Make your CPU Performance!

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Make your CPU Performance!
Photo by NEOM / Unsplash

In Linux, including real-time (RT) kernels, you can achieve similar optimizations to prevent automatic frequency scaling by modifying the CPU frequency scaling governor. The scaling governor determines how the CPU adjusts its frequency in response to system load. Here's how to set the CPU frequency scaling governor to the "performance" mode:

  1. Check available governors:

First, check the available governors on your system by running the following command:

cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_available_governors

This command will display a list of available governors, such as "performance," "powersave," "ondemand," "conservative," etc.

  1. Set the scaling governor to "performance":

To set the scaling governor to "performance" for all CPUs, run the following command:

echo performance | sudo tee /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/scaling_governor

This command writes the "performance" governor setting to each CPU's scaling governor configuration in /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/scaling_governor.

  1. Verify the change:

To verify that the scaling governor has been set to "performance" for all CPUs, run the following command:

cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/scaling_governor

If the change was successful, you should see "performance" listed for each CPU.

  1. Make the change persistent:

The above change will be lost after a system reboot. To make the change persistent across reboots, you can create a systemd service that runs the command during system startup. Create a new file /etc/systemd/system/cpu-scaling-governor.service with the following content:

[Unit]
Description=Set CPU Scaling Governor to Performance

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/bin/bash -c 'sleep 5; for gov in /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/scaling_governor; do echo performance > $gov; done'

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Enable and start the systemd service by running:

sudo systemctl enable cpu-scaling-governor.service
sudo systemctl start cpu-scaling-governor.service

Now the CPU scaling governor setting will persist across system reboots.

Remember that these optimizations are for general purpose use and might not be suitable for all situations. You should test and verify the stability of your system after making these changes, especially if you're using the RT kernel for critical applications.