macbook: fan control, thermald, earlyoom; cheaper compositor

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

hosts/FredOS-Macbook.nix

@@ -29,6 +29,19 @@
 
     services.tlp.enable = false;
     services.power-profiles-daemon.enable = true;
+
+    # Linux leaves the Apple SMC fans at their minimum RPM — nothing in-tree
+    # ramps them. The CPU therefore sits at its thermal limit under any real
+    # load and throttles instead of spinning up. mbpfan drives applesmc.
+    services.mbpfan.enable = true;
+
+    # Haswell's own thermal management: throttle gradually via RAPL/P-states
+    # instead of waiting for the hardware's PROCHOT emergency brake.
+    services.thermald.enable = true;
+
+    # Zen eats the 8GB before zram can save it; without this the box hard-locks
+    # swapping instead of killing the tab that did it.
+    services.earlyoom.enable = true;
     # Quickshell's battery widget reads org.freedesktop.UPower over DBus
     services.upower.enable = true;
 

settings/hyprland.nix

@@ -125,7 +125,10 @@ in
               blur = {
                 enabled = true;
                 size = 1;
-                passes = 3;
+                # 3 passes is 3 full-screen shader round-trips per frame. Free
+                # on Navi 22, not on the Macbook's gen7.5 iGPU driving a 2x
+                # scaled panel.
+                passes = if isMacbook then 1 else 3;
               };
               shadow.color = rgba c.base00 "99";
             };
@@ -195,7 +198,12 @@ in
 
             # vfr moved from misc: to debug: in 0.55.0
             debug = {
-              vfr = false; # keep compositor ticking, don't idle between frames
+              # vfr=false renders every refresh forever, idle or not. That was
+              # the pre-patch workaround for cursor lag; the aquamarine
+              # legacy-cursor patch now moves the cursor by ioctl, so the
+              # Macbook can idle its GPU between frames again. Gaming box keeps
+              # the constant tick (games/present timing).
+              vfr = isMacbook;
               disable_logs = false;
             };
           };