I am planning to switch completely to Slackware,
one of the last things left is the CPU frequency scaling.
I have a AVERATEC laptop, Sempron 2600+.
When I install SUSE 9.2/10.0,I get automatically an icon(battery or plug), clicking on it I change my powersave options, CPU freq. options etc.
There is this YAST power management module, too.

In Slackware I compiled and installed 2.6.17.1 kernel, and first I didn't even get /proc/acpi/thermal_zone directory, and KDE control center told:
"partial ACPI installation".

Ok, as I found out in the LQ forums, one has to build ACPI features in the kernel, ( I had them as modules on Suse, and it worked fine)
Ok, I recompiled kernel with ACPI built in, now I have ACPI installed.

But there is no CPU freq. scaling.

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor -doesn't exist
/proc/cpufreq -doesn't exist
/etc/cpufreqd.conf -doesn't exist

Question: what about cpu freuqency control daemons?
Are there no such daemons/scripts in the default SLackware 10.2 install?
And if there are some, how will I enable them?

Another question
I see that there are several utilities for CPU scaling: like cpufreqd, cpuspeedy, cpudyn etc. And what about powersave utilites -do they include CPU scaling functions?
In other words: if I have to get something, which is not in the custom install, which program will deal with ALL powersave features(including scaling)?

I use different notebooks with default Slackware kernel (2.6.16.22 actual) and with full ACPI support and cpu scaling.

I usually make an initrd.gz with ACPI kernel modules and install a little program "cpuspeed" which does the rest.

In /boot I write as root in a terminal:

mkinitrd -c -k 2.6.16.22 -m ac:button:battery:fan:processor:thermal:video

and add a line to my /etc/lilo.conf after the line image= ....

initrd = /boot/initrd.gz

and rerun

lilo -v

and reboot.

Then I load the needed modules for cpu frequence scaling, I think in your case

/sbin/modprobe powernow-k7

and start

/sbin/cpuspeed -d.

The last two commands I have in my /etc/rc.d/rc.local, so that they start by default.

I was successful with this method on all notebooks (Compaq EvoN600c, EvoN400c, Armada M700, Amilo, Medion MD-Series, Toshiba Libretto).

The program "cpuspeed" you find with google. It works much better than "cpufreqd" and you don't need an configuration file. "Userspace" (Slackware default cpu scaling) is enough and your CPU works great. Just install it and it will be fine ...


Fluxx.

Thanks, Fluxx!
I'll check cpuspeed program (going to compile and installl today)
But concerning initrd - i think it is only extra work, it is much "easier" just to compile acpi modules in the kernel, and then you don't have to specify initrd in lilo/grub -one line less!

Time needed to create an initrd.gz and change and reinstall LiLO/GRUB: 30 seconds.

Time to compile a new kernel: 20 minutes upwards.

... and for an initrd.gz you do NOT need kernelsources and need no time to upgrade kernelsources with every new kernel.

Just my thoughts ...

Fluxx.