PowerTOP v2.0 Release

[Chris Ferron]

WearepleasedtoannouncethereleaseofPowerTOPv2.0whichconcludesamajoroverhaulofthecodebase,andaddsexcitingnewfeatures.

*About PowerTOP*

PowerTOP is a Linux tool to diagnose issues with power consumption and
power management. In addition to being a diagnostic tool, PowerTOP also
has an interactive mode whereyou can experiment with various power
management settings for cases where the Linux distribution has not
enabled those settings.

PowerTOP reports which components in the system are most likely to blame
for a higher-than-needed power consumption, ranging from software
applications to active components in the system. Detailed screens are
available for CPU C and P states, device activity, and software activity.

For many years, PowerTOP has been used heavily by Intel, Linux
distributors, and various parts of the open source community. We're
hoping that our users find the second generation even more useful for
their needs.

*Highlights*

*

GreatlyenhanceddiagnosticcapabilitiesusingtheLinuxkernelperfframework

*

Newtab-basedUIwhichdisplaysmoredetailedinformationinrealtime

*

Advanced reporting capabilities for offline analysis including HTML5
and CSV formats.

*Release****Details*

PowerTOPv2.0hasfourmajorthoughttracks:

1.

Keep the integrity of PowerTOP v1.x, but update it to be equally
relevant to its growing user base.

2.

Take the interests from our user base, such as the need and want for
greater reportability, and more tunables information.

3.

Keep PowerTOP moving forward with changes to the Linux kernel, such
as the depreciation of power trace events, like power_frequency
starting in Linux kernel version 3.0.

4.

Make sure PowerTOP was updated with emerging Intel Architecture,
such as the newer Ivy Bridge chipset.

Version2.0hasseveralnewkeyfeaturesandupdates.Thefirstbigchangeistheuseofahardenedlibrarycalledlibparseevents,foraccessingthekernel"perf"infrastructure.Withthisenhancement,weareabletoprovidemuchmoreaccuratedata,andbemoreflexiblewithanyfuturekerneldevelopment.TherehasbeenagreatdealofworkdoneintheareaofCPUdatameasurementanddiagnostics.FullaccuratesupportwasaddedforCPUidle,frequency,andpowertraces,alongwithexpandedfrequencystatereportingforCPUswithmorethan10states.Withtheseadditions,PowerTOPv2.0nowgivesaclearerpictureofhowprogramsaffectCPUutilization,andtheimpactonimportantpower-savingsleepstates.

PowerTOPv2.0alsoincludesotherkeyadvances,suchassystemdevicestracking,whichgivesyouclearinformationonwhichdevices(ifany)areproblematicintermsofpowerbehavior,GPUactivitymeasurements,andVFSoptsactivitymeasurements.ThisallowsPowerTOPv2.0usersamorecompleteoverviewofthesystem.

In addition to the new features, several enhancements have been made in
these areas:

*

IncreasedWLANsupport—PowerTOPnowsupportsmultipleWLANinterfaces

*

Enhanced i915 driver support

*

Morerobustbatterydataacquisition

*

Real time measurement support for USB hot-plug.

Withalltheenhancementsandadditions,therehasalsobeenextensiveworkonPowerTOPreports.Reportinghasbeenhighlightedtimeandtimeagainasamuchneededanddesiredenhancement.Toaddressallthereportingneedsofourusers,PowerTOPv2.0nowrunsintwomodes:interactiveandnoninteractive.Thisgivesyoutworepresentationsofthedata:staticandinteractivereal-time.

Ininteractivemode,PowerTOPv2.0isenhancedwitharedesigned,tab-baseduserinterfacewithfullon-demandwindowrefreshsupport.ThisnewUIgivesyouaclean,organized,real-timewaytovisualizeandanalyzeeffectsonpower.Dataisnowdisplayedandorganizedintotabs:

*

*Overview****Tab:*detailsthesummaryinformationabouttotalCPUandwakeupspersecondfortheSystem,GPU,andVFSops.Withinthesummaryview,youalsoseetheconsumerstatusforinterrupts,devices,timers,processes,andmore.

*

*Idle****stats****tab:*detailsthesummaryinformationonthevariousprocessorcores,andthestatusoftheprocessorpackage.

*

*Frequency****stats****tab:*detailsthesummaryinformationabouttheclockspeeds,andthepercentageusedinsaidclocks,foreachprocessorcoreandpackage.

*

*Device****stats****tab:***detailsthesummarydeviceactivityoverview,networkdevicetransmissionrates,andGPUopsrates.

*

*Tunables****tab:*summarizesourbestknowndiagnosticrecommendationsandoptionstoapply.Thistabisalsointeractivewiththeabilityofallowingyoutotoggletheoptionswhileininteractivemode.Soinrealtime,youcanseewhataffectPowerTOP’srecommendationswillhaveonpower.

Inthenon-interactivemode(akareportingmode),therehasbeenamajoroverhaulinthoughtandfunctionality.PowerTOPv2.0nowallowsyoutospecifynotonlythedurationofeachtestmeasurementcycle,butthenumberofiterationstomeasure.Dependingonyourneeds,PowerTOPv2.0nowproducestwodifferentreportformats:HTMLandCSV.

*

*HTML:*TheHTMLreportcontainsalltheinformationseenintherealtimeUI,butinasinglestaticreport.Additionally,wearehappytosaythatPowerTOP’sHTMLreportsarealsoinanHTML5applicationformat,givinganyuserwithanHTML5-supportedbrowseraclean,organizedtab-basedreport.Asniceasthisisforreviewingdata,thereisalsotheALLtabintheHTML5applicationthatpresentsallthedatainonelongformatforthetotalpicture.ThisisalsothestandardformatforHTMLreportsgeneratedfornon-HTML5browsers.Toclosethegapinyourwantsandneeds,PowerTOPv2.0nowreportsthetunablerecommendations.AlthoughPowerTOPisnotapermanenttuningtool,PowerTOPindeedhastheabilitytotestthetunableeffectsofitssuggestions.Assuch,itwasonlyreasonablethatweincludethesetunablesinthereport.

*

*CSV:*TheCSVreportisasingle,static,comma-separated,value-delimitedreport,givingyouultimatecontrolfordatamanipulationforyourspecificneeds,suchastrendingandanalyticalanalysis.

*Project Details*

Fromaprojectpointofview,therehasbeenseveralchanges.PowerTOPv2.0hasnowbeenautotooledtosupportandincreaseportability.ThereisalsolimitedAndroidmakesupport,whichwascompletedandspearheadedbycommunitymembers.

WearealsoexcitedtoannouncethatthePowerTOPprojectwillhaveanewhomeon01.org.Thiswillbethesinglepointforreleases,blogs,andinformationonPowerTOPmovingforward.Inourmoveto01.org,wewillalsobemovingandconsolidatingthecurrentemaillists.Althoughthisisahassle,itisimportanttoconsolidatethecurrentwebsite,andthetwomailinglists,usedforPowerTOP,totheirnewhomeon01.org.

*

URL:_https
<http://www.google.com/url?q=https%3A%2F%2F01.org%2Fprojects%2Fpowertop&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNHs3r9CG7WzvdA9ZJcbM37iN-8O8A>://01.
<http://www.google.com/url?q=https%3A%2F%2F01.org%2Fprojects%2Fpowertop&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNHs3r9CG7WzvdA9ZJcbM37iN-8O8A>org
<http://www.google.com/url?q=https%3A%2F%2F01.org%2Fprojects%2Fpowertop&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNHs3r9CG7WzvdA9ZJcbM37iN-8O8A>/
<http://www.google.com/url?q=https%3A%2F%2F01.org%2Fprojects%2Fpowertop&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNHs3r9CG7WzvdA9ZJcbM37iN-8O8A>projects
<http://www.google.com/url?q=https%3A%2F%2F01.org%2Fprojects%2Fpowertop&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNHs3r9CG7WzvdA9ZJcbM37iN-8O8A>/
<http://www.google.com/url?q=https%3A%2F%2F01.org%2Fprojects%2Fpowertop&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNHs3r9CG7WzvdA9ZJcbM37iN-8O8A>powertop
<http://www.google.com/url?q=https%3A%2F%2F01.org%2Fprojects%2Fpowertop&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNHs3r9CG7WzvdA9ZJcbM37iN-8O8A>_

*

Download:https://01.org/powertop/downloads/2012/powertop-v2.0
<https://01.org/powertop/downloads/2012/powertop-v2.0>

*

Mailing list:

*

Discussions about PowerTop occur on the_powertop
<mailto:powertop-***@public.gmane.org>@ <mailto:powertop-***@public.gmane.org>lists
<mailto:powertop-***@public.gmane.org>.01. <mailto:powertop-***@public.gmane.org>org
<mailto:powertop-***@public.gmane.org>_mailing list

*

Subscribe to the list at_https
<https://lists.01.org/mailman/listinfo/powertop>://
<https://lists.01.org/mailman/listinfo/powertop>lists
<https://lists.01.org/mailman/listinfo/powertop>.01.
<https://lists.01.org/mailman/listinfo/powertop>org
<https://lists.01.org/mailman/listinfo/powertop>/
<https://lists.01.org/mailman/listinfo/powertop>mailman
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*

Archives are found at_http
<http://lists.01.org/pipermail/powertop>://
<http://lists.01.org/pipermail/powertop>lists
<http://lists.01.org/pipermail/powertop>.01.
<http://lists.01.org/pipermail/powertop>org
<http://lists.01.org/pipermail/powertop>/
<http://lists.01.org/pipermail/powertop>pipermail
<http://lists.01.org/pipermail/powertop>/
<http://lists.01.org/pipermail/powertop>powertop
<http://lists.01.org/pipermail/powertop>_

ThedevelopmentPowerTOPgitrepositoriesarehostedatGitHub.

*

URL:_https <https://github.com/fenrus75/powertop>://
<https://github.com/fenrus75/powertop>github
<https://github.com/fenrus75/powertop>.
<https://github.com/fenrus75/powertop>com
<https://github.com/fenrus75/powertop>/
<https://github.com/fenrus75/powertop>fenrus
<https://github.com/fenrus75/powertop>75/
<https://github.com/fenrus75/powertop>powertop
<https://github.com/fenrus75/powertop>_

*

HTTP:_https <https://github.com/fenrus75/powertop.git>://
<https://github.com/fenrus75/powertop.git>github
<https://github.com/fenrus75/powertop.git>.
<https://github.com/fenrus75/powertop.git>com
<https://github.com/fenrus75/powertop.git>/
<https://github.com/fenrus75/powertop.git>fenrus
<https://github.com/fenrus75/powertop.git>75/
<https://github.com/fenrus75/powertop.git>powertop
<https://github.com/fenrus75/powertop.git>.
<https://github.com/fenrus75/powertop.git>git
<https://github.com/fenrus75/powertop.git>_

*

GIT-readonly: git://github.com/fenrus75/powertop.git

*Note:***Wewillnotuseanyoftheintegrate,merge,ortrackingfunctionsofGitHub,sopleasecontinuetousetheprovidedlists.

*Our****thanks*

For this release, we would like to give a special thanks to the
following contributors, and all contributors to PowerTOP. Not in any
particular order:

Sergey Senozhatsky, Márton Németh, Mike Frysinger, John Mathew, Thomas
Spura, Henry Gebhardt, Jaroslav Škarvada, Anssi Hannula, Jan Kaluža,
Kristen Carlson Accardi, Mikel Olasagasti Uranga, Jussi Kukkonen.

*What**’**s****Next*

Movingforward,youcanexpectmoregreatchanges,andmoreinteractivity.Wehaveplans,ideas,andanewlyrestoredvigortowardsPowerTOP.Wewillbeplanningiterativereleases,givingblogupdates,andtalkingcontributions,notonlyincode,butQA,documentation,andfunctionalsuggestions(especiallyifthesubmitteriswillingtoalsocodeonhis/herfunctionalsuggestions).Wedon’thavealotofdedicatedresources,butwenowhavemorethenwe’veeverhadbefore.

Currentv2.1goalsunderconsiderationare:

*

LocalizationoftheUIintoapproximately10to20languages

*

ContinuedimprovementstotheUI,includingresolutionscaling

*

Continued support of emerging Intel Architecture

*

ContinuedsupportofemergingKerneldevelopment

[Chris Ferron]

_______________________________________________
Discuss mailing list
Discuss-***@public.gmane.org
http://lists.lesswatts.org/listinfo/discuss

[Paul Menzel]

Dear PowerTOP folks,

We are pleased to announce the release of PowerTOP v2.0 which
concludes a major overhaul of the code base, and adds exciting new
features.

congrats on the new release!

[
]

* Discussions about PowerTop occur on
* Subscribe to the list
at https://lists.01.org/mailman/listinfo/powertop
* Archives are found at http://lists.01.org/pipermail/powertop

Will the old lists at lesswatts.org and bughost.org be merged with this
one and subscribers migrated automatically?

[
]


Thanks,

Paul


PS: A plain text message with HTML for the announcement would have been
nice.

[Arjan van de Ven]

Post by Paul Menzel

* Discussions about PowerTop occur on
* Subscribe to the list
at https://lists.01.org/mailman/listinfo/powertop
* Archives are found at http://lists.01.org/pipermail/powertop

Will the old lists at lesswatts.org and bughost.org be merged with this
one and subscribers migrated automatically?

we can't migrate automatically (people tend to REALLY hate that)....

Post by Paul Menzel
PS: A plain text message with HTML for the announcement would have been
nice.

yeah we had some last minute issues with the mail formatting ;-(

[Paul Menzel]

Post by Arjan van de Ven

Post by Paul Menzel

* Discussions about PowerTop occur on
* Subscribe to the list
at https://lists.01.org/mailman/listinfo/powertop
* Archives are found at http://lists.01.org/pipermail/powertop

Will the old lists at lesswatts.org and bughost.org be merged with this

So currently there are three lists. Where for two of them messages are
sent to both. Will they be shutdown?

Post by Arjan van de Ven

Post by Paul Menzel
one and subscribers migrated automatically?

we can't migrate automatically (people tend to REALLY hate that)....

They did it for dri-devel.

[
]


Thanks,

Paul

[Chris Ferron]

Post by Paul Menzel

Post by Arjan van de Ven

Post by Paul Menzel

* Discussions about PowerTop occur on
* Subscribe to the list
at https://lists.01.org/mailman/listinfo/powertop
* Archives are found at http://lists.01.org/pipermail/powertop

Will the old lists at lesswatts.org and bughost.org be merged with

this

So currently there are three lists. Where for two of them messages are
sent to both. Will they be shutdown?

Yes, we are going to shut them down, but not right away. I just sent out
an announcement about it. Good news is there will be only one list, and
once site in the end.

-Chris

Post by Paul Menzel

Post by Arjan van de Ven

Post by Paul Menzel
one and subscribers migrated automatically?

we can't migrate automatically (people tend to REALLY hate that)....

They did it for dri-devel.
[…]
Thanks,
Paul
_______________________________________________
Power mailing list
https://bughost.org/mailman/listinfo/power

[Sergey Senozhatsky]

We are pleased to announce the release of PowerTOP v2.0 which concludes a
major overhaul of the code base, and adds exciting new features.

Congratulations everyone! Well done!


Sergey

 

About PowerTOP
 
PowerTOP is a Linux tool to diagnose issues with power consumption and
power management. In addition to being a diagnostic tool, PowerTOP also
has an
interactive mode where you can experiment with various power management
settings for cases where the Linux distribution has not enabled those
settings.
PowerTOP reports which components in the system are most likely to blame
for a higher-than-needed power consumption, ranging from software
applications to active components in the system. Detailed screens are
available for CPU C and P states, device activity, and software activity.
For many years, PowerTOP has been used heavily by Intel, Linux
distributors, and various parts of the open source community. We're hoping
that our users find the second generation even more useful for their
needs.
 
Highlights
 
• Greatly enhanced diagnostic capabilities using the Linux kernel perf
framework
• New tab-based UI which displays more detailed information in real time
• Advanced reporting capabilities for offline analysis including HTML5
and CSV formats.
 
Release Details
 
 1. Keep the integrity of PowerTOP v1.x, but update it to be equally
relevant to its growing user base.
 2. Take the interests from our user base, such as the need and want for
greater reportability, and more tunables information.
 3. Keep PowerTOP moving forward with changes to the Linux kernel, such as
the depreciation of power trace events, like power_frequency starting
in Linux kernel version 3.0.
 4. Make sure PowerTOP was updated with emerging Intel Architecture, such
as the newer Ivy Bridge chipset.
Version 2.0 has several new key features and updates. The first big change
is the use of a hardened library called libparseevents, for accessing the
kernel "perf" infrastructure. With this enhancement, we are able to
provide much more accurate data, and be more flexible with any future
kernel development. There has been a great deal of work done in the area
of CPU data measurement and diagnostics. Full accurate support was added
for CPU idle, frequency, and power traces, along with expanded frequency
state reporting for CPUs with more than 10 states. With these additions,
PowerTOP v2.0 now gives a clearer picture of how programs affect CPU
utilization, and the impact on important power-saving sleep states.
PowerTOP v2.0 also includes other key advances, such as system devices
tracking, which gives you clear information on which devices (if any) are
problematic in terms of power behavior, GPU activity measurements, and VFS
opts activity measurements. This allows PowerTOP v2.0 users a more
complete overview of the system.
 
In addition to the new features, several enhancements have been made in
 
• Increased WLAN support—PowerTOP now supports multiple WLAN interfaces
• Enhanced i915 driver support
• More robust battery data acquisition
• Real time measurement support for USB hot-plug.
 
With all the enhancements and additions, there has also been extensive
work on PowerTOP reports. Reporting has been highlighted time and time
again as a much needed and desired enhancement. To address all the
interactive and noninteractive. This gives you two representations of the
data: static and interactive real-time.
 
In interactive mode, PowerTOP v2.0 is enhanced with a redesigned,
tab-based user interface with full on-demand window refresh support. This
new UI gives you a clean, organized, real-time way to visualize and
• Overview Tab: details the summary information about total CPU and
wakeups per second for the System, GPU, and VFS ops. Within the
summary view, you also see the consumer status for interrupts,
devices, timers, processes, and more.
• Idle stats tab: details the summary information on the various
processor cores, and the status of the processor package.
• Frequency stats tab: details the summary information about the clock
speeds, and the percentage used in said clocks, for each processor
core and package. 
• Device stats tab: details the summary device activity overview,
network device transmission rates, and GPU ops rates.
• Tunables tab: summarizes our best known diagnostic recommendations and
options to apply. This tab is also interactive with the ability of
allowing you to toggle the options while in interactive mode. So in
real time, you can see what affect PowerTOP’s recommendations will
have on power.
 
In the non-interactive mode (aka reporting mode), there has been a major
overhaul in thought and functionality. PowerTOP v2.0 now allows you to
specify not only the duration of each test measurement cycle, but the
number of iterations to measure. Depending on your needs, PowerTOP v2.0
now produces two different report formats: HTML and CSV.
 
• HTML: The HTML report contains all the information seen in the real
time UI, but in a single static report. Additionally, we are happy to
say that PowerTOP’s HTML reports are also in an HTML5 application
format, giving any user with an HTML5-supported browser a clean,
organized tab-based report. As nice as this is for reviewing data,
there is also the ALL tab in the HTML5 application that presents all
the data in one long format for the total picture. This is also the
standard format for HTML reports generated for non-HTML5 browsers. To
close the gap in your wants and needs, PowerTOP v2.0 now reports the
tunable recommendations. Although PowerTOP is not a permanent tuning
tool, PowerTOP indeed has the ability to test the tunable effects of
its suggestions. As such, it was only reasonable that we include these
tunables in the report.
 
• CSV: The CSV report is a single, static, comma-separated,
value-delimited report, giving you ultimate control for data
manipulation for your specific needs, such as trending and analytical
analysis.
 
Project Details
From a project point of view, there has been several changes. PowerTOP
v2.0 has now been autotooled to support and increase portability. There is
also limited Android make support, which was completed and spearheaded by
community members.
We are also excited to announce that the PowerTOP project will have a new
home on 01.org. This will be the single point for releases, blogs, and
information on PowerTOP moving forward. In our move to 01.org, we will
also be moving and consolidating the current email lists. Although this is
a hassle, it is important to consolidate the current website, and the two
mailing lists, used for PowerTOP, to their new home on 01.org.
 
• URL: [1]https://01.org/projects/powertop
• Download: [2]https://01.org/powertop/downloads/2012/powertop-v2.0
 
 
• Discussions about PowerTop occur on
• Subscribe to the list
at [4]https://lists.01.org/mailman/listinfo/powertop
• Archives are found at [5]http://lists.01.org/pipermail/powertop
The development PowerTOP git repositories are hosted at GitHub.
• URL: [6]https://github.com/fenrus75/powertop
• HTTP: [7]https://github.com/fenrus75/powertop.git
• GIT-readonly:[8] git://github.com/fenrus75/powertop.git
    Note: We will not use any of the integrate, merge, or tracking
functions of GitHub, so please continue to use the provided lists.
 
Our thanks
 
For this release, we would like to give a special thanks to the following
contributors, and all contributors to PowerTOP. Not in any particular
Sergey Senozhatsky, Márton Németh, Mike Frysinger, John Mathew, Thomas
Spura, Henry Gebhardt, Jaroslav Škarvada, Anssi Hannula, Jan Kaluža,
Kristen Carlson Accardi, Mikel Olasagasti Uranga, Jussi Kukkonen.
 
What’s Next
 
Moving forward, you can expect more great changes, and more interactivity.
We have plans, ideas, and a newly restored vigor towards PowerTOP. We will
be planning iterative releases, giving blog updates, and talking
contributions, not only in code, but QA, documentation, and functional
suggestions (especially if the submitter is willing to also code on
his/her functional suggestions). We don’t have a lot of dedicated
resources, but we now have more then we’ve ever had before.
 
• Localization of the UI into approximately 10 to 20 languages
• Continued improvements to the UI, including resolution scaling
• Continued support of emerging Intel Architecture
• Continued support of emerging Kernel development
References
Visible links
1. https://01.org/projects/powertop
2. https://01.org/powertop/downloads/2012/powertop-v2.0
4. https://lists.01.org/mailman/listinfo/powertop
5. http://lists.01.org/pipermail/powertop
6. https://github.com/fenrus75/powertop
7. https://github.com/fenrus75/powertop.git
8. http://git//github.com/fenrus75/powertop.git
_______________________________________________
Discuss mailing list
http://lists.lesswatts.org/listinfo/discuss