Summary
GNOME 48 is bringing native battery charge threshold support to Ubuntu 25.10 — this is genuinely great news. But it leaves behind a significant portion of Ubuntu users: anyone on Xubuntu, Kubuntu, or other non-GNOME flavours, and the millions of users who will remain on 24.XX LTS for years to come. I’d like to propose that TLP be included as an opt-in during installation across all Ubuntu flavours to close this gap.
Background
The science on lithium-ion battery charge thresholds is well established. Studies from Stanford University and the University of Michigan have found that keeping charge between 20–80% can extend battery cycle life by 2–4x. This is no longer fringe knowledge — Apple, Samsung, Lenovo, ASUS, and Google have all introduced 80% charge limits in their own software. Lenovo’s own documentation for ThinkPads recommends charge thresholds as the single most effective way to extend battery lifespan.
The Gap GNOME 48 Doesn’t Fill
The upcoming GNOME implementation is a welcome step, but it has three significant limitations:
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Flavour coverage — It will only be available to users running GNOME. Xubuntu, Kubuntu, Ubuntu MATE, and other flavours have no equivalent solution on the roadmap.
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LTS users — Ubuntu 24.04 LTS will be in active use until 2029. Users on this release have no native path to charge threshold management and are unlikely to upgrade to 25.10.
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Firmware dependency — The GNOME implementation requires firmware-level support to function correctly when charging while powered off. TLP works at the kernel level and has broader hardware compatibility.
The Proposal
Include TLP as an opt-in step during installation across all Ubuntu flavours, with a simple plain-language prompt:
“Protect your battery health? (Recommended for laptops)
Limits charging to 80% to extend your battery’s long-term lifespan.
You can change this at any time in your power settings.”
If the user opts in:
- TLP is installed and enabled automatically
- START_CHARGE_THRESH is set to 60%, STOP_CHARGE_THRESH to 80% as a sensible default for mixed use
- Hardware support is detected silently — if the laptop doesn’t support thresholds, the option is greyed out with a brief explanation
- A follow-up notification on first boot explains why the battery stops at 80%, preventing user confusion
Additionally, the default critical battery warning level across all flavours should be raised from the current 5–10% to 20%, in line with research on deep discharge damage.
Why Opt-in?
Charging to 100% is the baseline expectation for most users. An opt-in during installation respects that while giving informed users a zero-friction path to better battery health. The precedent is already set — this is exactly the pattern Apple and Windows 11 followed when they introduced their own charge limits.
Related Discussion
A support thread from March 2025 ( Can you set charging limits to protect battery health in Ubuntu? ) shows clear user demand for this feature. It was closed automatically after 30 days — not rejected — and the community response was broadly supportive. The GNOME 48 news mentioned in that thread reinforces that this is the right direction; this proposal simply asks that all flavours and LTS users benefit equally.
The tooling exists today, the science is settled, and the direction of travel across the industry is clear. This is a small change with meaningful long-term impact for laptop users across the entire Ubuntu ecosystem.