auto-cpufreq
Automatic CPU speed & power optimizer for Linux based on active monitoring of laptop's battery state, CPU usage and system load. Ultimately allowing you to improve battery life without making any compromises.
For tl;dr folks there's a: Youtube: auto-cpufreq - tool demo
Why do I need auto-cpufreq?
One of the problems with Linux today on laptops is that CPU will run in unoptimized manner which will negatively reflect on battery life. For example, CPU will run using "performance" governor with turbo boost enabled regardless if it's plugged in to power or not.
Issue can be mitigated by using tools like indicator-cpufreq or cpufreq, but these still require maual action from your side which can be daunting and cumbersome.
Using tools like TLP will help in this situation with extending battery life (which is something I did for numerous years now), but it also might come with its own set of problems, like losing turbo boost.
With that said, I needed a simple tool which would automatically make "cpufreq" related changes, save battery like TLP, but let Linux kernel do most of the heavy lifting. That's how auto-cpufreq was born.
Please note: this tool doesn't conflict and works great in tandem with TLP.
Features
- Monitoring
- Basic system information
- CPU frequency
- CPU temperatures
- Battery state
- System load
- CPU frequency scaling, governor and turbo boost management based on
- battery state
- CPU usage
- System load
- Automatic CPU & power optimization (temporary and persistent)
How to run auto-cpufreq?
Arch Linux
AUR package is available for install. After which auto-cpufreq will be available as a binary and you can skip to auto-cpufreq: modes and options for further reference.
Get auto-cpufreq source code
git clone https://github.com/AdnanHodzic/auto-cpufreq.git
Install requirements
Requirements installation for Debian/Ubuntu and their derivatives
All requirements can be installed by running:
sudo apt install python3 python3-distro python3-psutil python3-click -y
Since APT packages may contain older version of necessary Python packages, please make sure to have latest version by running:
sudo pip3 install --upgrade psutil click distro
Requirements installation for all other Linux distributions
If you have python3 and pip3 installed simply run:
sudo pip3 install psutil click distro
Note: libraries must be installed using root user as tool will be run as root.
Running auto-cpufreq on AMD CPU and/or desktop/servers's
Please note when this tool was made it was solely targeting Intel CPU's running on laptops. Support for both AMD CPU is currently being worked on.
While there are plans to extend support for desktop/servers in near future.
Run auto-cpufreq
auto-cpufreq can be run by simply running the auto-cpufreq.py and following on screen instructions, i.e:
sudo python3 auto-cpufreq.py
auto-cpufreq modes and options
Monitor
sudo python3 auto-cpufreq.py --monitor
No changes are made to the system, and is solely made for demonstration purposes what auto-cpufreq could do differently for your system.
Live
sudo python3 auto-cpufreq.py --live
Necessary changes are temporarily made to the system which are lost with system reboot. This mode is made to evaluate what the system would behave with auto-cpufreq permanently running on the system.
Install - auto-cpufreq daemon
Necessary changes are made to the system for auto-cpufreq CPU optimizaton to persist across reboots. Daemon is deployed and then started as a systemd service. Changes are made automatically and live log is made for monitoring purposes.
sudo python3 auto-cpufreq.py --install
After daemon is installed, auto-cpufreq is available as a binary and is running in the background. Its logs can be viewed by running: auto-cpufreq --log
Since daemon is running as a systemd service, its status can be seen by running:
systemctl status auto-cpufreq
Remove - auto-cpufreq daemon
auto-cpufreq daemon and its systemd service, along with all its persistent changes can be removed by running:
sudo auto-cpufreq --remove
or
sudo python3 auto-cpufreq.py --remove
Log
If daemon has been instaled, live log of CPU/system load monitoring and optimizaiton can be seen by running:
auto-cpufreq --log
or sudo python3 auto-cpufreq.py --log