Avian’s Blog

asus_acpi.ko kernel module provides an interface to what look like electronic power switches for different peripheral devices in Asus Eee PC.

For example doing echo "0" > /proc/acpi/asus/camera will cut power to the integrated web camera. If you want to get as much battery life out of Eee as possible it helps to switch off devices that you're not using. However typing commands like above quickly gets boring. So here's a little Perl script that does that in a bit more user-friendly way:

avian@galxpolx:~$ eeepower
Asus Eee PC peripheral power utility. Copyright (c) Tomaz Solc. Under GPL.

  SD/MMC reader   off
   Wireless LAN   on
         Camera   off
avian@galxpolx:~$ eeepower help
USAGE: eeepower [ device ] [ on | off ]

Available devices:
        cardr    SD/MMC reader
         wlan    Wireless LAN
       camera    Camera