If you install and enable the LXDE desktop environment under Ubuntu/Linux Mint, you will notice that the battery life status icon is missing which will prevent users from knowing the battery level of their laptops. In this tip, we will see how to use fdpowermon - a simple tool for monitoring battery power of laptops with ACPI - to display the battery life status icon in your taskbar.
To install fdpowermon in Ubuntu 12.10/12.04 or Linux Mint 14/13, open the terminal and run this command:
sudo apt-get install fdpowermon
Let's now configure fdpowermon to start automatically after you log in to your desktop. To do this, edit this file (replace gedit with your favorite text editor):
gksu gedit /etc/xdg/lxsession/LXDE/autostart
Append this line:
@fdpowermon
Save your file and exit. The battery status icon will now show up automatically at system startup:
