Is PowerTop / TLP Still Useful To Save Power On Linux Laptops?

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Is PowerTop / LTP Still Useful To Save Power On Linux Laptops?

A Phoronix reader recently inquired about whether power-saving utilities like Intel PowerTop and LTP are still useful for conserving power on modern Linux distributions and modern hardware. The short answer is, yes, and here are some numbers.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=25651

[tildearrow]

Typo:

These power-saving tweaks hadn't yielded any degredation in performance:

Test request: macOS vs. Linux with power savings idle power draw on MacBook

[Michael]

Typo:



Test request: macOS vs. Linux with power savings idle power draw on MacBook

Unfortunately I haven't yet found any way from the CLI to properly expose the current Wattage on macOS.

[hansdegoede]

Hi,

The Fedora 28 feature I'm working on: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Chang...topBatteryLife should put the Fedora 28 results without tweaking pretty close to powertop --auto-tune / TLP. Michael, it would be interesting if you can re-run these tests with Fedora 28 once released

Regards,

Hans

p.s.

All these tweaks enable SATA ALPM which may be dangerous, the latest TLP will use the med_power_with_dipm policy where available (4.15 or newer kernel) which should be safe, for more info see:

https://hansdegoede.livejournal.com/18412.html

https://www.heise.de/ct/artikel/Die-Neuerungen-von-Linux-4-15-3900646.html

[donbastiano]

Stupid question: there is anything for the desktop? I.e. is TLP completely useless on a desktop, especially on ryzen?

[Stunts]

Unfortunately I haven't yet found any way from the CLI to properly expose the current Wattage on macOS.

Can't this also be done using the "Watts up" power socket measurements? It might not be the same, but I guess it might be worth a shot.

[Michael]

Can't this also be done using the "Watts up" power socket measurements? It might not be the same, but I guess it might be worth a shot.

Some have said that the WattsUp Pro has accuracy issues when using low Wattage devices... and I don't have any Mac desktops to compare, so not sure of the accuracy.

[kmare]

hansdegoede thank you for your hard work! I'm already enjoying a good enough battery life on my laptop (ASUS zenbook pro UX501VW) on Fedora 27 with TLP and I certainly can't wait to see the improvements with Fedora 28.
BTW, my laptop (among many others with a similar setup) is a hybrid one, intel+nvidia. Booting Fedora on it, would result in a lock up / freeze unless I add

acpi_osi=! acpi_osi=Windows 2009

as kernel parameters ( https://github.com/Bumblebee-Project...bee/issues/764 ). I know the same is needed for many other similar laptops. Is there something that could be done to make it automatic or something? Not every user is in the position to know that or even "fix" it.
And yeah, I so wish my laptop didn't include an Nvidia card at all :/

[puleglot]

What about laptop-mode-tools ?

[Stunts]

Some have said that the WattsUp Pro has accuracy issues when using low Wattage devices... and I don't have any Mac desktops to compare, so not sure of the accuracy.

Yeah, that is likely to be an issue. Now that I think of it I vaguely remember you stating that in the past. So, apologies for the noise.