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int_ua
Asked: 2014-08-19 04:46:33 +0800 CST

What exactly is TLP doing that default system config wouldn't?

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All the info about TLP on the surface looks more like advertisement and marketing to me, I can't see any detailed comparison to default configurations. What are the precise differences compared to default (K/L)Ubuntu installs under the hood, are they really effective?

Update: And if they really are, why aren't they a part of a default config?

14.04

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    the difference of TLP's default config compared to a vanilla Ubuntu installation is quite simple:

    • SATA ALPM is set to min_power on battery instead of max_performance
    • USB autosuspend is enabled for all devices (except input and wwan devs) instead of bluetooth only

    The situation is different with other distros.

    For even more aggressive settings you may use RUNTIME_PM_ALL=1 to enable runtime pm for all devices.

    Additional gains are:

    • Easy config/enable/disable for all features compared to pm-utils' undocumented scripts
    • Easy and automatic enabling/disabling of radio devices
    • ThinkPad battery features

    TLP's documentation contains only the facts about the settings, there is no advertising.

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  2. Taken from the ArchWiki, TLP provides optimized power saving by default (without altering its configuration files).

    What it does by default (or you can make it do, I do not use it):

    • control the CPU frequency scaling governor
    • save more battery by disabling Turbo Boost, but at the cost of some performance
    • spin down disks to save battery. However it may reduces performance or even 'brick' the HDD.
    • restore the radio device state for bluetooth, wifi and wwan from the previous shutdown at boot

    You can find the full list of its configuration options here, where it specifically says what it takes care of.

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