TuneD is a system tuning service for Linux
7 comments
·August 25, 2025shirro
tanelpoder
I haven't tested Intel's efficiency cores (E-cores) myself - would these address the need for desktops/laptops?
catherd
What I'd like is a tool that can be run on a fresh linux install to show what's not working correctly and maybe some diagnostics. Does that exist?
Things like suspend to RAM/disk working, GPU performance is reasonable, WiFi and disk speeds aren't slower than expected.
jauntywundrkind
I saw really big power savings when I started using TuneD. Such a huge upgrade for Linux users! From 8 months ago, going from 120 -> 85W. More recently got my desktop down to 65, yay. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42636350
There's also API compatibility with the power-profiles-daemon, which didn't ever help me that much (I'd also done some basic tuning myself), and which has been unmaintained for a while now. But there's still a variety of utilities which target the old ppd.
chucky_z
I've used `tuned` a lot. It's really extremely good for personal machines/workstations, and really okay for servers. In my case I'm almost 50/50 with it in professional cases, where 50% of the time I had a real good time with it, and 50% of the time I turned it off and used startup scripts (like cloud-init per-boot and whatnot).
Overall, I'd say give it a shot as it can be really powerful and I do actually like it. Don't be afraid to go 'no, I know how to do this better, myself' and turn it off though.
bcrl
I disable it whenever setting up a new system. It gets irq bindings for networking wrong every single time, and moves irqs around in ways that defeats the whole point of having per CPU queues. Not sure why that behaviour is enabled by default as it makes no sense.
sudopluto
one hot tip is that tuned has a translation tool for power-profiles-daemon, meaning you can change the profile via gnome / kde
There is something a bit wacky about a performance service implemented in an interpreted language like Python whether it is tuned or auto-cpufreq. Tuned does seem to be as good as it gets for the moment.
x86 cpus don't have the power efficiency to do the work we now expect of them in thin and light laptops with difficult thermal constraints. You can push them one way or another. You can have them fast with a fan like a jet engine or you can have them cold and running like a 10 year old computer or put the dial somewhere inbetween but there is only so much you can do.