. Currently only the wmtuxtime exits.

The second program is configuration manager which is called by clicking on small buttons on the applet. It allows the user to select the different settings for things such as screen brightness, CPU speed, hard disk auto off time etc. for external and battery power sources. On exiting these settings are saved to the configuration file and are used to set the settings when the power source changes. It also allows the changing of things such as panel power on/off, power-up mode and speaker volume.

In addition the configuration manager provides a graphical interface to change the low battery alarm settings for the applet program

The screenshot below shows the Machine Settings dialog box where you can change settings such as screen brightness, system auto off time, speaker volume, panel power on/off etc.