powertop2tuned

Convert PowerTOP suggestions into a TuneD profile

TLDR

Generate a new profile from the current PowerTOP report

$ sudo powertop2tuned [my_powersave]

Generate a profile from an existing PowerTOP HTML report

$ sudo powertop2tuned -i [/path/to/powertop.html] [my_powersave]

Output the profile into a custom directory

$ sudo powertop2tuned -o [/etc/tuned/my_profile] [my_powersave]

Create a fresh profile instead of merging with the active one

$ sudo powertop2tuned -n [my_powersave]

Merge PowerTOP recommendations with a specific TuneD profile

$ sudo powertop2tuned -m [balanced] [my_powersave]

Enable all PowerTOP tunings (skips the safety opt-in)

$ sudo powertop2tuned -e [my_powersave]

Force-overwrite an existing profile directory

$ sudo powertop2tuned -f [my_powersave]

SYNOPSIS

powertop2tuned [options] profilename_

powertop2tuned turns the recommendations produced by PowerTOP into a runnable TuneD profile, bridging the two tools so that the savings PowerTOP discovers can be applied permanently and rolled back like any other TuneD profile.The utility runs PowerTOP under the hood (or reads an existing HTML report supplied with -i), parses each "Tunable" entry, and emits a profile directory containing a tuned.conf file plus a helper shell script. By default the resulting profile inherits from the currently-active TuneD profile so that base optimisations are preserved; --new-profile creates a stand-alone profile and --merge-profile lets you pick a different parent.For safety, every PowerTOP recommendation is initially commented out in the generated profile. The administrator is expected to review and uncomment only the lines that are appropriate for the target hardware. The --enable flag opts in to enabling all of them, except for ones that the script considers unsafe.The generated profile is activated like any other TuneD profile with tuned-adm profile profilename_.

PARAMETERS

-i FILE, --input FILE

Use FILE as PowerTOP HTML report instead of generating a new one.

-o DIR, --output DIR

Write the generated profile to DIR (default: TuneD's user profile directory).

-n, --new-profile

Create a brand-new profile rather than merging with the active TuneD profile.

-m PROFILE, --merge-profile PROFILE

Merge with the named PROFILE instead of the currently active one.

-f, --force

Overwrite the output directory if it already exists.

-e, --enable

Enable every tuning that PowerTOP suggests. Tunings considered harmful (like USB_AUTOSUSPEND) remain disabled.

-h, --help

Show usage and exit.

CONFIGURATION

Profiles are written to /etc/tuned/profilename**/tuned.conf** along with a script.sh helper. Activate with **tuned-adm profile** profilename; switch back with tuned-adm profile balanced (or any other profile). The active profile survives reboots once the tuned.service systemd unit is enabled.

CAVEATS

PowerTOP's "Bad" tunings can break devices: ALPM and SATA link power management may corrupt some SSDs, USB autosuspend disconnects keyboards/webcams, and Wi-Fi power saving causes connection drops on certain chips. Always test on a non-critical machine and review the generated tuned.conf before activating. Requires root to run PowerTOP and write to /etc/tuned/. Part of the tuned-utils package, separate from the core tuned package on most distributions.

HISTORY

powertop2tuned ships as part of the Red Hat TuneD project, originally introduced to give Fedora and RHEL users a single-step way to commit PowerTOP findings into the TuneD framework. It is distributed via the tuned-utils package on Fedora, RHEL, CentOS, openSUSE and Arch.