http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTAxNDM
When will this come for ubuntu ?
I am getting tired with my 11.10 dieing at little over 50 minutes of battery when at the most extreme powersaving plan.
Hopefully, the patch will make it into the 3.0.0-13 kernel update for 11.10. You can help testing.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/PowerManagement
PS: ...and if you don't want to wait, apply the relevant workarounds now. Note, some of the workarounds are only relevant for Intel GPUs.
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/11/linux-power-regression-overheating-problem-on-thinkpad-fixed/
Example
To add the pcie_aspm option, open /etc/default/grub for editing with
gksudo gedit /etc/default/grub
find the the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash" and change it to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash pcie_aspm=force", save and exit.
Then run sudo update-grub.
You can also verify whether Active State Power Management is enabled or not with
dmesg | grep -i aspm
