low-power mode

Winsage
December 26, 2025
A new runtime standby ABI has been proposed in the Linux kernel community through a post-Christmas patch series led by Antheas Kapenekakis. This initiative aims to implement a feature similar to Microsoft's "Modern Standby," allowing devices to maintain network connectivity while appearing to be in a sleep state. The patches provide a more robust solution than previous efforts, enabling user-space control over ACPI LPS0 display notifications. The series introduces a mechanism for firing Modern Standby firmware notifications without suspending the kernel, allowing the device to appear asleep while still performing basic computations. The first part of the series modifies the existing DSMs to be called at the beginning of the suspend sequence and exposes a transition function through /sys/power/standby for user-space interaction. The RFC patch series, including documentation on the proposed interface, is available for review.
AppWizard
November 5, 2025
Valve has introduced a feature for the Steam Deck that allows users to download games while the device's screen is turned off. This feature is available in the beta version of the Steam Deck client and activates automatically when the device is plugged in. Users can initiate downloads and press the power button to continue downloading with the screen off, entering a low-power mode. In this mode, users can check download progress by pressing any button or moving the device. If the device is unplugged and the battery drops below 20%, it will automatically enter sleep mode to prevent data corruption during downloads. This feature is expected to move from the beta version to the stable version of SteamOS within the next month.
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