Linux Kernel in a Nutshell

Name

PM — Power Management support

Power Management allows parts of your computer to shut off or be put into a power-conserving sleep mode if they are not being used. There are two competing standards for doing this: APM and ACPI. If you want to use either one, say yes here and then also enable one of those two standards.

Power Management is most important for battery-powered laptop computers; if you have a laptop, check out the Linux Laptop home page at http://www.linux-on-laptops.com or Tuxmobil-Linux on Mobile Computers at http://www.tuxmobil.org, and the Battery Powered Linux mini-HOWTO, available from http://www.tldp.org/docs.html#howto.

Note that, even if you say no here, Linux on the x86 architecture will issue the hlt instruction if nothing is being done, thereby sending the processor to sleep and saving power.