The AMD Platform Management Framework “PMF” Linux driver is being extended to enable better integration with user-space tooling. AMD SystemDeck is the initial beneficiary of the integration improvements to this AMD platform Linux driver.
The patches posted last week for the AMD PMF driver introduce a user-space interface to enhance the integration with user-space tooling. AMD SystemDeck is the initial user in mind.
AMD SystemDeck is a private software tool from the company covered by non-disclosure agreement (NDA) for power management monitoring and tuning on Windows and Linux. Unfortunately, it’s not publicly available but allows for advanced system tuning and power management. But at least with this user-space interface being prepared for the PMF Linux driver, hopefully this will lead to other integration elsewhere for Linux… (Or ideally if AMD SystemDeck would be made publicly in available.) In fact, it should be rather expected for this /dev/amdpmf_interface support to reach the mainline Linux kernel. Typically Linux / Linus Torvalds requires a open-source user-space implementation to exercise the various interfaces exposed by the kernel. With the initial patches, there is documentation concerning this AMD PMF interface but no test script or acknowledgement of a open-source user.
The AMD PMF interface offers ioctl support around the power slider functionality, AMD Smart PC Solutions Builder / policy builder functionality, and other features.
The patches sum up the work as:
“This series introduces a util layer to the AMD Platform Management Framework (PMF) and a minimal user-space interface via a misc character device, enabling feature discovery and smoother integration with user-space tools. It also adds caching of BIOS output policy values to prepare for user-space telemetry reporting via IOCTLs.
The motivation is to provide a stable interface for user-space tools to discover PMF features and consume selected metrics. Enable smoother integration with AMD SystemDeck, a widely used tool for monitoring and controlling power and thermal behavior, helping designers keep components within thermal limits to ensure proper operation and improve system stability and reliability.”
In any event even if this /dev/amdpmf_interface interface doesn’t end up being directly beneficial to end-users due to lack of AMD SystemBuilder like software, hopefully this addition will prove useful to OEMs/ODMs for better power management tuning/profiling on Linux.
