change cpu-freq on manjaro 20.04 xfce

[thumbsup]

Hi, 
after running the default Debian my pbp shipped with I now installed Manjaro 20.04 xfce. 
As I use the pbp while travelling the power settings are pretty important. 

On Debian I could simply set the cpu to powersafe via the battery icon. 
On manjaro xfce I can not find such an option. xfce4-cpufreq-plugin is only displaying but won't let me change the settings.

Any ideas? Or on powersaving in general? I choose xfce as I though it should be less power consuming.

[Syonyk]

You can see current system current (while on battery):

Code:

cat /sys/class/power_supply/cw2015-battery/current_now

Play around with some settings, but I'm on a 5.7 kernel, and it seems that on a modern kernel, the scheduler does a really good job of handling the cores to keep power use minimized. You could try turning off most of the cores to save a bit of power, but I'm not sure that gains you a lot.

But you've got USB-C charging. IMO, the far easier option is to just carry a USB-C battery bank (build a DIY one if you want and source the 18650s locally). I don't think even a lot of tweaking will change stuff as much as just carrying more battery.

[xmixahlx]

you probably want:
sudo cpupower -c all frequency-set -g conservative

read cpupower manpage for all the details.

[Der Geist der Maschine]

I choose xfce as I though it should be less power consuming.

I wonder if the choice of desktop really makes a measurable difference. Anyone?

[xmixahlx]

brightness, idle actions, visual processing, hardrware acceleration, and background processes all impact.

something like fluxbox, i3 or sway with low brightness and conservative governor should be the most power friendly.

[Der Geist der Maschine]

Let me rephrase my question:

- Idle power is significant (just booting into the console or plain xserver)

- Webbrowsers and other user processes are further major power consumers.

Does the choice of the desktop environment really contribute anything significant on top of above numbers?

---

10 minutes later: A quick google search https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=a...tops&num=4

Power consumption of an idle desktop: kde 7924.75mw vs xfce 7473.46mw. The difference is 6%.

If we run now actual programs, then overall power consumption goes up. If we assume for the sake of arguments 8000mW, then the difference becomes 3%.

On the other hand, interacting with KDE might consume more power than interacting with xfce. Does that contribute anything? Most of the time, one is only interacting with user applications.

Nothing is obvious

[xmixahlx]

add hardware acceleration to my list above. i implied that with visual processing, but... minimizing cpu in favor of gpu and vpu processing will have huge impact.

as you point out, all of your usage is impactful. from a user experience, i find i3 and sway to be the quickest and lightest while also the most usable. there is an assumption that this translates to power savings, but like yourself i would love to see more data.

[thumbsup]

You can see current system current (while on battery):

Code:

cat /sys/class/power_supply/cw2015-battery/current_now

Play around with some settings, but I'm on a 5.7 kernel, and it seems that on a modern kernel, the scheduler does a really good job of handling the cores to keep power use minimized.  You could try turning off most of the cores to save a bit of power, but I'm not sure that gains you a lot.

But you've got USB-C charging.  IMO, the far easier option is to just carry a USB-C battery bank (build a DIY one if you want and source the 18650s locally).  I don't think even a lot of tweaking will change stuff as much as just carrying more battery.

The output for this is always "0"......
I have two powerbanks and two foldable solarpanels with me. Still running out of power is a big worry for me :-)

you probably want:
sudo cpupower -c all frequency-set -g conservative

read cpupower manpage for all the details.

That does the trick - "powersave" works  as well.



Maybe I'm wrong but the first default system seemed to be more stable and less power-consuming to me. With Manjaro I have the feeling the laptop is producing way more heat now.