RvKernel Manager (GTK)

Take full control of your system's kernel on the Linux desktop. Tune performance, battery life, and more.

RvKernel Manager is a native GTK 4 application written in C. It is the desktop port of RvKernel-Manager, the Android kernel manager, bringing the same idea to regular Linux systems: a clean interface to tweak and monitor a wide range of kernel parameters.

• Dashboard: live CPU usage per core, memory/ZRAM/swap pressure, uptime, distro, kernel version and hardware summary.
• CPU: per-cluster cpufreq control: governor selection, min/max frequency limits, energy performance preference (EPP), live frequencies.
• GPU: DRM driver detection plus generic devfreq control (governor, min/max frequency) for supported GPUs.
• Battery: capacity, status, voltage, temperature, power draw, health, cycle count and charge-threshold control where the kernel supports it.
• Memory: vm tunables (swappiness, vfs_cache_pressure, dirty_ratio, dirty_background_ratio), ZRAM size/algorithm/usage and TCP congestion-control selection.
• About: version info, license and links.

• Linux with GTK 4 (>= 4.10 recommended)
• gtk4-devel / libgtk-4-dev build packages
• Root privileges are required to launch: the app talks directly to sysfs/procfs. Started as a regular user it re-execs itself through polkit's pkexec (an authentication prompt appears) and exits with an error if pkexec is not installed. Running it via sudo works too.

make            # builds bin/rvkernel-manager
make run        # build (if needed) and launch
./bin/rvkernel-manager

Install system-wide:

sudo make install PREFIX=/usr/local

Build-time options live in Kconfig with their defaults; configs/config holds the chosen values. .config is generated by merging the two, and a missing or stale .config is regenerated automatically at build time. Never hand-edit .config. Use a config target or edit configs/config and let it regenerate.

make config      # line-oriented config dialog (Kconfig)
make menuconfig  # menu-driven TUI (needs `dialog`)
make mrproper    # clean build artifacts and .config

The full set of options:

Enable diagnostic logging in .config:

CONFIG_DEBUG=y

With CONFIG_DEBUG=y every compile gets -DCONFIG_DEBUG and the app emits timestamped messages on stderr: startup and privilege handling, sysfs/procfs access, page construction, refresh ticks and each applied setting. Set it to n (or remove it) for a silent binary; all logging is compiled out. Changing .config triggers a full rebuild.

The compiler is chosen with CONFIG_CC_CLANG/CONFIG_CC_GCC, and clang builds can enable LTO (CONFIG_LTO, thin or full). An explicit CC= on the command line or in the environment overrides the compiler choice.

src/
├── main.c               entry point, pkexec self-elevation
├── application.[ch]     GtkApplication bootstrap + actions
├── ui/                  presentation layer
│   ├── window.[ch]      main window, header bar, toasts, refresh timer
│   ├── sidebar.[ch]     navigation list bound to the page stack
│   ├── theme/style.[ch] application CSS (light + dark palettes)
│   ├── components/
│   │   ├── widgets.[ch] reusable card/row/dropdown builders
│   │   └── circular_progress_indicator.[ch]
│   │                    animated usage rings on the dashboard
│   └── pages/
│       ├── pages.[ch]   page refresh plumbing
│       ├── page_dashboard.c  dashboard page
│       ├── page_cpu.c        cpufreq controls
│       ├── page_gpu.c        DRM/devfreq controls
│       ├── page_battery.c    battery monitoring + charge limit
│       ├── page_memory.c     vm tunables / zram / tcp cc
│       └── page_about.c      about page
├── core/                business logic (no UI types)
│   ├── system_info.[ch] host/kernel/memory snapshots, cpu usage sampler
│   ├── cpu.[ch]         cpufreq policy discovery + setters
│   ├── gpu.[ch]         drm cards + devfreq devices
│   ├── battery.[ch]     power_supply parsing + charge control
│   └── memory.[ch]      vm sysctls, zram, tcp congestion control
└── util/
    ├── sysfs.[ch]       sysfs/procfs read/write helpers
    ├── log.[ch]         diagnostic logging (CONFIG_DEBUG)
    └── format.[ch]      string tokenizing + human formatting