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My laptop suspends when I close the lid, as I want it to.

However, when I connect an external display (HDMI) and keyboard (USB), I like to be able to close the lid of the laptop, without suspending the whole system.

Is there a setting or script to get this behavior?

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  • Yes! This makes so much sense when moving to a desk that has a monitor better than that on the laptop. This is a very frustrating feature of Ubuntu. Windows 8 does what I would expect. I can't work out how to get Ubuntu to behave this way as well. Feb 2, 2014 at 1:17
  • there is a bug report for the opposite problem: bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-settings-daemon/+bug/… . In one of the comments, there is an interesting reference to an option in gnome-tweak-tool "Laptop lid, when closed, will suspend even if there is an external monitor plugged in." This option is not working for me though.
    – geoffrey
    Apr 24, 2014 at 11:28

3 Answers 3

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whatever happened since this post first appeared and after making the obvious changes in settings, it now looks as if plugging a mouse and keyboard in is enough to wake the external monitor up whilst keeping the laptop lid closed and its screen off.

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  • Shouldn't we see the same behavior even without a mouse and/or keyboard plugged in? Feb 19, 2018 at 17:34
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This used to be the default behaviour, that regardless of the gnome-power settings the laptop would not suspend upon lid-close with an external monitor present.

The fact that this is no longer the case appears to be a bug. I can't find an existing bug report for it, so I suggest you report a bug on launchpoad.

The only workaround for the moment appears to be to change the gnome-power settings to "do nothing" upon lid close, and use the menus to suspend when you actually want to suspend.

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  • I will add a "bugreport"/"enhancement request" for this, when I find the time. If anyone else wants to do this, please drop a line here with a link to the report.
    – mirk
    Oct 28, 2013 at 10:39
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Within the gconf-editor go to apps -> gnome-power-manager -> buttons and set lid_ac and lid_battery to "nothing" (you may have to run gconf-editor as sudo and I don't know if it is installed by default)

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