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1 CPU Frequency scaling
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2
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3 CPU Frequency scaling allows you to change the clock speed of CPUs on the fly.
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4 This is a nice method to save power, because the lower the CPU clock speed, the
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5 less power the CPU consumes.
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6
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7 Note that this driver doesn't automatically change the CPU clock speed, you
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8 need to either enable a dynamic cpufreq governor (see below) after boot, or use
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9 a userspace tool.
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10
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11 * 'performance' governor
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12 This cpufreq governor sets the frequency statically to the highest
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13 available CPU frequency.
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14 * 'powersave' governor
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15 This cpufreq governor sets the frequency statically to the lowest available
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16 CPU frequency.
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17 * 'userspace' governor for userspace frequency scaling
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18 Enable this cpufreq governor when you either want to set the CPU frequency
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19 manually or when a userspace program shall be able to set the CPU
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20 dynamically, like on LART <http://www.lartmaker.nl/>.
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21 * 'ondemand' cpufreq policy governor
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22 'ondemand' - This driver adds a dynamic cpufreq policy governor. The
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23 governor does a periodic polling and changes frequency based on the CPU
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24 utilization. The support for this governor depends on CPU capability to do
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25 fast frequency switching (i.e, very low latency frequency transitions).
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26 * 'conservative' cpufreq governor
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27 'conservative' - this driver is rather similar to the 'ondemand' governor
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28 both in its source code and its purpose, the difference is its optimisation
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29 for better suitability in a battery powered environment. The frequency is
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30 gracefully increased and decreased rather than jumping to 100% when speed
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31 is required.
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32 If you have a desktop machine then you should really be considering the
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33 'ondemand' governor instead, however if you are using a laptop, PDA or even
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34 an AMD64 based computer (due to the unacceptable step-by-step latency
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35 issues between the minimum and maximum frequency transitions in the CPU)
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36 you will probably want to use this governor.
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37 * 'schedutil' cpufreq policy governor
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38 This governor makes decisions based on the utilization data provided by the
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39 scheduler. It sets the CPU frequency to be proportional to the
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40 utilization/capacity ratio coming from the scheduler. If the utilization is
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41 frequency-invariant, the new frequency is also proportional to the maximum
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42 available frequency. If that is not the case, it is proportional to the
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43 current frequency of the CPU. The frequency tipping point is at
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44 utilization/capacity equal to 80% in both cases.
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