cpu-scaling setup initscript should be moved to new package

For what I understand, powernowd is used if you need to implement a flexible policy system (for instance using the performance governor unless when running on batteries, when one could switch to the ondemand governor).
If such a flexible system is not needed, indeed powernowd is not needed and one could stick to a fixed governor.

Why would this be a bug!?

I don't understand why /etc/init.d/powernowd* scripts are used to set the default scaling governor at boot time, I think this is not strictly powernowd-related and should be moved into a separate package (with a /etc/default/scaling_governor). the point of this package should be just starting the daemon, not configuring the system. Moreover, you cannot easily change the default scaling governor since it looks hardcoded into /etc/init.d/powernowd.
Since this setting cannot be achieved with sysctl.conf (it has to be done per-cpu possibly in multiple cpus (and you can't do globbing in sysctl.conf - at least from the docs)) I thought putting the governor setting in a separate package could be a cleaner approch, what do you think?

Yup totally agree. And the name 'powernow' gets confused with AMD's scaling technology.

Moving this to a new package called something like 'cpufreq-scaling' and having a new '/etc/default/' configuration file with proper relevant options needs to be done.

It's too late for Feisty, but perhaps we can peg it for the next release after that.

It is certainly not up to me to define what policies the distribution should follow.
Personally, I think that it makes sense (from the desktop to the masses perspective) to have it like it is in debian/ubuntu.
Nothing forbids any user to delete or modify any of his/her boot scripts or add any other he/she wishes.
If you believe that these modifications may be helpful for the community at large, of course feel free to share your work.
Submitting a bug report may however not be the best channel. There are forums and mailing list where you could discuss this with a much larger and more specialised audience. For these and other possibilities please have a look at http://www.ubuntu.com/community/participate.
Hope this helps.

Cesare, why do you see this as a distribution policy issue? I see this as a simple modification (split the powernowd pkg and add a /etc/default file). Of course nothing forbids the user to modify its boot script, but... you really think this is a clean approach? And - what such a silly modification has to do with the desktop to the masses perspective?

Giuseppe,

for what I understand (and this is my own personal understanding) ubuntu is a debian derived distribution. They try to have as much as common with Debian. What you propose is indeed a deviation from this policy.
And every modification, no matter how silly and trivial, is going to introduce possible bugs and errors (and having two scripts which are doing what one is doing is slightly more complex). The americans say: if it ain't broken, don't fix it.
This is why I would have wanted you to talk about it with the right people. Paul is one of the right people, and he is happy with this. So am I :)

But don't mind me, I'm just an old grunter ;)

Hi,

I agree with Cesare, for various reasons. First, it seems completely unreasonable to use the init script to do something else than starting the daemon. Secondly, if we are to belive [1] (and to this day I have yet to find any compelling argument against these good practices), the only sane default when frequency scaling is availble is ondemand.

Having the setting set up at boot time as part of a system-wide configuration script makes more sense (akin to sysctl.cnf). This would save memory, a tiny bit of boot time (fast boot is one of the goal of Jaunty) and reduce the crowd of daemon idling on one's system. Ultimately, if someone, for any reasons need to have the behaviour :
performances on AC / powersave on Batteries or any other kind of custom behaviour, then he should install powernowd or cpufreqd or whatever himself and tailor it to his need. This is certainly not the case of 90% of laptop users.

[1] : http://www.codon.org.uk/~mjg59/power/good_practices.html

The powernowd package is obsolete, please do not use it. CPU frequency scaling is now handled by the kernel, so if you still have issues on a modern release, file a bug against the linux package.

This is not an appropriate way to declare a package "obsolete". If you think a package should not be used, file a bug to get it removed from the archive and *then* invalidate the bugs.

This package is obsolete and has been removed from the archive. Closing associated bugs.