Power management

Power Management refers to any system software that controls your hardware for the purpose of lowering power consumption. This includes:
 * "spinning down" the harddisk when not in use for a specified time
 * causing the screensaver to start (?)
 * causing the monitor to dim
 * causing the monitor to go into a sleep mode

Power management can be complex because -- at its lowest level -- it can either be handled by the motherboard's BIOS, or else can be handled by the OS kernel (and the BIOS and kernel have to agree on who's handling it!).

For information on setting up specific power management technologies, see ACPI and APM.