This tutorial shows you how to change Ubuntu 13.10 behavior to make it shutdown, hibernate, suspend or do nothing when your laptop lid is closed.

Ubuntu Unity provides a built-in utility allows to change lid closed behavior, but it only allows to suspend and do nothing in my Ubuntu 13.10 machine:

If you want to hibernate or shutdown, or you’re on Ubuntu Server without GUI follow the below steps:

1. Press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run command to edit the config file:

sudo gedit /etc/systemd/logind.conf

For server edition, replace gedit with vi (Press i to start and Esc to exit editing, : followed by wq to save file.)

2. Find the line #HandleLidSwitch=suspend, remove the # and change it to:

• HandleLidSwitch=poweroff to shutdown computer when lid is closed
• HandleLidSwitch=hibernate to hibernate computer when lid is closed
• HandleLidSwitch=ignore to do nothing

3. Save the file and restart the service or just restart your laptop to apply the changes.

sudo restart systemd-logind

That’s it. Enjoy!