I'm a new Ubuntu user, but I've been using Mint for about 10 years. I've just installed Ubuntu Studio 24.10 on a new-to-me Thinkpad T490, so I have a Kubuntu-based configuration. One of the first things I wanted to do was to install TLP to control battery charge levels as I have done on my older Thinkpad.
When I started to install from Discover, I saw messages about package removal that made me uncomfortable, so I did not continue. It wants to remove 2 packages related to ubuntustudio-desktop. I was concerned I would be losing some core functionality. See attached image for the exact messages. The packages are ubuntustudio-desktop 24.10.18 and ubuntustudio-desktop-core 24.10.18. It also wanted to remove power-profiles-daemon, which didn't concern me very much.
Installing TLP - package removal messages:
Starting an install from apt results in the same messages.
Can anyone explain what's happening there?
My system is dual boot, so I booted Windows 10 and installed the Lenovo Vantage application, and from there I could set the battery charge levels. I verified that it continues to use those levels when I'm not in Windows. So the immediate need is taken care of, but I'm still curious about the package removals; whether it's benign, or whether some kind of bug.
I did boot into the 24.10 live USB ISO again, installed TLP, (those ubuntustudio packages apparently were removed from the live session) and I did not see any obvious problem with Ubuntu Studio. But I can't reboot that system; it would be a new live session, so I don't know what would happen after reboot.
Next I booted a 24.04 live session and started the install of TLP. In 24.04, it only wants to remove power-profiles-daemon; the 2 ubuntustudio packages are not mentioned.
This is because TLP and KDE Plasma's power profile controls actually conflict. In fact, the power savings provided by TLP have been questioned vis a vis the built-in power management in the existing tools.
For this reason, we don't recommend TLP for Ubuntu Studio since Ubuntu Studio 24.10 is, out of the box, configured to use a lot of power unless you turn off certain boot parameters in Ubuntu Studio Audio Configuration to keep the kernel from acting like a low-latency kernel, which is optimized for lower latency versus lower power usage.
It's better to use the built-in controls, like the ones shown below, for power management now that Plasma has these controls. For what it's worth, GNOME also has these controls built-in as well.
Additionally, the built-in controls is the package that installing TLP is attempting to remove, which is then trying to remove the
ubuntustudio-desktop[-core]metapackages as it's a hard dependency of the Plasma desktop.