TLP is an advanced power management tool for Linux that gives the settings and tweaks to enhance your existing power management automatically without the need to know every technical details. It is purely a command-line tool and doesn’t have a GUI. It should work on almost all laptops.
TLP does not replace the existing power management of your Linux installation, but it enhances the existing it. TLP applies its settings upon system startup and on every change of the power source. TLP packages are available almost for all distributions such as Arch Linux, Debian, RH Fedora, Gentoo, OpenSUSE and Ubuntu.
Features –
Settings depending on the power source:
- Kernel laptop mode and dirty buffer timeouts
- Processor frequency scaling including “turbo boost”/”turbo core”
- Power aware process scheduler for multi-core/hyper-threading
- Hard disk advanced power management level and spin down timeout (per disk)
- SATA aggressive link power management (ALPM)
- PCI Express active state power management (PCIe ASPM) – Linux 2.6.35 and above
- Runtime power management for PCI(e) bus devices – Linux 2.6.35 and above
- Radeon KMS power management – Linux 2.6.35 and above, not fglrx
- Wi-fi power saving mode – depending on kernel/driver
- Power off optical drive in drive bay (on battery)
Additional functions:
- I/O scheduler (per disk)
- USB auto-suspend with blacklist
- Audio power saving mode – hda_intel, ac97
- Enable or disable integrated wi-fi, bluetooth or wwan devices upon system startup and shutdown
- Restore radio device state on system startup (from previous shutdown).
- Radio device wizard: switch radios upon network connect/disconnect and dock/undock
- Disable Wake On LAN
- WWAN state is restored after suspend/hibernate
- Untervolting of Intel processors – requires kernel with PHC-Patch
- Battery charge thresholds – ThinkPads only
- Recalibrate battery – ThinkPads only
Install TLP on Ubuntu/Linux Mint
Before installing TLP, make sure that you have removed the user specific power save settings and scripts (for example in /etc/rc.local), otherwise expect unpredictable results and also remove laptop-mode-tools:
sk@sk:~$ sudo apt-get remove laptop-mode-tools
Add the following TLP PPA:
sk@sk:~$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:linrunner/tlp
Update the software sources list:
sk@sk:~$ sudo apt-get update
Now install TLP:
sk@sk:~$ sudo apt-get install tlp tlp-rdw smartmontools ethtool
If you are using IBM Thinkpad, run the following command:
sk@sk:~$ sudo apt-get install tlp tlp-rdw smartmontools ethtool tp-smapi-dkms acpi-call-tools
Start TLP
Start TLP Service for the first time only. You don’t need to start it on every reboot, it will start automatically:
sk@sk:~$ sudo tlp start
Test TLP Status
Enter the following command to see the detailed output of TLP:
sk@sk:~$ sudo tlp stat
You will see a output something like below:
--- TLP 0.3.9 -------------------------------------------- +++ Configured Settings: /etc/default/tlp TLP_ENABLE=1 DISK_IDLE_SECS_ON_AC=0 DISK_IDLE_SECS_ON_BAT=2 MAX_LOST_WORK_SECS_ON_AC=15 MAX_LOST_WORK_SECS_ON_BAT=60 SCHED_POWERSAVE_ON_AC=0 SCHED_POWERSAVE_ON_BAT=1 NMI_WATCHDOG=0 DISK_DEVICES="sda sdb" DISK_APM_LEVEL_ON_AC="254 254" DISK_APM_LEVEL_ON_BAT="128 128" SATA_LINKPWR_ON_AC=max_performance SATA_LINKPWR_ON_BAT=min_power PCIE_ASPM_ON_AC=performance PCIE_ASPM_ON_BAT=powersave RADEON_POWER_PROFILE_ON_AC=high RADEON_POWER_PROFILE_ON_BAT=low WIFI_PWR_ON_AC=1 WIFI_PWR_ON_BAT=5 WOL_DISABLE=Y SOUND_POWER_SAVE=1 SOUND_POWER_SAVE_CONTROLLER=Y BAY_POWEROFF_ON_BAT=0 BAY_DEVICE="sr0" RUNTIME_PM_ON_AC=on RUNTIME_PM_ON_BAT=auto RUNTIME_PM_ALL=0 USB_AUTOSUSPEND=1 RESTORE_DEVICE_STATE_ON_STARTUP=0 +++ System Info System = Hewlett-Packard F.02 HP 550 BIOS = 68MVU Ver. F.02 Release = Ubuntu 13.04 Kernel = 3.8.0-26-generic x86_64 /proc/cmdline = BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-3.8.0-26-generic root=/dev/mapper/lubuntu--vg-root ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7 +++ System Status TLP power save = enabled power source = ac [...]
For other distribution installation instructions, refer the official website.
