Linux Mint Cinnamon Applet for CPU Throttling

Linux Mint Cinnamon Applet for quick and easy cpu throttling @ Github

CPU Throttle Applet for Cinnamon

Apply 8 (by default, you can modify that) different levels of CPU throttling to your system with 3 clicks in the bar.

Applet at work

Why?

I know there are other solutions around. But the one with the most levels still only provided 3 options. Since my laptop runs rather hot I want to set the optimal frequency based on what I'm doing. The laptop placed on my legs shouldn't boil me.

Prerequisites

You need a system running cinnamon desktop environment (I use Mint)
You need to have cpufrequtils installed
You need to have bc installed
You user needs to have the right to use sudo
You need to setup sudo so that cpufreq-set without password prompt.
To do so use visudo and add the following line ALL ALL=NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/cpufreq-set

Principle

Each CPU announces its max and min frequency. The script included executes cpufreq-info to gather this information as well as the number of cores the CPU provides.

The range between min and max frequency is then divided by 8 (or whatever value you define in the applet settings) which gives the stepwidth between the different CPU Throttling levels. All frequencies but min and max are rounded.

This data is made available to the applet, which displays these different levels as options in a drop down menu. If an option is selected, the new frequency is applied using cpufreq-set.

Shortly afterwards, the frequency display of the applet is updated to the current value.

Installation

Download the release zip (each push creates a new one automatically) and extract the contents into your ~/.local/share/cinnamon/applets/ directory

Settings

This applet has 2 settings:

1) Number of throttling steps. Not-throttled (0)......... X = Min CPU frequency

2) Default throttling step to set after the appled is launched (normally at reboot for example)