Linux 6.9 To Support The Power Profile Key On New Lenovo ThinkPads

On newer Lenovo ThinkPad laptops (2024+ models) there is a new key combination appearing to make it easy to switch between ACPI Platform Profiles for toggling your power/performance preference of the system. With the Linux 6.9 kernel coming in a few months this key will now work under Linux too.

The ACPI Platform Profile functionality allows nicely changing between lower-power battery-saving focused mode of operation to going between a balanced and then higher-performance, higher-power modes. Adjusting the ACPI Platform Profile has a direct impact on the power and performance behavior of modern laptops, just not from Lenovo but most major laptop vendors are now implementing ACPI Platform Profile support.

Adjusting the ACPI Platform Profile has typically been done within integration provided by the desktop environment or interacting with the respective sysfs interface directly. But now with the newest Lenovo laptops they are implementing support for it as a hot key combination as well. With 2024+ ThinkPads it looks to be the Fn + F8 key for easily toggling between the platform profile modes.

Queued in platform-drivers-x86.git's for-next branch is the two dozen lines of new code to the ThinkPad ACPI driver for wiring up that key combination to the platform profile mode selection. Tapping the key will then work on Linux 6.9+ for cycling between the low-power / balanced / performance modes without having to worry about navigating the desktop preferences or writing to the sysfs interface manually. Look for this in the Linux 6.9 kernel that will debut as stable around the middle of the year.

The Linux thinkpad-acpi patch was tested on a new Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12 laptop powered by an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H Meteor Lake processor.