I'm running gentoo on an old winbook xl2 laptop (400mhz celeron). Gentoo forums are down, so I'll try here for now. Anyways, there seems to be some sort of power management set up on the laptop, as the screen shuts itself off after about 5-10 minutes. Additionally, if I close the lid, the computer goes into standby, shuting everything down, including pcmcia. My goal is to use this laptop as a server in my dorm room for small tasks and perhaps as a router. However, I don't want it to take up much room, and have no intention of ever seeing it (I use ssh to run it). So it comes down to this: how can I stop the laptop from going into standby when I close the lid. I know next to nothing about power management, although I checked the bios and found nothing in there, so either I missed something or its being run by software. I looked up information onapm and acpi but didn't find anything useful, and I don't even know what I have running. Ask away for any information you think will help and I'll find a way to provide it.

I believe that is handled by BIOS (at least, it is on my laptop). The option has to be in there somewhere.

The screen blanking is however handled by software, but don't you want the screen to blank out, since you won't be looking at it?

It can be done by both, hmm, can't you put some rules in /etc/acpi/events/ (if your laptop has ACPI, though it can be APM as well, and that isn't as easy) that just ignore the lid going down?

smth like:
event=<proper event>
action=/usr/bin/echo lid went down

I dont mind if the screen blanks out, I just want to make sure the computer remains functional. As for APM and ACPI, how would I first go about determining which I have installed. Lastly, I just rechecked the bios, and theres nothing regarding power management other than battery options. The bios as a whole is rather small and restrictive compared to most other computers.

On the old laptops that I've seen around the office, when the lid is closed, it depresses a small plastic switch - if yours is like this and you don't mind physically damaging the laptop, could you not cut this off, or even open up the laptop and disconnect that switch?

If you want to nip off the switch tip gently, a heated hobby knife blade works well.