Subject: Bug#1078669: powertop: incorrect needs the kernel to support the 'perf' message

From: Russell Coker <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2024 14:24:15 +1000

Package: powertop
Version: 2.15-3
Severity: normal

PowerTOP 2.15 needs the kernel to support the 'perf' subsystem
as well as support for trace points in the kernel:
CONFIG_PERF_EVENTS=y
CONFIG_PERF_COUNTERS=y
CONFIG_TRACEPOINTS=y
CONFIG_TRACING=y

I run powertop as root with kernel 6.10.3-amd64 and get the above messages.

root@cupcakke:/boot# grep CONFIG_PERF_COUNTERS /boot/config-6.10.3-amd64 
root@cupcakke:/boot# 

But the kernel doesn't seem to have such an option.  At a minimum the error
message needs to be updated to match whatever kernel feature is missing and
possibly have multiple combinations offered for different kernel versions.

Also we need a bug filed against the Debian/Unstable kernels to get whatever
support is needed to run powertop.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: trixie/sid
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 6.10.3-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU threads; PREEMPT)
Locale: LANG=en_AU.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_AU.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=en_AU:en
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
Init: unable to detect

Versions of packages powertop depends on:
ii  libc6             2.39-6
ii  libgcc-s1         14.2.0-2
ii  libncursesw6      6.5-2
ii  libnl-3-200       3.7.0-0.3
ii  libnl-genl-3-200  3.7.0-0.3
ii  libpci3           1:3.13.0-1
ii  libstdc++6        14.2.0-2
ii  libtinfo6         6.5-2

powertop recommends no packages.

Versions of packages powertop suggests:
pn  cpufrequtils       <none>
pn  laptop-mode-tools  <none>

-- debconf-show failed