PowerTOP: Which Task revision is to be preffered?

[nuc1eon]

This is a question towards @hishamhm.

I was looking into a (harmless but annoying) warning generated by /System/Tasks/PowerTOP upon boot.

However while looking into it, I have found that there used to be several, more elaborate versions of that Task in the past.

For instance PowerTOP 2.05's task looked as follows:

Recipes/PowerTOP/2.5/Resources/Tasks/PowerTOP

Lines 1 to 24 in bee961d

	#!/bin/bash
	function Has_Substring() {
	alt=${1/$2/}
	[[ "$alt" != "$1" ]]
	}
	(
	powertop --auto-tune &> /dev/null
	for device in /sys/bus/usb/devices/*
	do
	if [[ -e $device/product ]]
	then
	product=$(<$device/product)
	# Do not auto-suspend keyboards and mice
	if Has_Substring "$product" "Keyboard" || Has_Substring "$product" "Mouse"
	then
	echo 'on' > $device/power/control
	fi
	fi
	done
	) &

The task used to selectively turn off auto-suspend for mice and keyboards (which sounds reasonable to me).

Then with PowerTOP 2.08, a much more simplified version got introduced:

Recipes/PowerTOP/2.8/Resources/Tasks/PowerTOP

Lines 1 to 11 in bee961d

	#!/bin/bash
	(
	powertop --auto-tune &> /dev/null
	for device in /sys/bus/usb/devices/*
	do
	# Do not auto-suspend USB devices
	echo 'on' > $device/power/control
	done
	) &

The difference here is, that it simply disables auto-suspend for all USB devices (looks a bit more brute-force).

However, to make it more confusing, then comes PowerTOP 2.10 - which again features the more elaborate script from version 2.05. Even iterated upon by selecting "Receiver" USB devies as well (Wifi dongles maybe?) along with "Keyboard" and "Mouse" from before:

Recipes/PowerTOP/2.10/Resources/Tasks/PowerTOP

Lines 1 to 24 in bee961d

	#!/bin/bash
	function Has_Substring() {
	alt=${1/$2/}
	[[ "$alt" != "$1" ]]
	}
	(
	powertop --auto-tune &> /dev/null
	for device in /sys/bus/usb/devices/*
	do
	if [[ -e $device/product ]]
	then
	product=$(<$device/product)
	# Do not auto-suspend keyboards and mice
	if Has_Substring "$product" "Keyboard" || Has_Substring "$product" "Mouse" || Has_Substring "$product" "Receiver"
	then
	echo 'on' > $device/power/control
	fi
	fi
	done
	) &

Then the next version, PowerTOP 2.11 (the one actually present in GoboLinux 017), again features the simpler less elaborate revision from 2.08:

Recipes/PowerTOP/2.11/Resources/Tasks/PowerTOP

Lines 1 to 11 in bee961d

	#!/bin/bash
	(
	powertop --auto-tune &> /dev/null
	for device in /sys/bus/usb/devices/*
	do
	# Do not auto-suspend USB devices
	echo 'on' > $device/power/control
	done
	) &

I am a bit puzzled now which revision of the tasks to prefer....

It was a bit hard to follow the exact history of what happened, but actually I've found the diff that introduced the simplifed version for PowerTOP 2.08: ab9ea06#diff-4e6613aa06a889dfada96f7abc6a84a7a8507c66519c44933823bd3ad01bf910. No explanation is given unfortunately.

Given the messy history, I am on the fence whether the simplified version was included on purpose - or by mistake.

Personally, I tend to think that it makes more sense to disable auto-suspend just for keyboards and mice, rather than all USB devices! 🤔

@hishamhm I'd appreciate if you could try to remember how this came about, or which version you'd prefer if you had again the choice. :) ty!!

[hishamhm]

Most likely the back and forth was because Lucas and I probably had customized entries for our own machines and each time we uploaded updates of our own versions without really checking what was already in the repository.

Out of curiosity, I can look up later what's on my personal laptop which is running a very modded/updated version of 016.01!

[nuc1eon]

Sure that'd be interesting... and no haste! Thank you for letting me know not too overthink its origins in GoboLinux ^-^

I will educate myself on powertop --auto-tune recommendations in the meantime.

[hishamhm]

For reference, this is the one that's currently sitting as /System/Tasks/PowerTOP on my machine:

#!/bin/bash

function Has_Substring() {
   alt=${1/$2/}
   [[ "$alt" != "$1" ]]
}

(
   powertop --auto-tune &> /dev/null
   
   for device in /sys/bus/usb/devices/*
   do
      if [[ -e $device/product ]]
      then
         product=$(<$device/product)
         
         # Do not auto-suspend keyboards and mice
         if Has_Substring "$product" "Keyboard" || Has_Substring "$product" "Mouse" || Has_Substring "$product" "Receiver" 
         then
            echo 'on' > $device/power/control
         fi
      fi
   done
) &

[hishamhm]

...and the versions I have installed here in /Programs are 2.5 and 2.10 :)