TLP over the actual power profile

General
1

Hello, I just installed Aurora, my question is can tlp be installed? and if yes how would it be done pls .
thanks

2
  1. Install TLP
    rpm-ostree install tlp
  2. Disable & mask power-profiles-daemon
    sudo systemctl disable power-profiles-daemon.service
    sudo systemctl mask power-profiles-daemon.service
  3. Reboot
  4. Enable TLP service
    sudo systemctl enable --now tlp.service
  5. Install TLP UI as Flatpak for GUI configuration (optional)
    flatpak install flathub com.github.d4nj1.tlpui

Those were all it took for me to install TLP on my Thinkpad running Bluefin.

2 Likes
3

Thank You sir, much appreciate!

4

Hope you don’t mind me resurrecting this thread: How is TLP going for you? Do you get better battery life with it?

5

Hi, TLP user who pitched in here. All good.

--- TLP 1.7.0 --------------------------------------------

+++ Battery Care
Plugin: thinkpad
Supported features: charge thresholds, recalibration
Driver usage:
* natacpi (thinkpad_acpi) = active (charge thresholds, recalibration)
Parameter value ranges:
* START_CHARGE_THRESH_BAT0/1:  0(off)..96(default)..99
* STOP_CHARGE_THRESH_BAT0/1:   1..100(default)

+++ ThinkPad Battery Status: BAT0 (Main / Internal)
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/manufacturer                   = LGC
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/model_name                     = 01AV478
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/cycle_count                    =   1058
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/energy_full_design             =  57000 [mWh]
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/energy_full                    =  48040 [mWh]
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/energy_now                     =  19530 [mWh]
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/power_now                      =   8246 [mW]
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/status                         = Discharging

/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/charge_control_start_threshold =     59 [%]
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/charge_control_end_threshold   =     80 [%]
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/charge_behaviour               = [auto] inhibit-charge force-discharge

Charge                                                      =   40.7 [%]
Capacity                                                    =   84.3 [%]

Battery capacity is unchanged from when I first used it (so about 4-ish months after I first got the laptop secondhand - 84.3%. I attribute this to the charge start/end threshold; I used to have the laptop docked 24/7 for about a year and I saw no changes in the capacity.

I definitely get more usage with it than when I was using Windows 10 on a “full” charge - 79% to 20% (sometimes to 10% if I’m pushing it) light work with browser+Slack use gets me about 6 hours. I have no stats on this laptop on Linux without TLP though, sorry about that.

Additionally I use TLP with throttled for undervolting and limiting TDP, so that definitely helps a lot. Here are my UV values, but be aware that UV performance varies on the exact hardware - you might already get crashes at like -40s. If you’ll be experimenting, start from -10s.

[UNDERVOLT]
# CPU core voltage offset (mV)
CORE: -100
# Integrated GPU voltage offset (mV)
GPU: -70
# CPU cache voltage offset (mV)
CACHE: -100
6

Thanks! That’s really helpful! I haven’t looked into TLP much in the past but I like getting good battery life and I like to tinker so I reckon it might be in my future :sweat_smile:

Also sorry for the late reply, I just found this message sitting in my drafts :man_facepalming:

7

If you install TLP by layering won’t it simply get uninstalled after an update?

It would be nice if this was included in the image by default since its quite essential for laptops.

8

No, it won’t. The logic is that rpm-ostree downloads the upstream Bluefin/Aurora/Bazzite image → implements your layered packages → deploys the combined image.

TLP conflicts with power-profiles-daemon, and would conflict with tuned as well since tuned replaces power-profiles-daemon. Plus TLP is mainly used for laptops (and to be specific, it is most often recommended for Thinkpad users), whereas projects like Bazzite, Aurora, and Bluefin are intended to be agnostic in terms of supporting laptops, desktops, and - for Bazzite - handhelds. So, from my perspective at least, replacing what we have right now in the projects with TLP will be more detrimental than beneficial.

It’s unfortunate that for certain devices layering is inevitable (T480s user here who would have to layer TLP and fingerprint drivers). I decided to make a custom image to make my life easier.

9

Oh that is a lot of stuff I had no idea about! Thanks!

But does it conflict with power-profiles-daemon by simply installing it? I thought it needed to be actually run and configured to do anything.

For myself I will just stick with the 3 options I can choose in Power (Balanced/Power saver/Performance).

10

Just installing it would likely not be a problem, and initialization/reset scripts can be handled within ujust if it is included, but from my perspective it creates points of failure. And again, TLP features are most beneficial for Thinkpad/Lenovo laptop owners to some extent, so it would be unused baggage on desktops or other unsupported devices. And for example, on Bazzite, using TLP would essentially render the optimized tuned presets useless, so…

The three power options exposed by power-profiles-daemon are good enough for most people, especially Balanced (Performance is for forcing high-performance regardless of energy use, Power Saver force-limits your CPU use so it uses less battery). That, paired with an appropriate charger and sensible charging habits, would be key. :wink:

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