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I am getting a web server setup at home on an older AMD 2400+ desktop. I have Ubuntu 11.04 installed and running however, after a time, I can no longer browse to the server. When I go to the keyboard and press a key, everything magically works again.

I have looked through the BIOS and I am not seeing any power saving features enabled. Is there anything like that in Ubuntu? Can it be disabled?

I don't have any GUI installed. This is console only.

8 Answers 8

157

On Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, I successfully used the following to disable suspend:

sudo systemctl mask sleep.target suspend.target hibernate.target hybrid-sleep.target

And this to re-enable it:

sudo systemctl unmask sleep.target suspend.target hibernate.target hybrid-sleep.target

From man systemctl:

mask NAME...  
           Mask one or more units, as specified on the command line. This
           will link these unit files to /dev/null, making it impossible to
           start them. This is a stronger version of disable, since it
           prohibits all kinds of activation of the unit, including
           enablement and manual activation. Use this option with care. This
           honors the --runtime option to only mask temporarily until the
           next reboot of the system. The --now option may be used to ensure
           that the units are also stopped. This command expects valid unit
           names only, it does not accept unit file paths.

 unmask NAME...
           Unmask one or more unit files, as specified on the command line.
           This will undo the effect of mask. This command expects valid
           unit names only, it does not accept unit file paths.
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  • 5
    How would I test whether these are or aren't masked already? (And what does mask or unmask do anyways? Never heard of those before.) Sep 15, 2017 at 0:53
  • 1
    @ArtOfWarfare From man systemctl "Mask one or more units, as specified on the command line. This will link these unit files to /dev/null, making it impossible to start them. This is a stronger version of disable, since it prohibits all kinds of activation of the unit, including enablement and manual activation. Use this option with care. This honors the --runtime option to only mask temporarily until the next reboot of the system. The --now option may be used to ensure that the units are also stopped. This command expects valid unit names only, it does not accept unit file paths."
    – Centimane
    Oct 24, 2017 at 18:17
  • 1
    @Centimane - Thanks. So how would I actually check if they already were masked or not? Obviously I could try just running them and see what happens, but that would potentially cause the side effect of putting my computer to sleep (which would be... bad... it has issues waking up, which is why I want to just ensure it never sleeps.) Oct 24, 2017 at 19:33
  • 1
    @ArtOfWarfare or systemctl show -p FragmentPath [service]. The FragmentPath property tells you where systemd thinks the unit file lives. A masked service will say /dev/null
    – Centimane
    Oct 24, 2017 at 19:41
  • 4
    This worked for me, but had the side effect of bringing the CPU to 70-100% indefinitely whenever I closed the lid, because the system service systemd-logind was trying to execute the suspend service but couldn't. The solution is to ignore the lid with HandleLidSwitch=ignore in /etc/systemd/logind.conf
    – Djizeus
    Jun 8, 2019 at 22:17
38

GUI

Have you looked at:

System -> Preferences -> Power Management

On AC Power Tab, Put computer to sleep when inactive for: "Never"

Terminal

Can you open up "gconf-editor"?

Look in: /apps/gnome-power-manager/timeout

Try setting sleep_computer_ac to 0

I'm not positive if anything else needs to be changed as well.

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  • 2
    How do I do that on the console? I don't have a gui installed.
    – Mike Wills
    Jun 6, 2011 at 20:17
  • @Mike Wills Updated since you have no gui Jun 6, 2011 at 20:41
  • 2
    Again, I don't have gnome or any of that installed. It is a pure console.
    – Mike Wills
    Jun 7, 2011 at 1:47
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    Up to date command-line way is: gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power sleep-inactive-ac-timeout '0' && gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power sleep-inactive-battery-timeout '0'
    – dess
    Jul 22, 2015 at 11:45
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    @dess very helpful. Thanks! You should post your response in an answer for others to see.
    – kalu
    Jan 12, 2016 at 22:59
19

None of these described solutions worked for me. The laptop was still going to sleep. Using the Grub Linux command line option of acpi=off caused the laptop to fail to boot. I finally found this solution.

sudo vi /etc/default/acpi-support # and then set SUSPEND_METHODS="none"
sudo /etc/init.d/acpid restart

Based on the original solution from Stephan here: Keep Ubuntu Server running on a laptop with the lid closed?

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    I'm aware that I'm commenting on a posting that is 5 years old by now. With that disclaimer over, please note that the acpi-support package has been deprecated for a while and is now gone. In my particular system, I still have acpid. If you want to see what acpid has to say, try setting OPTIONS="-d -l" (that's a lowercase L) in /etc/default/acpid to produce some output in the syslog i.e. /var/log/daemon log or some such.
    – frr
    Nov 5, 2021 at 19:02
14

The right answer for this located here:

Have you tried adding the kernel options acpi=off apm=off to the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT in /etc/default/grub?

Then run sudo update-grub and reboot your computer.

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    Whilst adding these options to my grub configuration did stop my machine from going to sleep, it should be noted setting acpi=off has a lot of other effects. The key one for me is that it also disables hyperthreading. Feb 21, 2019 at 17:33
  • 1
    @PicoutputCls the artice you link states that acpi=ht "Deactivates the ACPI system almost completely; only the components required for hyper threading will be used"
    – pzkpfw
    Aug 1, 2019 at 7:49
  • The whole system becomes very slow if I set acpi=off Aug 13, 2019 at 2:32
  • this setting caused my laptop/ubuntu 20.02 to being restarting at random times. Use with caution. Jul 10, 2021 at 23:40
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    On systems with ACPI, ACPI is the preferred way of setting up IRQ routing and initiallizing SMP (multi-CPU / multi-core stuff) during OS boot. If you disable ACPI, chances are, that the APIC's and multiple CPU cores can start up via the older (pre-ACPI) MPS BIOS services, if these are present in the BIOS and in good shape. Otherwise, disabling ACPI may constrain your system to a single CPU core and just the ~15 legacy IRQ's, which will be massively shared by the myriad devices in a modern PC system. I.e. acpi=off can indeed result in a slow or non-booting system.
    – frr
    Nov 5, 2021 at 19:13
10

In addition to the systemctl mask/unmask options, I also use the following to turn suspend on/off for the Gnome desktop.

gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power sleep-inactive-battery-type 'suspend'
gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power sleep-inactive-ac-type 'suspend'

or

gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power sleep-inactive-battery-type 'nothing'
gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power sleep-inactive-ac-type 'nothing'

I found these by exploring the settings revealed by the commands listed in How to dump ALL dconf/gsettings so that I can compare them between two different machines?

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    I also had to do both mask, and set sleep-inactive-ac-type 'nothing', with timeout 0. May 15, 2020 at 19:29
8

Please try looking into these links - cyberciti.biz and Arch forums

This is an excerpt from the cyberciti.biz link:

By default, the Linux kernel will use screen-save option to disable it you need to type this command (it turns off monitor VESA powersaving features):

$ setterm -powersave off -blank 0

If it dumps back you with an error that read as follows: cannot (un)set powersave mode

You need to shutdown X window system and rerun the above command. Better, add following two commands to your ~/.xinitrc file:

setterm -blank 0 -powersave off -powerdown 0
xset s off
7

Just wanted to note my problems with the accepted answer and provide an alternative solution:

Masking sleep.target, suspend.target etc. using systemctl does do the job, but know that systemd-logind will still try to call sleep.target (or which ever)!

@Djizeus reports that this resulted in an indefinite CPU usage of 70-100% after closing the lid. Personally I experienced systemd-logind spamming my /var/log/auth.log until it filled the disk (tens and tens of lines per second reporting sleep is masked).

Taken again from @Djizeus' comment: "[t]he solution is to ignore the lid with HandleLidSwitch=ignore in /etc/systemd/logind.conf".

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    I second that. And, as I'm prevented from posting here (being a noob), here goes my counter-suggestion: edit /etc/systemd/sleep.conf ; AllowSuspend=no , AllowHibernation=no . See also man systemd-sleep , man systemd-sleep.conf .
    – frr
    Nov 5, 2021 at 19:15
0

I found Light Locker, as I have Ubuntu 14.04.2 with LXDE (Lubuntu) Desktop; if you have this desktop you can change the default and manage the monitor through that. Otherwise you might have to install gconf-editor through terminal if you don't have it. Light Locker is in can be found in Preferences in the main menu.

1
  • gconf-editor requires a gui.
    – Eric
    Jul 9, 2015 at 8:12

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