Each time I do a

apm --standby

the following message is logged in /var/log/syslog:

apmd[1881]: Standing by now

This causes the hd to spin up. I have a - in front of /var/log/syslog in /etc/syslog.conf but it doesn't help since ext3 will sync after five seconds :-(

How can I prevent that message from being written to /var/log/syslog?

(bump) Noone has a solution? The problem bugs me more and more each day :-(

in the july 2004 (Vol 6, Issue 7) Linux Magazine, Johathan Zdziarski writes:

"It's essential to shutdown syslog while on battery power, because as long as syslog is running, system messages will be written to disk..."

he goes on to mention that these services are good candidate to shutdown while running on battery: crond, autofs, cups, pcmcia, syslog. additionally he give many other ideas for mobile linux use.

if you do a

chkconfig --list

you can see what's running, do a little research, and determine which services you want to turn off while on battery. once you have you list, you can configure the apm or acpi (which ever you use) configuration scripts to do this for you. or just write up a little script to shut them down when you unplug. something like:

battery-mode

then the script does it's duty and you get to work longer...lol.

hope that helps...

Just a thought from a newbie:

Would it be possible to redirect the syslog log file (and some of that other stuff) to a ramdrive while the system is on battery power and the disk wants to spin down?

Then, as soon as the disk comes back up or power is restored, you can just copy the log back from the ramdrive to the HD.