Linux Thermal/Power Platform Profile Support Coming For Alienware Systems

Following work last month for extending the Dell WMI sysman Linux driver to handle Alienware systems for managing the system BIOS within the confines of Linux, another separate improvement is on the way for enhancing Alienware hardware support under Linux. This newest effort is introducing the "dell-wmi-awcc" driver for handling functionality found under Windows with the Alienware Command Center.

Open-source developer Kurt Borja posted a patch today for implementing Dell AWCC platform profile support for exposing the user-selectable thermal tables (USTT) that under Windows are exposed with the Alienware Command Center software.

Alienware M-Series, Alienware X-Series and Dell's G-Series offers these thermal/power profiles for more control over the power and performance characteristics of the system. It's similar to the platform profile support available with laptops and motherboards from other vendors.

The Dell AWCC platform profile support allows for profiles of balanced, balanced performance, cool, quiet, performance, and low power.

Those with an Alienware system and wanting to test out this new driver can currently find the dell-wmi-awcc Linux driver under review on the platform-driver-x86 mailing list.