Which conflicting package should I remove from Cinnamon? tlp or power-profiles-daemon?

Hi I think have the same issue when trying to update my laptop (thinkpad x230t running Manjaro Cinnamon edition)

tlp-1.7.0-1 and power-profiles-daemon-0.23-2 are in conflict 

My desktop pc also runs the same Cinnamon edition but I had no issue updating it. I checked for differences
The desktop has only ‘tlp’ installed, while the laptop has both ‘tlp’ and ‘power-profiles-daemon’ installed?
before I found this post, I was trying to figure out which one to uninstall. As the desktop has only ‘tlp’ I though of uninstalling ‘power-profiles-daemon’ but when I checked in Pamac, It read “Install Reason: Installed as a dependency for another package” I searched the web for the command to see what package depends on it.

pacman -Qi power-profile-daemon 
Required By: None
Optional For: gnome-control-center-x11-scaling gnome-shell 
Conflicts With: None 
Install Reason: Installed as a dependency for another package 

I’m confused - Is it a dependency or not??
Which of the 2 should I uninstall? Thanks

power-profiles-daemon is only an optional, not a required, dependency for gnome-control-center-x11-scaling and gnome-shell, which means you can safely remove it.

However, removal of the optional power-profiles-daemon dependency may cause some features in the two Gnome packages for which it is an optional dependency to no longer be available.

Most commonly I’ve seen mentioned to remove tlp.

I think some explaining has been done in other threads but Ill do it quick and dirty again.

  • TLP is a longtime veteran of power management on linux. It has lots of options and can be used to effectively control power consumption of various devices under various conditions.
  • Power-profiles-daemon is relatively new and doesnt boast much in way of configuration. Its essentially just a slider for low or high powered state (depending on hardware you may have 2, or possibly 3 states to choose from) and some minor automation in switching those states, mostly just on whether plugged or unplugged. It also has integration with some Desktop Environments such as KDE.

What does this all mean?
Well, my hot take is that TLP is much more configurable, with more utility, than power-profiles-daemon. But at the same time … most people may find it intimidating, hard to use, or simply unnecessary.
So if you dont know anything about the subject and/or dont intend to get your hands dirty, and you use a desktop that supports it, then you may want to go for power-profiles-daemon.
If you fancy better control, better ‘gains’, and dont mind more ‘advanced’ work then TLP is the better choice.
For now anyways.

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Not sure if that makes a difference, but for the sake of clarity, I’m using the edition with the ‘Cinnamon’ DE (there used to be a Cinnamon category, but that’s long gone)
Before I proceed with uninstalling TLP or Power-profiles-daemon I was trying to figure out which of those 2 apps (if any) are used for the build in gui app? (System Settings/Power Management)
The options in that app are (separate settings for ‘On A/C’ and ‘On Battery’):

  • Turn off the screen when inactive for - Time in minutes = 15 minutes
  • Suspend when inactive for - Time in minutes = Never
  • When the lid is closed - = Suspend
    and other options like Hibernate, Hybrid Sleep, various brightness settings, etc…
    Those are the only options I use to manage the power, so maybe I can remove both apps if neither are used by the build-in power management?

A google search trying to identify the package name, gave me the commands:

pacman -Qo path/to/application (don't know path nor application name)
pacman -Ss give a very long list of apps - need to find a way to narrow the search 

Once I have the app name, I can check for dependencies

pacman -Qi package-name

Then to uninstall

pacman -R package-name  

There is also the ‘c’ ‘n’ and ‘s’ flag I read about them but I’m not sure I need any of them and I’m not sure I fully understand their effect.

Neither.
If you uninstall both you will still have Power-Suspend-etc.
They are for optimizing power consumption by setting limits on your CPU and so forth.
In the case of PPD its about as simple as ‘High Performance’ vs ‘Power Saving’.
These tools are just for that … they are not intrinsically part of your desktop, and are not the controllers of your various lid or suspend or power functions.

Maybe you mean something like pacman -Qs power.

The long-and-short of it is … dont use the c flag at all, and especially not in combination with s, but really just not at all ever.
To remove a package we use

sudo pacman -Rns $package

Where

  • R is remove
  • n is no save files, this will remove pacsave files associated with the package
  • s is recursive, meaning also remove any dependencies not required by another package

As usual you can get the best info from man

man pacman

Thanks for your help and explanation. I decided to keep ‘TLP’ (even though I don’t use it) and remove ‘Power-profiles-daemon’ using ‘Pacman’ While I was at it, I also removed apps that I do not need/use. One of the apps I removed was the file manager ‘Nautilus’ as I use ‘Nemo’, I don’t need a second file manager.
I then run the gui based ‘pamac’ to update/upgrade the system - it all went well, I was however surprised that ‘Nautilus’ had been re-installed by pamac?? It’s not installed on my desktop pc, so it’s not essential

Maybe Nautilus was installed as a required dependency of another package? Try running the command:

pamac info nautilus

The output will have a “Required By:” section listing installed packages that Nautilus is a required dependency of.

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Also to mention

/var/log/pacman.log

Which can be reviewed for previous transactions and/or why they occurred, etc.

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