This is an interesting spin on trying to optimize power efficiency. It’s similar to TLP, but instead of trying to optimize everything, it simply targets the CPU.

On a laptop running on battery, cpufreq can go into a low-power energy saving mode, but still boost the CPU for demanding tasks without the need to manually set the CPU to performance mode. This makes it a more ‘set it and forget it’ app.

This should also work on desktops, and could save you a few watts if you mostly use it to idle around in a browser all day, and only occasionally stress the CPU with a game or other task.

If you don’t care about automatically switching to a higher performance mode and instead want to prioritize power savings, such as on a laptop, TLP is still possibly better in that regard (and if you do go that route, be sure to use the TLP GUI

  • A_norny_mousse@feddit.org
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    3 days ago

    One of the problems with Linux today on laptops is that the CPU will run in an unoptimized manner

    Is this actually still true? I thought automatic scaling happens mostly on firmware level these days.

    • ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.netOP
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      2 days ago

      I think you’re right, and they may be exaggerating a bit. From what I can tell, this would be almost act like a 4th setting between power-save and on-demand mode, so you still get most of the benefits of power-save mode, but without the need to switch back to on-demand when you do something intense.

      also @[email protected].