Ubuntu 11.10: put computer to sleep when inactive for 4 hours

Question

In Ubuntu 11.10, under the power menu (in Ubuntu 11.10 this menu is found under system settings--it has a battery icon), I have the option to put the computer to sleep when inactive for 10 minutes, 30 minutes, or 1 hour.

Is there a configuration file or a menu option I can edit to add 4 hours to that menu?

This question was successfully answered for a previous Ubuntu release: Ubuntu 10.04: put computer to sleep when inactive for 4 hours

I'd be willing to submit a bug to the appropriate developer, but is this a GNOME 3 issue or a Unity issue?

Answer 1

This should work for Mint as well. First:

sudo apt-get install dconf-tools

To get a list of the relevant settings:

dconf list /org/gnome/settings-daemon/plugins/power/

Check the current setting if you want:

dconf read /org/gnome/settings-daemon/plugins/power/sleep-inactive-ac-timeout

To set this to 4 hours (value is in seconds):

dconf write /org/gnome/settings-daemon/plugins/power/sleep-inactive-ac-timeout 14400

You have to issue this command from a GUI session terminal because it will fail otherwise. It seems like it enacts the change immediately and has to touch X11.

You can also navigate to the path specified above via GUI:

dconf-editor 

One more thing: the normal settings GUI that only offered up to an hour will show a blank value because it doesn't have a drop-down value to match 4 hours. This should be a text field where users can enter an arbitrary number of minutes.

Answer 2

Click on the button in the top right corner and select "System Settings", then click on the icon which looks like a battery (I have Ubuntu in French, I don't know the name in English).