With each release cycle the Linux kernel and the distributions implement new improvements in terms of laptop power management. Therefore even plain standard installations can show quite good results.
Additional possibilities to save battery power are easily found on the web with the search engine of your choice. But selecting the right solutions for your particular hardware and Linux flavour from the myriad of wikis, blogs and forums is much more difficult and often requires advanced Linux knowledge on behalf of the user.
TLP brings you the benefits of advanced power management for Linux without the need to understand every technical detail.
TLP does not replace but enhance the existing power management of your Linux installation. TLP applies it's settings upon system startup and on every change of the power source.
TLP packages are available for Arch, Debian, Fedora, Gentoo, openSUSE and Ubuntu. You're welcome if you want to package TLP for other distributions – please take a look at the TLP Developer Documentation.
Please note: TLP runs on every laptop brand. Setting the battery charge thresholds is available for IBM/Lenovo ThinkPads only.
TLP is a pure command line tool with automated background tasks. It does not contain a GUI.
Add the TLP-PPA to your package sources with the commands:
Install the following packages:
The above packages may be installed via package management tools (Ubuntu Software Center, Synaptic, ...) or terminal command:
ThinkPads require an additional:
Execute the following steps in a root shell.
Add a line for the package repository TLP-PPA to your /etc/apt/sources.list:
Add the public key for the PPA:
If the above command fails, try with a different keyserver:
Update package data:
Install the following packages:
The above packages may be installed via package management tools or terminal command:
ThinkPads require an additional:
Packages are available via AUR: tlp, tlp-rdw. For installation instructions see the Arch Wiki.
Installation via Portage Overlay is described in the Gentoo Wiki (currently in German only).
The following steps install TLP on openSUSE (in a root shell).
Add package repositories:
In case the contrib repo is not yet active:
Update repository data:
Install the following packages:
Install the above packages with the following command (in a root shell):
ThinkPads require an additional:
To install TLP on Fedora use the follwowing steps in a root shell.
Variant 1 (recommended): add TLP and RPM Fusion package repositories with yum
Variant 2: add TLP and RPM Fusion package repositories with rpm
Install the following packages:
Install the above packages with the following command (in a root shell):
ThinkPads require an additional:
Starting with Linux 2.6.39/3.0 some advanced power saving techniques have been disabled by default due to stability problems on particular hardware, leading to a substantial increase in power consumption – especially on current models with Sandy Bridge cpu/chipset. This section shows kernel boot options to re-activate the techniques in question.
Important: use of these options may cause instabilities or display problems on some systems. Thus they should be applied by experienced Linux users only.
Enables RC6 power saving for Intel graphics chips and results in high savings potential on Sandy Bridge (and newer) hardware. May lead to graphics freezes.
Hint: for Ubuntu this option is not neccessary.
Enables PCIe Active State Power Management (see according section in TLP Configuration). May cause system freezes.
Hint: for Linux >= 3.0 and Ubuntu in particular this option is not neccessary. This is true despite tlp-stat showing the following output:
Current distributions use the GRUB2 boot manager. Add the desired boot options in /etc/default/grub (example):
Separate multiple options with blanks.
Activate any changes with
and reboot.
Hint: it is advisable to add and test only one option at a time to help isolating the cause when problems show up.
All TLP settings are stored in the config file /etc/default/tlp.
As the default configuration already provides for optimized power saving, there is no immediate need to change it in most cases. Nevertheless the full reference can be read at TLP Configuration.
After installation TLP will be automatically activated upon system start.
To start it immediately without reboot or to apply changed settings use:
Use the tlp-stat terminal command to check if TLP is working properly
and check the output for
Please note: there is no TLP background process or daemon that shows up in ps.
Hint: all commands described in this section that are shown with sudo, may be executed without sudo in a root shell.
Enable, disable or check the state of builtin wifi, bluetooth and wwan (3G or UMTS) radios:
Hint: for Intel 2200bg and 2915abg cards call the command with sudo or in a root shell.
Prerequisite: the radio device must be supported by the kernel's rfkill framework (except Intel 2100/2200/2915). This may be checked with
Status report with configuration and all active settings:
Show battery information only:
Show configuration only:
Show radio devices switch state only:
Show temperatures and fan speed only:
Show trace output from /var/log/debug:
(according to the actual power source)
(ignoring the actual power source)
(ignoring the actual power source)
(except input and blacklisted devices)
Hints:
ThinkPads only
Sets the thresholds to the given values. Valid thresholds range from 1 bis 100; START_THRESH must be below STOP_THRESH - 3. Without parameters the configured settings for the main battery (BAT0) are applied.
Upon reboot, thresholds are reset to the configured settings.
ThinkPads only
Sets the thresholds to 96 / 100% (charge the battery to full capacity).
Upon reboot, thresholds are reset to the configured settings.
ThinkPads only
Sets the lower threshold to upper threshold - 4 to initiate the charge.
Upon reboot, thresholds are reset to the configured settings.
ThinkPads only
BAT0 selects the main battery, BAT1 the auxiliary/Ultrabay battery for discharge. The command continously shows remaining capacity and estimated discharge time. Discharging may be stopped at any time with Ctrl+C.
Hints:
ThinkPads only
Hint: the recalibration process resets the capacity information in the battery pack. It cannot repair defective battery cells.
This command combines the functions fullcharge and discharge. First the thresholds are set to factory defaults 96 / 100 %, then the battery is discharged completely.
Shows the IDs of all attached disk drives.
is an alias to tlp-stat.
Conditional execution of commands depending on the actual power source:
Manpages exist for all TLP commands:
TLP is licensed under the GPL version 2. To obtain the sources, please take a look at the TLP Developer Documentation.
When asking for support, always provide the following output (on battery):
To examine suspected problems in TLP more closely, activate trace mode in /etc/default/tlp:
The accumulated trace data may be read at any time with
or
In case the trace output is missing, you have to modify your rsyslogd configuration. Create the file /etc/rsyslog.d/90-debug.conf containing
and restart the daemon
© 2013, linrunner. Licensed under the CC BY-NC-SA.