power-profiles-daemon

By default, many distributions install power-profiles-daemon as an optional component of their GNOME, KDE or Cinnamon desktop environments. This article compares TLP and power-profiles-daemon and explains how to replace the latter with TLP.

Does power-profiles-daemon save power over TLP?

Simply put, power-profiles-daemon is a CPU throttle that is most effective when high or medium load applications are in use. Unlike TLP, it has no settings to reduce power consumption when the CPU is idle, such as when there is no user input.

power-profiles-daemon only covers a subset of TLP’s settings:

PLATFORM_PROFILE_ON_AC/BAT/SAV
CPU_ENERGY_PERF_POLICY_ON_AC/BAT/SAV
CPU_BOOST_ON_AC/BAT/SAV
AMDGPU_ABM_LEVEL_ON_AC/BAT/SAV

The second item is only activated if the first item is not supported by the hardware. When the second item is active, turbo boost (third item) is also disabled at high CPU temperatures.

Which of these tools will save you more power depends on your workload:

If the laptop frequently runs under medium or high load, such as during video playback or compiling, using the power-saver profile with power-profiles-daemon can provide similar energy savings as TLP.
However, TLP offers advantages over power-profiles daemon when the laptop is idle, such as during periods of no user input or low load operations like text editing or browsing.

Conclusion: To determine which tool provides superior results, conduct comparative measurements on your target hardware using your specific usage pattern.

How can I use TLP to achieve the same effect as power-profiles-daemon?

Starting with version 1.9, TLP offers a complete replacement for power-profiles-daemon. tlp-pd implements the same D-Bus API that major Linux desktop environments like GNOME, KDE and Cinnamon already use for choosing from three profiles with a mouse click.

The first advantage of TLP is that the three profiles can be customized individually, whereas with power-profiles-daemon they are “hard-wired”.

The second advantage of TLP is automatic switching: when AC power is connected, the performance profile is activated; when changing to battery operation, the balanced profile is activated. In addition, you can switch to the power-saver profile at any time with a click of the mouse, which remains set even when the power source changes.

As with almost everything in TLP, however, automatic switching can be disabled via configuration, allowing you to always start your laptop with the balanced profile, for example.

Does power-profiles-daemon conflict with TLP?

Yes, it does. Using both tools at the same time can lead to unpredictable results as they partly change the same kernel tunables (see above) and overwrite each other’s tuning.

To prevent conflicts, many Linux distributions do not allow TLP and power-profiles-daemon packages to be installed at the same time. This results in the uninstallation of power-profiles-daemon when TLP is installed (and vice versa). If your distribution’s package manager does not enforce this, it is advisable to uninstall power-profiles-daemon when using TLP.

If your distribution allows for parallel installation, the behaviour depends on the version of TLP:

Version 1.6 and later will automatically not apply the settings listed above if a running power-profiles-daemon is detected. In addition the tlp start issues a warning about the conflict:

Warning: PLATFORM_PROFILE_ON_AC/BAT is not set because power-profiles-daemon is running.

Version 1.5 merely detects the situation and the commands tlp start and tlp-stat -s issue a message about the conflict:

Error: conflicting power-profiles-daemon.service is enabled, power saving will not apply on boot.
>>> Invoke 'systemctl mask power-profiles-daemon.service' to correct this!

If you do not want to use power-profiles-daemon in parallel, you should uninstall the package (preferred). If that would uninstall essential packages, stop and disable the service with

sudo systemctl stop power-profiles-daemon.service
sudo systemctl mask power-profiles-daemon.service