One way to get more battery life out of a laptop is to dig into the system settings and tweak away. One new tool from Intel goes even deeper...

PowerTOP requires a 32-bit Linux kernel (2.6.21 or later) and an Intel mobile chipset. Here's how it works:

PowerTOP is a Linux tool that finds the software component(s) that make your laptop use more power than necessary while it is idle. As of Linux kernel version 2.6.21, the kernel no longer has a fixed 1000Hz timer tick. This will (in theory) give a huge power savings because the CPU stays in low power mode for longer periods of time during system idle.

However... there are many things that can ruin the party, both inside the kernel and in userspace. PowerTOP combines various sources of information from the kernel into one convenient screen so that you can see how well your system is doing, and which components are the biggest problem.

One brave soul boosted his battery life from four hours to seven, according to a testimonial. 64-bit support arrives as soon as kernel 2.6.23 is released, which is expected to include the tickless idle (NO_HZ) feature.

[via ecoIron]

Update: PC World has some background as well as a pretty good explanation on why PowerTOP, and initiatives like it, matter.