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)

Installing auto-cpufreq

From Snap store

To be updated ...

From source code

Get source code, run installer and follow on screen instructions:

git clone https://github.com/AdnanHodzic/auto-cpufreq.git
cd auto-cpufreq && sudo sudo ./auto-cpufreq-installer

In case you encounter any problems with auto-cpufreq-installer, please submit a bug report.

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.

How to run auto-cpufreq

auto-cpufreq can be run by simply running the auto-cpufreq and following on screen instructions, i.e:

sudo auto-cpufreq

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.

auto-cpufreq modes and options

Monitor

sudo auto-cpufreq --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 auto-cpufreq --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 auto-cpufreq --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

Log

If daemon has been instaled, live log of CPU/system load monitoring and optimizaiton can be seen by running:

auto-cpufreq --log

Discussion:

• Blogpost: auto-cpufreq - Automatic CPU speed & power optimizer for Linux