PowerTop

PowerTop is a completely free and open source command-line software project that has been created from the ground up to be used for detecting which GNU/Linux programs and kernel tunables are the biggest power and battery consumers.

Makes your computer to use the least amount of power

Are you wondering why your laptop battery drains so fast, or you want a powerful tool to just diagnose issues with power management and power consumption on your computer? PowerTop can help you, by making your computer to use the least amount of power without hassle.

Offers various command-line options

The software offers various command-line, which can be viewed at a glance by running the ‘powertop --help’ command after installing it using the instructions provided by Softoware in the next section. The usage message is also displayed with the same command.

Among its command-line options, we can mention the ability to generate CSV and HTML reports, support for suppressing stderr output, the ability to generate a report for a specific number of seconds, as well as the ability to specify a file to execute for workload.

Additionally, you can use command-line options to run PowerTop in calibration or debug mode, to set all tunable options to their good settings, to use an Extech Power Analyzer device for measurements, and to specify the number of times to run each test.

Gettings started with PowerTop

In case your Linux kernel-based operating system does not have a binary package for the PowerTop utility in its software repositories, you can always download the latest source package from Softoware and install the software using the following instructions.

Download the TAR archive and save it on your Home directory. Use your favorite archive manager utility to extract the archive, open a Terminal app, and go to the location where you’ve extracted the archive file.

In the terminal window, type the ‘./configure && make’ command to configure and compile the program, then, after a successful compilation process, type the ‘sudo make install’ command as a privileged user or the ‘make install’ command as root to install it PowerTop system wide.

What is new in this release:

• RAPL: powercap sysfs used for power measurements.
• ARM support for devfreq stats.
• Added support to new Intel platforms.
• Several bug fixes

What is new in version 2.5:

• Support for the Intel Baytrail-M CPU counters
• New "auto-tune" option which sets all tunable options to the GOOD setting
• Support for the 3.12 libtraceevent code base

What is new in version 2.1:

• Added Transifex project integration
• Added localization of the UI with 9 languages in progress and active
• Support for cores without P-states
• Support for Intel GPU statistics
• PowerTOP manual page added
• Added an option to specify workload to run during measurement
• Add an option to suppress output to the terminal
• Added more ARM support assets
• Synced Traceevent library from the kernel tree for better event parsing
• Bug fixes and clean ups

What is new in version 2.0 Beta:

• The 2.0 codebase extensively uses the kernel "perf" infrastructure to give much more accurate data for the various reports.
• Another major feature of the 2.0 code base is that the power behavior of the various devices in the system is prominently tracked and displayed, so that it's clear which devices are problematic in terms of power behavior.
• A new power estimation engine is able to give an estimate of how much power individual devices and processes in the system are consuming.
• This release requires a relatively new kernel to work properly (2.6.37, but 2.6.36 will also work).

What is new in version 1.13:

• PowerTOP now supports Runtime Device Power Management.
• Support for reporting which application keeps the disk from powersaving mode was added.
• Support for reporting AHCI Link power management statistics was added.
• Support for Audio power saving statistics was added.
• Support for "Turbo Mode" on Intel processors was added.
• Support for multiqueue network interface cards was added.
• Support for device runtime power management was added.
• New kernel configuration suggestions are made.
• Lots of small bugs were fixed.
• Valgrind cleanups were made.
• Much more was done.