cpufreq driver got removed by accident....i suppose

[Diabolic Preacher]

i am really really not sure what package's removal or installation has led to this, but since yesterday i saw that when i run vcpufreq the cpufreq driver field says *UNAVAILABLE* which previously used to write powernow-k8. my processor is amd turion x2 64-bit. the driver came with vector linux by default and it had autodetected. also when i right-clicked the kde battery monitor icon in the system tray, i observed that the performance profiles menu (which let me select either of 'conservative', 'powersave', 'ondemand', etc.) also wasn't there.

i had downloaded the linux_frequency_driver package from AMD and it said something about copying the .c and .h file to a certain directory...depending on which architecture the kernel on my system was compiled and having to recompile my kernel. now, i did recompile kernel twice...1st to get the battery monitor to work...n 2nd to ... i think try n get suspend2 to work. n that was like long back...n thruout all this the cpufreq driver was perfectly existing...even when i check the cpufreq directory within the kernel sources directory...they do exist there...but i dunno how suddenly it disappeared. 

can anyone please tell if some other package's removal got it removed...how do i get the cpu frequency scaling back?

[The Headacher]

sounds to me like the powernow-k8 driver wasn't built,
to confirm this try

Code:

modprobe -l | grep powernow

on my computer that gives

Code:

/lib/modules/2.6.20.3/kernel/arch/i386/kernel/cpu/cpufreq/powernow-k8.ko
/lib/modules/2.6.20.3/kernel/arch/i386/kernel/cpu/cpufreq/powernow-k7.ko
/lib/modules/2.6.20.3/kernel/arch/i386/kernel/cpu/cpufreq/powernow-k6.ko

If powernow-k8 isn't there you'll probably have to rebuild the kernel again, or at least the modules.
it's in :
Power management options (ACPI, APM)  --->CPU Frequency scaling  --->         
AMD Opteron/Athlon64 PowerNow!

Build it as a module.

[Diabolic Preacher]

the output i get is : -

Code:

/lib/modules/2.6.20.4/kernel/arch/i386/kernel/cpu/cpufreq/powernow-k8.ko
/lib/modules/2.6.20.4/kernel/arch/i386/kernel/cpu/cpufreq/powernow-k7.ko
/lib/modules/2.6.20.4/kernel/arch/i386/kernel/cpu/cpufreq/powernow-k6.ko

but still no frequency driver. 

[hata_ph]

i am really really not sure what package's removal or installation has led to this, but since yesterday i saw that when i run vcpufreq the cpufreq driver field says *UNAVAILABLE* which previously used to write powernow-k8. my processor is amd turion x2 64-bit. the driver came with vector linux by default and it had autodetected. also when i right-clicked the kde battery monitor icon in the system tray, i observed that the performance profiles menu (which let me select either of 'conservative', 'powersave', 'ondemand', etc.) also wasn't there.

do you mean you can load the correct cpu driver before?

maybe you can try this
http://www.vectorlinux.com/forum2/index.php?topic=1401.0

[Diabolic Preacher]

problem resolved...but for all times??

so i referred to the thread http://www.vectorlinux.com/forum2/index.php?topic=1401.0

and did the following commands

lsmod

this one didn't show up the powernow-k8 module but after ...

modprobe powernow-k8

i typed

lsmod

and it showed up the powernow module as being loaded and now vcpufreq is workin fine...but this manual loading of module was not necessary initially...why this sudden extra work requirement.

[hata_ph]

after you restart your system did the correct cpu modules loaded?

[Joe1962]

All the cpufreq modules are listed in rc.modules so they will attempt to load on boot. Only the correct ones will actually load. If the modules are in fact on your system, then all I can think of is something must have modified that file. If they are not there now, or are commented out, simply make sure they are set to load there.

[Diabolic Preacher]

after i restarted...no cpufreq again...

so then... rc.modules

i grep'd for powernow...nooo mention...null !!

ok so i followed the syntax n added

Code:

/sbin/modprobe powernow-k8

lets see after the reboot

[Diabolic Preacher]

news update: breaking news!!

the frequency driver is loading up on every reboot...and i can control the profiles via vcpufreq...but when using kde the klaptop module takes care of the profile to activate when on battery and when on power and also the battery monitor right-click menu now shows the "Performance Profiles..." menu where you can switch the profile to what is default selected. this menu is only showing 'performance, ondemand and userspace. how do i get 'conservative' and 'powersave' to appear there...i can switch to these two modes using vcpufreq...but that needs the root password which is quite cumbersome.

lastly, how does kde know that vcpufreq requires root privilege and asks for the password, but xfce (that i downloaded from the repos) opens vcpufreq in read-only mode?

thanks for the help provided so far.

[Joe1962]

lastly, how does kde know that vcpufreq requires root privilege and asks for the password, but xfce (that i downloaded from the repos) opens vcpufreq in read-only mode?

I use different .desktop files (the ones that define the menu entries) for KDE and XFCE in all my packages (those that need a menu anyway). KDE has extra parameters you can use in them, so you can do things like:

Code:

X-KDE-SubstituteUID=true
X-KDE-Username=root

Then it's just a matter of using

Code:

OnlyShowIn=KDE;

and:

Code:

NotShowIn=KDE;

To get each .desktop working in the right desktop environment.

[Diabolic Preacher]

solved that issue of gettin all the cpu frequency profiles into klaptop performance profiles menu...

just kept startin up vcpufreq and selecting each time a different profile to switch to...as the profile gets selected, it got added to the menu...

who'd ever think of that?...uh maybe someone who could read thru the source code of either or both of the two or some more..

[Joe1962]

Well, I can read the vcpufreq code, since I wrote it... but I can't help with klaptop.

[Diabolic Preacher]

i noticed it....goin to the jjrweb site...


thank you for vcpufreq!

[Joe1962]

i noticed it....goin to the jjrweb site...

Cool...
Oh, I recently moved vcpufreq development over to Google projects:
http://code.google.com/p/vcpufreq/

thank you for vcpufreq!

You're welcome.

[Diabolic Preacher]

things are still not looking totally alright...and i'm afraid i gotta talk about klaptop as well. so here it goes (comes?)

the previous perfect situation was that klaptop battery monitor used to show up all the possible frequency governor states and i didn't need to use vcpufreq...advantage of klaptop is that it does not need root password...but it depends on some file deep within /sys . i had got to it somehow...and i'll tell you why i feel so.

after i corrected things by adding <code>/sbin/modprobe powernow-k8</code> to /etc/rc.d/rc.modules....it felt like things are right now...but even now doing lsmod doesn't enlist powernow-k8 as loaded, although vcpufreq doesn't complain of a missing cpufreq driver like before...so its strange.

now onto klaptop. even though the policy for 'powered' state is set to 'performance' and 'not powered' state is set to 'conservative'. the klaptop battery menu has only 2 options 'ondemand' and 'userspace'. so now, why just ondemand? i'm not sure, but the only clue that i have is that i observed that there was only a directory for 'ondemand' in the directory for power states and not for any other.

now the daily routine is to open vcpufreq, 4 times and click n select the 4 additional profiles...its no fun having to type the root password so many times. usually when i put my music on n nothin else...the lowest setting of 800mhz per core is perfect.

anyways....was wonderin how to make a non-destructive update to 5.8 soho final without losing the existing customizations...like firefox does a check of which extensions might break....