Tray application enabling the user to switch between Hybrid and discrete graphics mode.
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pongsn bbfc1f165b Initial release: GPU mode tray app for Lenovo Legion
PyQt6 system tray app for switching between Hybrid and NVIDIA-only
GPU modes via lenovolegionlinux (legion_cli). Includes polkit policy
for passwordless switching, KDE autostart entry, and install script.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-06-29 02:23:11 -05:00
.gitignore Initial release: GPU mode tray app for Lenovo Legion 2026-06-29 02:23:11 -05:00
com.lenovolegion.gpumodetray.policy Initial release: GPU mode tray app for Lenovo Legion 2026-06-29 02:23:11 -05:00
gpu-mode-tray.desktop Initial release: GPU mode tray app for Lenovo Legion 2026-06-29 02:23:11 -05:00
install.sh Initial release: GPU mode tray app for Lenovo Legion 2026-06-29 02:23:11 -05:00
main.py Initial release: GPU mode tray app for Lenovo Legion 2026-06-29 02:23:11 -05:00
README.md Initial release: GPU mode tray app for Lenovo Legion 2026-06-29 02:23:11 -05:00

gpu-mode-tray

A lightweight KDE system tray application for switching GPU modes on Lenovo Legion laptops running the lenovolegionlinux driver.

Features

  • Shows current GPU mode in the system tray (chip icon: red/green split for Hybrid, solid green for NVIDIA only)
  • Switch between Hybrid (AMD iGPU drives internal display, NVIDIA exposes HDMI) and NVIDIA only (dGPU drives everything) with one click
  • No password prompt for the active desktop session (polkit allow_active: yes)
  • Tracks pending mode switches before reboot — shows an orange badge on the icon and allows cancelling the switch
  • Triggers a reboot prompt after switching; also offers "Reboot now" from the tray menu
  • Installs itself as a KDE autostart entry

Compatibility

Component Requirement
Hardware Lenovo Legion laptop with MUX switch support via lenovolegionlinux
Init system systemd (for systemctl reboot)
Desktop Any DE with system tray support (KDE, XFCE, …). GNOME on Wayland requires the AppIndicator extension
Autostart XDG-compliant DEs (~/.config/autostart/)

Not Arch or KDE specific — works on any systemd-based distro (Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE, Debian, etc.) as long as the lenovolegionlinux driver is installed.

Tested on

  • Lenovo Legion 5 Pro Gen 7 (BIOS JUCN66WW)
  • AMD Radeon 680M (iGPU) + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti Laptop GPU
  • KDE Plasma 6.6 on Wayland, kernel 6.18, Manjaro Linux

Note: This machine requires force=1 for the legion_laptop module and the --donotexpecthwmon flag for legion_cli. Other Legion models with full hwmon support may work without these workarounds — the commands would need adjusting in main.py and the sudoers/polkit config.

Dependencies

  • Python 3.8+
  • PyQt6
    • Arch/Manjaro: sudo pacman -S python-pyqt6
    • Ubuntu/Debian: sudo apt install python3-pyqt6
    • Fedora: sudo dnf install python3-qt6
    • Or via pip: pip install pyqt6
  • lenovolegionlinux driver (legion_cli must be in $PATH)
  • polkit (pkexec)

Installation

git clone https://github.com/pongsn/gpu-mode-tray.git
cd gpu-mode-tray
sudo bash install.sh

install.sh will:

  1. Install the polkit policy to /usr/share/polkit-1/actions/ (enables passwordless switching for the active session)
  2. Install the app to /usr/local/bin/gpu-mode-tray
  3. Install the autostart entry to ~/.config/autostart/ (starts on next login)

Usage

gpu-mode-tray &

Right-click the tray icon to switch GPU mode. A reboot is required for any mode change to take effect — this is a hardware MUX limitation, same as on Windows.