Do I have to manually install PPD?
this post was submitted on 24 Feb 2024
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PPD comes default on most distros (I can at least confirm for Debian, Ubuntu and Fedora on the GNOME variant). I am not sure about KDE variants but they should support it too even if it's not pre-installed.
You can check if it's running with the following command:
$ powerprofilesctl
However as the 0.20 release which supports p-state just released recently most fixed point release distros won't have the newer version. In this case you would need to update it manually.
I am running Debian testing and it has the new version while stable does not.
You shouldn't use sudo to run powerprofilesctl
Good point, edited!
Also want to appreciate the idle efficiency improvements! My AMD laptop only loses a few % of battery life after idling overnight (with the default s2idle sleep mode). A huge improvement to my older work Intel ThinkPad which loses over 25% overnight...
is ppd better for amd than tlp?
Yes. You should not use tlp anymore on any AMD processor that supports p-states. TLP does not support these and it's own logic may conflict with the CPU. Use PPD and let the processor itself take care of the optimizations!
See: https://community.frame.work/t/tracking-ppd-v-tlp-for-amd-ryzen-7040/39423
Would a desktop CPU (Zen3) also benefit from these improvements?
Yes, Zen 2 and above support p-states! You might need to update your bios and enable CPPC if p-state is not showing up.
You can confirm by running $ powerprofilesctl and seeing if CpuDriver is amd_pstate.
Thx, I will try that. When configuring my kernel I saw it and left it in the default config "active" (I was upgrading to the latest LTS kernel today). I did not check how I can interact with it as a user, yet.
I also noticed the fans spin less often and that the low power profile doesn't make the computer noticeably slower and "stutterier" to use like it used to.
Agreed! On a Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 X, I also had a big, big boost of battery life. It's really great how far it came in comparison to a few months ago!
I am so happy power-profiles-daemon now sets the CPU driver instead of only setting the platform_driver when it is present. It was a big pain point of mine.
I have recently bought the P14s Gen 4 and except for some WiFi issues it has been pretty smooth sailing (definitely a loot better then the last notebook I had with nvidia dgpu).