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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?

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2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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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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  • youtube.com/watch?v=OGAu_DeKckI
    – int_ua
    Aug 20, 2014 at 13:02
  • Thanks. But we're still interested in why it isn't already part of Ubuntu. Have you asked / gotten feedback from the Ubuntu developers?
    – nealmcb
    Jan 13, 2015 at 21:18
  • I was just looking for updates and see at the Ubuntu PPA "Note: starting with Ubuntu Wily TLP is provided via the official Ubuntu repos." A search just now (February 2016) shows the TLP package in Wily and Xenial.
    – Tommy Trussell
    Feb 17, 2016 at 2:17
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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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  • IIRC, CPU freq is changed depending on the load in default config too. Just verified that with askubuntu.com/a/218586/20275
    – int_ua
    Aug 18, 2014 at 13:11
  • Turbo Boost is only part of some Intel procs. Isn't it managed by default too?
    – int_ua
    Aug 18, 2014 at 13:12
  • yes, brick, exactly. Green Caviar series "optimizations" as a loud case.
    – int_ua
    Aug 18, 2014 at 13:13
  • And on pt.4 Isn't it managed by DE? I haven't seen problems in KDE with that.
    – int_ua
    Aug 18, 2014 at 13:14

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