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How To Install TLP To Improve Battery Life of Ubuntu
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How To Install TLP To Improve Battery Life of Ubuntu

August 5, 2020

How to improve battery life of Ubuntu Linux System. Here’s how to install TLP on Linux Laptops. TLP saves laptop battery power on Linux without the need to understand every technical detail.

TLP comes with a default configuration already optimized for battery life, so
you may just install and forget it. Nevertheless TLP is highly customizable to
fulfil your specific requirements.

TLP is a pure command line tool with automated background tasks. It does not
contain a GUI.

Features

Power profiles

Depending on the power source (AC or battery) the following settings are applied:

  • Kernel laptop mode and dirty buffer params
  • Processor frequency scaling including “turbo boost” / “turbo core”
  • Limit Intel CPU max/min P-state to control power dissipation (Intel P-state only)
  • Intel CPU energy/performance policies HWP.EPP (Intel P-state only) and EPB
  • Disk drive advanced power management level (APM) and spin down timeout
  • AHCI link power management (ALPM) with device blacklist
  • AHCI runtime power management for host controllers and disks (EXPERIMENTAL)
  • PCIe active state power management (PCIe ASPM)
  • Runtime power management for PCIe bus devices
  • Intel GPU frequency limits
  • Radeon graphics power management (KMS and DPM)
  • Wifi power saving mode
  • Enable/disable integrated radio devices (excluding connected devices)
  • Power off optical drive in UltraBay/MediaBay
  • Audio power saving mode

Additional

  • I/O scheduler (per disk)
  • USB autosuspend with device blacklist/whitelist (input devices excluded automatically)
  • Enable or disable integrated radio 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
  • Integrated WWAN and bluetooth state is restored after suspend/hibernate
  • Battery charge thresholds and recalibration – ThinkPads only

TLP 1.3.0-beta.1 – New Features:

New configuration scheme

  • /etc/default/tlp is replaced by /etc/tlp.conf
  • Settings are read in the following order:
    1. Intrinsic defaults
    2. /etc/tlp.conf.d/*.conf – Drop-in customizations – NOTE: beta.2 changed this to /etc/tlp.d/*.conf
    3. /etc/tlp.conf – User configuration
    In case of identical parameters, the last occurence has precedence
  • Parse config files instead of sourcing –> no more shell expansion

Battery Features, tlp-stat -b

  • Charge thresholds: better checks for command line and configuration; clearer error messages
  • tlp discharge: error message “check your hardware” when battery wasn’t completely discharged (Issue #438)
  • Distinguish between “no kernel support” for natacpi (< 4.17) and “laptop not supported” (>= 4.17)
  • Supplement battery status “Unknown” with “threshold may prevent charging” when thresholds are available only

General

  • systemd: start tlp.service earlier in boot process
  • systemd: replace tlp-sleep.service with /lib/systemd/system-sleep/tlp

Operation Mode AC/BAT

  • TLP_PS_IGNORE: power supply class to ignore when determining
    operation mode; workaround for laptops reporting incorrect AC or battery
    status (Issue #446)

PCI(e) devices

  • Add ASPM method ‘powersupersave’ (Issue #425)

Processor

  • CPU_ENERGY_PERF_POLICY_ON_AC/BAT: backward compatible merge of
    settings for Intel energy vs. performance policies EPB
    (ENERGY_PERF_POLICY_ON_AC/BAT) and HWP.EPP (CPU_HWP_ON_AC/BAT);
    when HWP.EPP is available, EPB is not set; eliminate external tool
    x86_energy_perf_policy for kernel >= 5.2

tlp-stat

  • System Info:
    • show RDW as “disabled” when TLP is disabled as a whole
    • indicate persistent mode
  • Intel CPU: don’t show EPB values when HWP.EPP is active (see above)
  • PCIe ASPM: show available policies
  • Undervolting: remove “PHC kernel not available” message

Bugfixes:

Battery Features

  • Issue #415: ThinkPad X240 discharge BAT1 malfunction when BAT0 is not installed

tlp-stat

  • Issue #430: ignore hid device batteries

Install TLP 1.3 in Ubuntu

To install the TLP power management tool from Ubuntu Linux Systems, run the following commands:


sudo add-apt-repository ppa:linrunner/tlp-beta
sudo apt update
sudo apt install tlp

NOTE: Please make sure to uninstall the previous version of TLP {if already installed}.

The default configuration provides optimized power saving out of the box. Settings are stored in /etc/default/tlp; see Configuration for details.

To completely remove the TLP power management tool from Ubuntu Linux Systems, run the following commands:


sudo apt install ppa-purge
sudo ppa-purge ppa:linrunner/tlp-beta
sudo apt remove tlp tlp-rdw

More info about the TLP tool can be read at https://github.com/linrunner/TLP/releases

How To Install TLP To Improve Battery Life of Ubuntu originally posted on Source Digit – Linux, Ubuntu Tutorials & News, Technology, Gadgets & Gizmos.

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