powermodes

A laptop power consumption manager for Linux, written in pure Python and licensed under the Apache License. It's easily configurable and even expandable with new plugins!

Installation

Clone the repo and install the package:

$ git clone https://github.com/voidbert/powermodes.git
$ sudo pip install .

Now, the powermodes command should be installed.

Usage

usage: powermodes [options]

options:
  -h, --help                 show this help message
  --version                  show powermode's version

  -c CONFIG, --config CONFIG use CONFIG file

  -i, --interactive          interactively choose power mode
  -v, --validate             validate CONFIG file
  -m MODE, --mode MODE       apply power MODE from CONFIG

Here are some examples. Note that powermodes needs to be run as root:

Action	Command
Interactively choose mode in configuration	# powermodes -ic config.toml
Validate configuration	# powermodes -vc config.toml
Apply power mode in configuration	# powermodes -c config.toml -m mode

Configuration

A configuration file is just a TOML file with the following properties:

• Top-level objects (children of the root object) must be tables, and are called powermodes. These are the things you actually enable, like powersave, balanced, performance, etc.

• Each powermode contains key-object pairs, to describe how a mode should be applied. The key refers to the name of a plugin, and the object is given to that plugin to apply the configuration.

Here's an example with hypothetical plugins:

[powersave]
	pluginA = "Hello, world" # pluginA is configured with a string
	pluginB = [ 123, 321 ]   # pluginB is configured with a list
	[powersave.pluginC]      # pluginC is configured with a table
		varX = 100
		varY = 200

[performance]
	pluginA = "Hello, Jupiter"
	pluginB = []
	pluginC = { varX = 50, varY = 100 } # inline table example

As you can see, each plugin can be configured in its own way. Here's the documentation for the first-party plugins:

• command - Run commands;
• intel-epb - Energy Performance and Energy Bias Hint (Intel CPUs only);
• nmi-watchdog - Linux NMI watchdog (kernel hang detector).

Development

If you'd like to develop a plugin, or contribute to the powermodes application, make sure to check build developer documentation:

$ cd docs
$ ./make.sh build           # For plugin developers
$ ./make.sh build --private # For powermodes developers (includes internal methods)

Make sure you have sphinx and sphinx-autodoc-typehints installed:

$ pip install sphinx sphinx-autodoc-typehints

That documentation contains essential information to starting coding!